Some segments start or end with a formatting tag that carries no visible meaning for translation — a wrapper <span>, for example, left over from a formatting run that continues into the next segment. Turning on Hide Leading/Trailing Tags tells the wxrks Editor to visually collapse these tags at the very edges of a segment, so they don't clutter the text you're translating. The tag is still part of the segment — it's just hidden from view — and wxrks places it back correctly when you save, so you never have to manage it yourself.
💡 Who is this for? This guide is for Vendors and Project Managers who translate or review content in the Editor and want a cleaner view of segments that carry non-meaningful wrapper tags at their edges.
Key Concepts
Term | Description |
Leading/trailing tag | A tag sitting at the very start or very end of a segment, with no translatable text before (or after) it. |
Hideable tag | A leading or trailing tag that wxrks is allowed to collapse — see Which Tags Get Hidden below. |
Meaningful tag | A tag that carries visible formatting or a link/image (Bold, Italic, Underline, a link, or an image) — always shown, even at the edge of a segment. |
Full-wrap run | When the leading and trailing tags mirror each other in exact reverse order and together wrap the entire segment (for example |
Turning It On Or Off
Open a work unit in the Editor (or the Review view).
Click the Settings icon in the right-hand sidebar.
Under Viewing Preferences, toggle Hide Leading/Trailing Tags.
This is a personal display preference saved to your account — the same way Expanded Tags or Show Whitespaces are. Turning it on only changes what you see; it doesn't remove tags from the segment or change what other translators or reviewers see in their own Editor.
Seeing The Effect
With the setting off, a hideable tag shows up as a numbered chip at the edge of the segment, in both the source and target columns:
Turn the setting on, and the same tags disappear from view — the segment reads cleanly, with nothing left to manage:
Which Tags Get Hidden
Not every tag at the edge of a segment gets hidden. wxrks only collapses a leading or trailing tag when it's safe to do so without hiding information you'd need while translating:
Meaningful tags are never hidden. If an edge tag represents a link, an image, or visible formatting like Bold, Italic, or Underline, it stays visible even at the very start or end of the segment.
A tag half is only hidden if its matching half also qualifies. For example, a plain
<span>opening tag at the start won't be hidden unless its closing</span>at the end also qualifies. This avoids leaving a single, orphaned closing tag that would look broken.A full-wrap run is the one exception. If the leading tags exactly mirror the trailing tags in reverse order and together wrap the entire segment (for example
<p><strong><a>...</a></strong></p>), the whole run is hidden — even if it includes a link or a formatting tag — because hiding it doesn't hide a partial formatting cue; the formatting still applies to 100% of the segment either way.Tags in the middle of a segment, or tags that don't sit at the very edge, are never affected by this setting.
What Happens To A Hidden Tag
The tag isn't deleted. It's still part of the segment — just visually collapsed.
You don't need to manually insert a hidden tag. The Insert Tag and Next Tag shortcuts skip tags this setting is already handling for you.
If you accidentally type text right before a leading hidden tag (or right after a trailing hidden tag), wxrks corrects this automatically when you save — the hidden tag is moved back to the true start or end of your translation.
Hidden tags don't count toward the Tag Mismatch warning, so turning this setting on won't create false tag-mismatch alerts for tags you never had to touch.
Troubleshooting
A leading/trailing tag isn't being hidden even though the setting is on. It's likely a meaningful tag (a link, an image, Bold, Italic, or Underline), or it's one half of a pair whose other half doesn't also qualify. Both are expected — see Which Tags Get Hidden above.
A hidden tag seems to have moved after saving. This is expected — hidden tags are always placed at the true start or end of your target text when you save, regardless of where your cursor was.
I don't see the toggle in Settings. Confirm you're looking under Viewing Preferences in the Editor's Settings panel, not Translation Preferences.
Quick Reference
Action | Where |
Turn hiding of leading/trailing tags on or off | Editor → Settings icon → Viewing Preferences → Hide Leading/Trailing Tags |
Tags always shown, even at the edge | Links, images, Bold, Italic, Underline |
Tags hidden even though they carry formatting | Only when they form a full-wrap run around the entire segment |
Manually inserting a hidden tag | Not needed — Insert Tag / Next Tag shortcuts skip it automatically |
Fixing a tag typed on the wrong side of a hidden tag | Not needed — corrected automatically on save |
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