XLIFF and LCX: A Comparison

As the complexity of localisation projects increases, the need for flawless interoperability between different localisation tools becomes ever more important. The XML-based Localisation Interchange File Format (XLIFF) has been developed to address issues related to the exchange, the storing and the transport of localisation data and metadata between different tools across the localisation process. XLIFF is gaining increased acceptance within the localisation community. However, some leading software industry publishers use proprietary file formats rather than the XLIFF standard. This paper discusses XLIFF and compares it to the Localisation Content Exchange (LCX) file format, the internal software localisation file format used by Microsoft. The paper also reviews the main reasons for the lack of acceptance and implementation of the XLIFF standard. It reports on research that investigated the possibility of converting between the LCX and XLIFF file formats and implementing a demonstrator. The paper also describes the schema mapping between the above file formats and the implementation of a prototype converter.