How glossaries work in Lara

Lara’s glossary system lets you define exactly how specific terms should be translated, across any text or document. Whether you work with technical terms, product names, or recurring brand phrases, glossaries are your best tool to ensure consistency and precision.

If you’re on the Pro plan, you can create one glossary directly from the UI. Team plan users can create and manage unlimited glossaries, and even share them with teammates for collaborative use. All glossary entries are stored securely and can be used during translations to override general AI behavior, so your preferred terms are always prioritized.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Open Lara and go to the Glossaries section from the main dashboard. There, you’ll see a list of all your available glossaries. 

   Note: With a Team subscription, only team owners can add and delete glossaries. All team members can activate glossaries when translating content. 

2. Click on the Add glossary button. A dialog will open where you can enter the name of your new glossary and upload a CSV file. You can either drag and drop the file into the area or click to browse and select it manually.

3. Before uploading, you can also download a template to help you format your CSV file correctly. Click on the "Download template" link to get a zipped folder that includes:

   • A sample .csv file in the correct format (with source and target language columns).

   • A .txt instruction file that explains how to compile it step by step.

4. Your CSV file must follow the Lara Glossary Format:

   • The first row should contain language codes like en, it, fr, etc. Please check supported ISO language codes here.

   • The first column is always the source language.

   • Each subsequent column represents a target language.

   • Each row after that should include at least one source term and one target term.

5. Once uploaded, your glossary will be added to your list. From this dropdown list, you can activate or deactivate any glossary with a simple selection. Active glossaries will automatically be applied during both text and document translations.

6. You can export your glossary at any time in CSV format. Just click the download icon next to the glossary name. The file will follow the same structure used during import.

7. When a glossary is active, Lara ensures your custom terms are respected. These terms take precedence over general AI translations, and Lara smartly adapts them based on context, handling things like plural forms, idiomatic expressions, verb tenses, and even gender differences.

Glossary behavior

Lara's glossary is unidirectional and case insensitive. This means that glossary entries will only apply from the source language to the specified target language, and not the other way around—even if the same language pair is reversed in another translation task. For example, a glossary entry from English to French will not be applied when translating from French to English.
Additionally, the glossary matches terms regardless of capitalization, so entries like “Cloud” and “cloud” will be treated as the same. This helps ensure your preferred terminology is applied consistently across different writing styles and formatting choices.

This article is about:

• Creating and uploading glossaries

• Glossary import via CSV

• Downloading a template for glossary creation

• Exporting and activating glossaries for translation