TTerpPrep
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User Manual

Last updated: 2026-09-06
Preview release (planned for 2026-08-22). Registration during this period is by invitation only. Chapter 1 will be revised when sign-up from the registration screen opens at general release (date not yet decided). Screenshots have not been taken yet.
Contents
Part 1 — Getting started
  1. Create an account
  2. How TerpPrep thinks — assignments and your glossary library
  3. Your first assignment
  4. Where things are
  5. Omakase mode and Custom mode
Part 2 — Preparing
  1. Putting material in
  2. No material yet — start from the agenda
  3. Finishing the glossary
  4. Background brief and document summary
  5. Draft translation
  6. Mind maps and "Ask the AI"
Part 3 — On the day
  1. The live sheet
  2. Looking a term up from any screen
  3. Read aloud
  4. Practice mode
Part 4 — Building the library
  1. Closing an assignment — sorting new terms
  2. Your glossary library
  3. Import and export
Part 5 — Confidentiality and data
  1. What is sent, and what is deleted when
  2. Using it without uploading — anonymisation and No-AI mode
  3. Account security
Part 6 — Plan and billing
  1. Checking, changing and cancelling your plan
Part 7 — When something goes wrong
  1. What TerpPrep cannot do
  2. FAQ
  3. Contact
Part 1
Getting started
The first half hour. This part alone is enough to get one assignment through.

1. Create an account

Registration is by invitation at present. Open the invitation URL you were sent, set a password, and the account is active. No credit card is required. Every feature is available on the free plan — the only difference is how many assignments you can create in a month (see 22. Plan).

After your first sign-in there are two short setup screens — which mode to work in (see 5.), then your display name and language pair (JA→EN / EN→JA). All of them can be changed later in Settings.

Two-factor authentication (recommended): you can turn on authenticator-app 2FA in Settings (see 21.). This account holds client document names and terminology, so it is worth enabling.

2. How TerpPrep thinks — assignments and your glossary library

Assignment — one interpreting job. It is the unit you put material into and generate a glossary, brief and the rest from.

Project — an optional parent folder for assignments: a conference running over several days, or a run of jobs for the same client. Create one from the dashboard, then use "Add an assignment to this project" — the client and tags are carried in as starting values (you can change them). A project holds ASSIGNMENTS, and material belongs to one of them (2026-08-20), so make the assignment first and put the material in from "+ Add input". One-off jobs can still be created without a project.

Glossary library — your terminology, accumulated across assignments. There are three kinds:

When you create an assignment you pick a client, and that client's own glossaries plus the shared ones it has been given are merged for reference (which shared ones is decided once, on the client's screen). Terms extracted from the material that already exist in your library are marked ✓ and your earlier translation is shown first. The more you use it, the less the next job costs you — that is the mechanism at the centre of TerpPrep.

Tip: where the same term exists in several glossaries with different translations, the narrower one wins (a client's child > a client's own > a shared child > shared). That is how a client's in-house usage overrides the industry standard.
A glossary can hold others, two levels deep and no further. Giving a client the parent gives it the children too, so "ServiceNow" with "ITSM" and "CMDB" inside it travels as one choice.

3. Your first assignment

  1. Press "New assignment" on the dashboard.
  2. Enter a name, the date, and the mode (simultaneous / consecutive).
  3. Choose a client / product (for a new client, type the name and it is created on the spot).
  4. There is no glossary choice here any more: which glossaries the work reads is set once on the client's screen. An assignment with no client reads every shared glossary.
  5. "Create" opens the assignment's own page (since 2026-08-20). You can book the assignment now and put the material in when it arrives; when you have it, "+ Add input" opens the input screen, where you put your material in and press "Next" (see 6.).
  6. On the output screen, tick what you want (glossary, draft translation, document summary, background brief) and press "Run". Everything you ticked is produced in one background job (a few minutes). You do not have to wait — you can go back to the assignment page.
  7. Check and correct the glossary (see 8.), then export to Excel/CSV or generate the live sheet (see 12.). More material can be added at any time from "Add input" on the assignment page.
Finished assignments can be put away: "🗄 Archive" on the assignment page removes it from the list. Nothing is deleted at the time — the contents stay, and "🗄 Archived" at the top of the list opens it again with "Restore".
An assignment left in the archive is deleted a year after it was archived. You are emailed a month beforehand, and the deletion date is shown against each assignment in the archived list. To keep one, just press "Restore" — that is all it takes, and it starts the year over. Terms registered to your term library are not affected: they belong to the library, not to the assignment they came from. What goes is the assignment itself — its own term list, briefs, summaries and draft translations.
Read this before you upload: uploaded source material is deleted from the server as soon as generation runs. Input left without running is deleted automatically after 24 hours. See 19. What is sent, and what is deleted when.

4. Where things are

PlaceWhat is there
DashboardRecent assignments, generation progress, the search bar across every glossary
Assignments (tab)The full list. Archived ones open from here too
Library (tab)The glossary tree (client / shared), import, export
Assignment pageThat job's outputs (glossary, brief, summary, draft translation) and "Add input"
🔍 top rightThe term lookup window. Opens from any page (see 13.)
User menu, top rightSettings, data-handling policy, sign out

5. Omakase mode and Custom mode

You can choose how much the output screen asks you (Settings → "Flow mode", or click the mode pill in the header).

ModeThe output screenSuits
OmakaseNo options at all — it produces a glossary and a document summary from your materialGetting going quickly; using it the same way every time
🛠 CustomEvery option, chosen per run (which outputs, the other language, web search, anonymisation)Jobs where what you need changes

This manual describes the Custom screens. In Omakase mode many of the options below simply are not shown — you can switch at any time.

Part 2
Preparing
From putting material in, to having something to take into the booth.

6. Putting material in

HowWhat it takes
📁 FilesPDF / PowerPoint (.pptx) / Word (.docx) / Excel (.xlsx, .xls) / text / subtitle files (.vtt, .srt)
📝 Paste textAn agenda, an email, a transcript
🔗 URLA web page — the body text is read (the page title becomes the document name). Several are fine: add rows, or paste them into one box separated by commas or semicolons

Files chosen in several goes add up. Remove one with the at the right of the list ("Clear file selection" starts over).

Video: URLs of video pages (YouTube and the like) are refused — all that can be read is the surrounding description, never what is said. Save the subtitle file (.vtt / .srt) and upload that instead. Repeated lines are collapsed and timecodes are stripped.

When the file is too large — shrink it first

Choosing "📁 Files" shows a "Shrink before uploading" toggle (on by default). Press "📉 Shrink" and, inside your browser only, embedded videos are removed from PowerPoint files and images are scaled down. Nothing is sent anywhere to do this.

Does losing image quality matter? TerpPrep only reads text from your material. Videos and images are used by none of the glossary, brief, draft translation or summary — so removing videos and scaling images down does not change what is generated.

This works on .pptx / .docx / .xlsx (PDF and text are passed through untouched). Video removal is PowerPoint only. Files that do not get smaller are used as they were.

If you would rather not upload at all

There are two options — anonymisation (redact, then send) and No-AI mode (never send). See 20..

7. No material yet — start from the agenda

When the deck will not arrive until the night before, pasting the agenda is enough to start preparing.

  1. On the input screen choose Text and paste the agenda (English or Japanese). If it arrived as a Word file, upload the file instead — that works too.
  2. On the output screen choose the Agenda course (pasted text selects it for you). Tick Background brief and Glossary: the AI writes the background to the agenda, and the glossary is built from that brief (the arrows on screen show this order).
  3. The brief panel also offers "Supplement with a web search" (opt-in, off by default), for recent information the model does not have.
Note: a brief and glossary made this way rest on the AI's general knowledge, not on the client's actual documents. They are effective for getting the field's vocabulary in place, but specific facts (figures, organisation names, product details) must be checked before you work.

Writing your own prompt

Choosing "Custom prompt" as the brief mode reveals a text box. It opens empty — what you write there is the instruction only, and the material you uploaded travels with it as what the instruction applies to. "Draft likely questions and answers from this deck", "organise the arguments by speaker", and so on.

The output is text. Audio, video, images and files (Excel, PowerPoint) cannot be produced. If your instruction asks for one of those, the part that can be written is written in full and a single closing line names what could not be. If you need it spoken, use read aloud on the finished page (see 14.).

8. Finishing the glossary

The assignment's glossary screen puts every term from every referenced glossary into one table. What is generated is a first draft. What makes it valuable to the next job is the version a professional has corrected.

The glossary editor toolbar: the assignment dropdown, 🔗 group, 🖍 highlighter, and Delete at the right.
The glossary editor toolbar. It becomes active once rows are selected.

Where a term belongs, and "in library"

The belongs to column carries a badge for the origin: client shared glossary this assignment only / new. A tick in the 📚 column means the term is already in your library.

Narrow columns use icons as headers — 📚 in library, # occurrences in the material, importance, 🔗 group, 🗑 delete. Hover a header for its full name.

The Source column names which document a term came from. Blank means the term was not found in the material but suggested by the AI.

Display and sorting

Editing

Working on several rows at once

Select rows with the checkboxes at the left (Shift+click for a range). The toolbar above the table then offers:

A highlighted term appears on the live sheet even if its importance is not High. The highlighter is a human judgement — "this one I cannot afford to lose" — so it outranks the importance setting.

9. Background brief and document summary

These two are a pair: they cover the job from the outside and from the inside.

Background briefDocument summary
CoversWhat the material does not say — industry background, where the companies and products sit, likely questionsWhat the material does say — the overall thrust, section by section, figures and proper nouns in context
Built fromThe AI's general knowledge. Your material is read to find the issues, never quotedThe uploaded material itself
KeptAgenda course: until you delete it
Document course: deleted after 7 days
Deleted after 7 days

The brief ends with "Points for the interpreter" — not general background but the surprising fact attached to a proper noun (an ownership relationship, a recent change, something particular to that company).

Specific facts should be verified before you work. There is a cap on how many briefs one assignment keeps (viewing and editing are always available).

Saving and printing

Next to the language switch are buttons to print and to save as PDF, DOCX or text (the same row on both screens). Each saves the version currently displayed — main language, other language, or bilingual. The PDF is a laid-out A4 with proper headings and lists, which reads better on paper in the booth.

The other language, and bilingual view

Both can be produced in the assignment's other language as well. Tick "Also produce the … version" in the panel on the output screen. Afterwards the switch at the top moves freely between main language / other language / bilingual (bilingual places the paragraphs side by side).

10. Draft translation

A full draft translation of the material, using your glossary's renderings consistently. Two output formats:

FormatWhat you getUse
Translated file (layout preserved)A copy of the document with the text replaced (PPTX / DOCX / Excel). For PPTX you can include speaker notesFollowing the slides as projected
Bilingual script (DOCX)A two-column source/translation documentReading in the booth

A bilingual script can be read on screen from "Preview" without downloading (translated files have no preview — the source is not stored, so there is nothing to show alongside).

Practising simultaneous with a draft translation

In the preview, read-aloud reads only the source column, straight through, and stops at the end of it. The translation is not read until you press play again.

  1. Under ⚙ choose "Break after each line" (none / 1, 2, 5, 10 seconds).
  2. Start, and interpret as you listen. The break is your time to finish the line just heard.
  3. When it stops at the end of the source, press play to hear the translation column and compare.

11. Mind maps and "Ask the AI"

Mind maps

"Create a mind map" under a brief or summary draws its content as a single diagram. Rather than turning bullets into boxes, it compresses each node down to the words you would actually say in the booth. It prints on A4 and saves as SVG or PNG.

Ask the AI

Brief and summary screens carry "💬 Ask the AI about this" for the question that comes up while reading.

Part 3
On the day
For the booth, and for the journey there.

12. The live sheet

The High-importance terms, the readings of proper nouns and the numbers, condensed onto A4 to carry in. It works best generated after you have finished editing the glossary. Open it from "🖨 Live sheet" on the glossary screen.

The live sheet settings bar: range, sort order, descriptions (none / one language / both), columns, orientation, text size.
Live sheet settings. Press "Update" after changing them.

13. Looking a term up from any screen

"How did I translate this last time?" is a question that arrives while you are reading something else. "🔍 Look up a term" at the top right answers it where you are — no trip to the library page and back.

The term lookup window: a search box with '✨ AI' and '📂 This assignment' checkboxes to its right, results below.
The lookup window. Drag the title bar to put it where you want it.

14. Read aloud

For reading through while travelling or with your hands full. Start from "Read aloud" on the brief, summary and draft-translation screens.

On confidentiality: by default only voices installed on your device are used, so no text leaves your machine to be read. Only if you turn on "Use network voices" in Settings is text sent to that voice's provider (Google and the like) — and even then not as one whole document, but as the short fragments the reader speaks, sent one at a time.

15. Practice mode

"Practise these terms" on the glossary screen turns the glossary into flashcards. No AI is involved — it runs entirely on what is already on screen.

Each library glossary page starts the same thing, for revising a field outside any particular job.

Part 4
Building the library
Turning one job's preparation into an asset for the next.

16. Closing an assignment — sorting new terms

When a job is over, sort its new terms into the library. This is the single most valuable habit in TerpPrep.

DestinationWhen
Client glossaryTerms specific to that client or product (product names, in-house usage)
Shared glossaryTerms that generalise across the field. Choosing the AI's suggested field creates a shared glossary of that name automatically
This assignment onlyTerms used nowhere else (a speaker's name, a one-off phrasing). They do not enter the library. Setting an already-registered term to this removes it from the library

Sorting is the dropdown in the "belongs to" column (the AI's suggestion is marked ★). Choosing it registers the term immediately. For several terms at once, tick the rows and use the "belongs to" dropdown in the toolbar.

Delete the rows that are not worth keeping. The trick is not to keep everything — junk in the library lowers the quality of every future suggestion.

What the assignment screens say (2026-08-20)

Two rules about names (2026-08-20)

17. Your glossary library

The client screen

A client is the record of who the work is for. The list of clients is on the dashboard (there is no tab), and the name opens the screen. New ones are made with + New client just above the list.

Client names are stored encrypted.

All terms — the sorting desk

Search all glossaries at once on the dashboard opens one table across every glossary you own.

18. Import and export

Bringing in glossaries you already have

Import at the top right of the library screen takes the term lists you have built over the years (Excel / CSV / text). Drag and drop works too.

You choose one of three ways to read the file. All three read the same terms; what differs is what happens to the columns, and whether the blanks get filled.

Getting data out

Creating assignments from Google Calendar (2026-09-06)

The events already in your Google Calendar can become assignments. TerpPrep reads the calendar only when you open the import screen, and only the events you tick become assignments. Nothing syncs in the background and nothing is created on its own.

Setup, once

  1. In Google Calendar on a desktop browser: the gear at the top right → Settings → pick the calendar in the list on the left → "Integrate calendar" → copy the "Secret address in iCal format".
    ⚠️ Anyone holding this address can read that calendar. Treat it like a password. If you think it has leaked, "Reset" on the same screen invalidates the old address.
  2. In TerpPrep SettingsGoogle Calendar, paste the address and Save. Only an address starting with https://calendar.google.com/ is accepted. Once saved, only its last few characters are shown.

Each time you want assignments

  1. Assignment list → Calendar (the month view) → "📥 Import from Google Calendar" at the top right.
  2. Upcoming events are listed by date. Tick the ones you want and press "Create assignments from the selected events".
  3. The event's title becomes the assignment name and its date the assignment date. Client, language pair, mode and the rest are set on the assignment screen afterwards.

Good to know

Part 5
Confidentiality and data
Written so you can answer a client who asks.

19. What is sent, and what is deleted when

WhatKept
Uploaded source materialDeleted the moment generation runs. Held encrypted only between the input screen and the output screen
Input left without runningDeleted automatically after 24 hours
Draft translations, summaries, document-course briefsDeleted after 7 days (they are effectively the material itself)
Agenda-course briefsUntil you delete them
Glossaries, library, client namesStored encrypted, until you delete them
"Ask the AI" conversationsNot stored — they end with the page

The full policy is on the data-handling policy page. It is public — no sign-in required — so you can show it to a client or an agency as it is.

If you want to check before every send

Settings → Data & privacy → "Confirm before sending to the AI" shows, before each run, which files are about to be sent, how large they are and where they go, and waits for you to press Send.

On the same screen, "Default new draft translations and summaries to delete-on-download" makes them disappear when you download them rather than after seven days (still changeable per run).

For ones already generated, "Delete now" on the draft translation and summary screens removes them from the server on the spot instead of waiting out the seven days (it cannot be undone — download what you still need first).

20. Using it without uploading — anonymisation and No-AI mode

1. Anonymise before uploading

Turning on "Anonymise before uploading" on the input screen replaces the confidential terms you have registered inside your browser and sends only the redacted data to TerpPrep. The un-redacted original never reaches TerpPrep's servers.

There are two buttons, in two stages — "Anonymise", then "Next".

  1. Choose your input (files or text) and turn on "Anonymise before uploading" (off by default).
  2. Add the terms to redact. A replacement like [COMPANY-1] is proposed automatically (you can change it). Numbers, email addresses, phone numbers and URLs are one click away under "Quick patterns".
  3. Press "🛡 Anonymise". The redaction runs in your browser and shows a hit count per type and the redacted content. Nothing has been sent at this point.
    At the same time, embedded images, videos, pasted objects and preview thumbnails are emptied. Redaction replaces characters, so it cannot reach inside a screenshot of a customer list. Layout is unchanged, and since TerpPrep only ever reads text, the outputs are unchanged too.
  4. Check the result. For files, "Show text" reveals what will be sent. If you see "the following terms remain in the file", deal with it — the term survives somewhere redaction cannot reach (a sheet name, a formula, a file property).
  5. Press "Next". Only the redacted data is uploaded. (Adding or changing a term requires pressing "Anonymise" again, so that nothing unreviewed can be sent.)

The dictionary is saved per client and loaded automatically for that client's next job. To prepare one in advance, use "🛡 Terms to redact before upload" on the client's glossary page. It exports and imports as CSV, in the same format as the free Document Anonymiser app.

Limits of anonymisation — please read.

2. Building a glossary without AI

If anonymisation is preparation for uploading, this is the option where you do not upload at all.

  1. On the assignment page open "Add from material" and choose your files.
  2. For the mode, choose 🔒 "Match against my library only (no AI)" instead of ✨ "Create with AI".

The material is read inside your browser and matched against your library. Terms found in it enter the assignment glossary with the renderings you settled on. What reaches the server is only the IDs of the terms that matched; not one character of the material leaves your machine, and no AI is called.

This mode can only find terms already in your library. It does not discover new terms or propose renderings. It works in proportion to how grown your library is, and finds almost nothing on your first job. Think of it as the way to reuse, without AI, what AI helped you build.

21. Account security

Changing how it looks

Settings → Appearance offers a colour theme and a text size. Both are saved on your account, so the office machine and the laptop you take to the venue look the same.

Part 6
Plan and billing
Prices and what each plan includes are on the pricing page. This chapter covers only the operations.

22. Checking, changing and cancelling your plan

Settings → "Plan & billing" holds:

Receipts are yours to fetch. "Manage payment" lists every past charge with its invoice and receipt as PDFs, and one is emailed on each payment. To have them addressed to a trading or company name, change the billing details on that screen (it applies to documents issued afterwards). TerpPrep is run by a tax-exempt sole proprietor, so Japanese qualified invoices (インボイス) cannot be issued — no registration number appears on them.
Cancelling does not delete anything. You return to the free plan, but the glossary library and assignments you have built stay. Reading, searching and exporting remain available with no time limit. Only the number of new assignments returns to the free plan's allowance.

Inviting a colleague

The same screen invites colleagues by email. When someone you invited moves to a paid plan, one of your months and their first month are discounted. There is no limit on how many.

Part 7
When something goes wrong
"What it cannot do" comes first — most questions end there.

23. What TerpPrep cannot do

These are limits of the design. No setting works around them. Where there is a way round, it is given.

CannotInstead
Read a table or chart that is an image. In papers where tables are pasted in as pictures, the text inside them is invisible to TerpPrep and reaches neither the glossary, the summary nor the draft translation (the input screen warns you; processing continues)Paste the table's contents as text
Read a complex PDF layout in the right order. Two columns are handled; three columns, or many figures spanning columns, can scramble the reading orderPaste the affected passage as text
Accept legacy .doc normally (.xls is supported)Re-save as .docx, or turn anonymisation on (see 20.)
Produce audio, video, images, or Excel/PowerPoint files. A custom prompt cannot ask its way around this — the output is textFor audio use read aloud (14.); for a translation that keeps the document's shape use a translated file (10.)
Take what is said in a video from its page URLUpload the subtitle file (.vtt / .srt)
Language pairs other than Japanese–English
Open password-protected filesRemove the protection and re-save
Show you material after it has been deleted. Source material goes at generation; translations and summaries after seven daysDownload what you need to keep (see 19.)

There are also caps on size per file and per assignment, and on how many draft translations and regenerations you can run. The numbers per plan are on the pricing page.

24. FAQ

Generation never finishes / it failed

Large material takes a few minutes. You can leave the page — a notification appears at the bottom right when it finishes. If it failed, try again; if it keeps failing, tell us the file type and size.

The terms or renderings are not very good

What is generated is a first draft. Correct it in the editor — your corrections accumulate in the library and feed later assignments and draft translations. If terms you want are consistently missed, or noise is consistently picked up, please tell us.

My upload is refused

Either the file size or the assignment's total volume is over the limit. Try shrinking before upload first (see 6.) — a PowerPoint with video in it can drop to a fraction. If it still does not fit, upload an extract of the pages that matter (we deliberately do not truncate quietly and carry on).

I want to see an old assignment's material again

Source material is deleted after generation, so it is not on TerpPrep. The outputs (the glossary, and agenda-course briefs) are still on the assignment.

I corrected the glossary but the next assignment does not show it

Corrections in an assignment's editor apply to that assignment only, so that a client-specific rendering stays specific. To change the library's rendering, edit it on the term's own page (see 8.).

I forgot my password

Use "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in screen. A reset URL is emailed to your registered address. If nothing arrives within a few minutes, check your spam folder.

I lost my authenticator when I changed phones

Use a recovery code (see 21.). If both are gone, contact support.

Does it work on a phone?

It runs in the browser. The glossary editor and the live sheet assume a wide screen, so preparing on a computer and checking on a phone works best.

25. Contact

Questions and bug reports to support@terpprep.com. For a bug, (@ is full-width - please replace it with @ before sending)what you did and what happened — with a screenshot if you can — is the most useful thing you can send.