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Article 07 / 09

XLIFF 1.2 vs XLIFF 2.0: MT metadata differences

How XLIFF 1.2 and 2.0 handle MT metadata differently, and what that means when cleaning your bilingual files.

XLIFF has evolved significantly.

The biggest structural differences affect metadata handling.

XLIFF 1.2

Common characteristics:

  • looser structure
  • proprietary extensions
  • CAT-tool-specific attributes

XLIFF 2.0

Improvements:

  • standardized modules
  • better metadata consistency
  • cleaner interoperability

MT metadata differences

XLIFF 2.0 often structures metadata more cleanly.

XLIFF 1.2 may contain vendor-specific tags.

CleanXLIFF supports both.