---
name: "apertium"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "apertium"
version: "3.9.12-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/apertium"
---

# apertium(1)

machine translation application platform

## NAME

**apertium** – machine translation application platform

## SYNOPSIS

**apertium** \[**-au**\] \[**-d** *datadir*\] \[**-f** *format*\] *language-pair* \[*infile* \[*outfile*\]\]

## DESCRIPTION

**apertium** is the application that most people will be using as it simplifies the use of apertium/lt-toolbox tools for machine translation purposes.

This tool tries to ease the use of *lt-toolbox* (which contains all the lexical processing modules and tools) and *apertium* (which contains the rest of the engine) by providing a unique front-end to the end-user.

The different modules behind the apertium machine translation architecture are in order:

- de-formatter

  Separates the text to be translated from the format information.

- morphological-analyser

  Tokenizes the text in surface forms.

- part-of-speech tagger

  Chooses one surface forms among homographs.

- lexical transfer module

  Reads each source-language lexical form and delivers a corresponding target-language lexical form.

- structural transfer module

  Detects fixed-length patterns of lexical forms (chunks or phrases) needing special processing due to grammatical divergences between the two languages and performs the corresponding transformations.

- morphological generator

  Delivers a target-language surface form for each target-language lexical form, by suitably inflecting it.

- post-generator

  Performs orthographical operations such as contractions and apostrophations.

- re-formatter

  Restores the format information encapsulated by the de-formatter into the translated text and removes the encapsulation sequences used to protect certain characters in the source text.

## OPTIONS

- **-d** *datadir*

  The directory holding the linguistic data. By default it will use the expected installation path.

- *language-pair*

  The language pair: *LANG1*–*LANG2* (for instance “es-ca” or “ca-es”).

- **-f** *format*

  Specifies the format of the input and output files which can have these values:

  - **txt**

    **(default** **value)** Input and output files are in text format.

  - **html**

    Input and output files are in “html” format. This “html” is the one accepted by the vast majority of web browsers.

  - **html-noent**

    Input and output files are in “html” format, but preserving native encoding characters rather than using HTML text entities.

  - **rtf**

    Input and output files are in “rtf” format. The accepted “rtf” is the one generated by Microsoft WordPad and Microsoft Office up to and including Office 97.

- **-u**

  Disable marking of unknown words with the ‘\*’ character.

- **-H**

  Enable header-detection (only used in some language pairs; will lead to stray ‘❡’ characters in pairs that don't support it).

- **-a**

  Enable marking of disambiguated words with the ‘=’ character.

## FILES

These are the two files that can be used with this command:

- **-m** *memory.tmx*

  use a translation memory to recycle translations

- **-o** *direction*

  translation direction using the translation memory, by default “direction” is used instead

- **-l**

  lists the available translation directions and exits direction typically, *LANG1*–*LANG2*, but see *modes.xml* in language data

- *infile*

  Input file (stdin by default).

- *outfile*

  Output file (stdout by default).

## SEE ALSO

[apertium-tagger(1)](/apertium-tagger/1.md), [lt-comp(1)](/lt-comp/1.md), [lt-expand(1)](/lt-expand/1.md), [lt-proc(1)](/lt-proc/1.md)

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2005, 2006 Universitat d'Alacant / Universidad de Alicante. This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of *the* *GNU* *General* *Public* *License:* **https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html**.

## BUGS

Many... lurking in the dark and waiting for you!