word – Felix Blog

What are these “.fhist” files next to my MS Word files?

If you’ve installed Felix version 1.4 or later, you might notice that “.fhist” files are created next to your MS Word or Excel files when you translate them. This is due to a new feature of Felix called translation history. Translation history makes it easier to revise your translations, and reflect your edits in your translation memory. For details about translation history, see here for Word and here for Excel.

If you don’t need this feature or don’t want these files to be created, then you can disable translation history in the preferences.

In Word, from the Felix menu select Felix Preferences, then go to the “Translation History” tab and clear the checkbox.

In Excel, go to Felix >> User Preferences, and do the same.

Word tip: copying text formatting

Often when working with MS Word, you’ll need to apply some common text formatting in several parts of your document. This can be a hassle if you’ve got to select a bunch of different terms, then click on bold, italic, etc. each time.

You can make this easier by “cloning” the formatting for a given segment of text. Just select the text in question, and press Ctrl+D. The Word Font dialog box appears:

Word Font dialog box

Click OK to dismiss the dialog. Now select some other text, and press the F4 key — the selected text is given the same formatting. You can continue to do this, selecting more text and pressing F4.

You can also do this with the Paragraph dialog box (Alt + O, P) and the other dialogs that affect appearance.