Hi John and All, here is my reaction on the phase-name attribute. I agree that the phase is overloaded in the XLIFF file and I partialy agree with John's proposal, that the phase-name attribute could be used in the <trans-unit> element, but it still needs some re-formation of the structure inside the <trans-unit>, due to redundancy of data and inconsistency. We have to distinguish more precisely all cases that can occur. First case, the history of the translation is now stored in <alt-trans> element and doesn't have any <source> defined, because this is taken from the <trans-unit>'s original source. Let's consider we will use just one <alt-trans> element for one phase in this case, so there will be allways one <target> element in one <alt-trans> for one phase: <trans-unit id="1" phase-name="5final"> <source>Cancel Report</source> <target>Annuler le Rapport</target> <alt-trans reason="Approved" phase-name="4review"> <target>Annuler le Rapport</target> </alt-trans> <alt-trans reason="Rejected-Inaccurate" phase-name="3trans"> <target>Annuler le rapport</target> </alt-trans> </trans-unit> Second case is the origin of the translation (pre-translation), where the content has its <source> defined in the <alt-trans>, because pre-translated source may be different from the original source. Match-quality is defined as the unit of similarity between the original source (in <trans-unit>) and pre-translated source in the <alt-trans> element. Note, that there can be more than one <target> element with several forms of translation in one <alt-trans> for one match-quality: <trans-unit id="1" phase-name="5final"> <source>Cancel Report</source> <target>Annuler le Rapport</target> <alt-trans match-quality="50%" reason="TM-Suggestion" phase-name="2pretrans"> <source>Cancel All</source> <target>Annuler tout</target> <target>Annuler Tout</target> </alt-trans> <alt-trans match-quality="100%" reason="TM-Suggestion" phase-name="2pretrans"> <source>Cancel Report</source> <target>Annuler le rapport</target> </alt-trans> </trans-unit> As you could note, I haven't used any phase-name attribute in the <target> element. When we consider the rules I mentioned (one <alt-trans> with one <target> for one phase in history AND one <alt-trans> for one match-quality for one phase for origin of the translation), we can simply remove the phase-name attribute from the <target> element -- all information about the phase is strored in the level above the <target>. I can see the problem in first case (history): in the file structure definition, <alt-trans> may have more than one occurences of the <target>, so we have to either define a strong rules for using <alt-trans> OR add a new element, which will distinguish the history from the translation origin (e.g. add the <prev-trans> element at this place) and will have defined just one <target> element inside. Overall example: <trans-unit id="1" phase-name="5final"> <source>Cancel Report</source> <target>Annuler le Rapport</target> <!-- TRANSLATION HISTORY: --> <prev-trans reason="Approved" phase-name="4review"> <target>Annuler le Rapport</target> </prev-trans> <prev-trans reason="Rejected-Inaccurate" phase-name="3trans"> <target>Annuler le rapport</target> </prev-trans> <!-- ORIGIN OF (PRE)TRANSLATION: --> <alt-trans match-quality="50%" reason="TM-Suggestion" phase-name="2pretrans"> <source>Cancel All</source> <target>Annuler tout</target> <target>Annuler Tout</target> </alt-trans> <alt-trans match-quality="100%" reason="TM-Suggestion" phase-name="2pretrans"> <source>Cancel Report</source> <target>Annuler le rapport</target> </alt-trans> </trans-unit> Note that there is the same content in the history (phase '4review') and in <trans-unit> (phase '5final'). In John's proposal, there was a phase-name used in both <trans-unit> and its <target>, which is (as I think) a little bit confusing and lead to inconsistency. I propose that when the string between two phases remains the same (unchanged translation), it should be add to the history with the same content in the <target> and with appropriate phase-name in <alt-trans> (<prev-trans>). Yes, it is a redundancy, but the history tracking is kept in the file in a consistent way. I'm looking forward to your comments and to future cooperation that will continue after a little break. Cheers, Milan