A loop is a set of questions that might be asked multiple times but for a different subject each time. For example, in a telephone survey in which the interviewer asks the respondent to rate the various galleries in a museum, the interviewer might first ask which galleries the respondent visited, and then for each of those galleries ask the same series of questions, only changing the name of the gallery each time. A placeholder variable is displayed in place of the text that changes.

A placeholder variable is usually delimited by non-letter characters, such as \+ and \- . The actual characters used to delimit placeholder variables may vary, depending on the product that produced the original .mdd file.

Placeholder variables should not be translated, even if the text within the delimiters appears to be a properly spelled word, such as \+display\-. Placeholder variables should be copied and pasted as is (including the delimiters) into the appropriate location in the translated text.