| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Translation software for Microsoft Word? Thread poster: Jorge Amador
|
|---|
| Use the glossary function of Wordfast Classic | Sep 30, 2014 |
What you can do is use a subset of all Wordfast Classic's features, namely its glossary function. You can do so without actually translating whole sentences with Wordfast (= without using its segmenting and translation memory feature), which indeed isn't possible in any CAT tool if you don't have the original text in electronic form. Best of all, you can do it for free, since the glossary feature isn't restricted in any way in Wordfast's demo mode. MetaTexis may allow you to do the same, but you... See more What you can do is use a subset of all Wordfast Classic's features, namely its glossary function. You can do so without actually translating whole sentences with Wordfast (= without using its segmenting and translation memory feature), which indeed isn't possible in any CAT tool if you don't have the original text in electronic form. Best of all, you can do it for free, since the glossary feature isn't restricted in any way in Wordfast's demo mode. MetaTexis may allow you to do the same, but you would have to purchase a license, since its trial mode is time-limited.
To sum it up:
- You would be able to work in Word
- You would be able to translate without having the source text in electronic form
- You would be able to add terminology and phrases to glossaries as you translate
- You would be able to check terminology/phrases entered into your glossary at any time
which would meet all the criteria you have set, if I understood you correctly. ▲ Collapse
| | | | jyuan_us 
United States
Local time: 17:37
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| Right. That is the most efficient and economical way | Sep 30, 2014 |
philgoddard wrote:
isn't this using a sledgehammer to crack a nut? If I'm doing a translation that includes specialist terms and I want to avoid looking them up again later, I just write them down on a piece of paper.
A simple issue is being made much more complicated.
[Edited at 2014-09-30 04:16 GMT]
| | | | | Best idea so far | Sep 30, 2014 |
Dominique Pivard wrote:
What you can do is use a subset of all Wordfast Classic's features, namely its glossary function. You can do so without actually translating whole sentences with Wordfast (= without using its segmenting and translation memory feature), which indeed isn't possible in any CAT tool if you don't have the original text in electronic form. Best of all, you can do it for free, since the glossary feature isn't restricted in any way in Wordfast's demo mode. MetaTexis may allow you to do the same, but you would have to purchase a license, since its trial mode is time-limited.
To sum it up:
- You would be able to work in Word
- You would be able to translate without having the source text in electronic form
- You would be able to add terminology and phrases to glossaries as you translate
- You would be able to check terminology/phrases entered into your glossary at any time
which would meet all the criteria you have set, if I understood you correctly.
But you also might benefit from using WFC for all your translations (so you can create a translation memory), the concordance feature is really useful too, in addition to the glossary feature as described by Dominique.
| | | |
Tatiana Grehan wrote: Tom in London wrote:
Jorge specifically requested answers that do NOT involve the use of any CAT tools.
and WordFast Classic certainly does!
How can it work without Source?
I just would make a Excel sheet and introduce manually all the terms you think could be relevant in the future.
| | |
|
|
|
| Working without source is possible in Wordfast | Sep 30, 2014 |
Fernando Toledo wrote: Tatiana Grehan wrote: Tom in London wrote:
Jorge specifically requested answers that do NOT involve the use of any CAT tools.
and WordFast Classic certainly does! How can it work without Source?
You can use some features of Wordfast (eg. its glossary feature, its dictionary search feature etc.) without the source text, as I tried to explain in an earlier post.
Fernando Toledo wrote:
I just would make a Excel sheet and introduce manually all the terms you think could be relevant in the future.
You can do this more conveniently (from the point of view of a Word user) from within MS Word, using Wordfast's glossary function. You can also look terms up in your glossary from within MS Word. Your glossary is always sorted in alphabetical order (no need to manually sort it, as with Excel). There are just many advantages in doing it in Word (with Wordfast) rather than in Excel.
[Edited at 2014-09-30 09:19 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:37
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Tom in London wrote:
Jorge specifically requested answers that do NOT involve the use of any CAT tools.
Did he? I read his post to mean that he doesn't want to use CAT tools that require the user to work outside of MS Word.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:37
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Dominique Pivard wrote:
What you can do is use a subset of all Wordfast Classic's features, namely its glossary function. ... Best of all, you can do it for free, since the glossary feature isn't restricted in any way in Wordfast's demo mode.
Is the concordance search feature limited in WFC's demo mode? If not, then Jorge could also use the aligner in PlusTools to create TMs (which he can optionally merge intoi a BigMomma TM), and then he can search his old tranlsations for phrases using the concordance search (as long as he has a blank TM loaded in WFC and as long as the other TMs are in the same directory).
| | | | | Interface of CAT tools: standalone vs. Word-based | Sep 30, 2014 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Tom in London wrote:
Jorge specifically requested answers that do NOT involve the use of any CAT tools. Did he? I read his post to mean that he doesn't want to use CAT tools that require the user to work outside of MS Word.
Well, he did say (about CAT tools): "they seem to want me to work within THEIR interface". I take it this also applies to Word-based tools like Wordfast and MetaTexis, which do have their own interface (albeit within MS Word), with fancy shaded boxes and the like.
| | |
|
|
|
| Concordance in demo mode | Sep 30, 2014 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Is the concordance search feature limited in WFC's demo mode?
It's only limited via the maximum size of TM's you can create with WFC in demo mode (about 1000 entries). However, if you have managed to obtain a TM with 100,000 entries (whether by alignment, from a colleague etc.), WFC will happily search concordances in it, even when used in demo mode. Concordance search in WFC doesn't rely on indexing, which is why it works exactly in the same way in demo mode and in full version mode. Besides, even if you had to use TM's created by you (capped at 1000 entries) and nothing else, you can have tens of them, put them in the same folder and Wordfast (in demo mode) will happily search concordances in all of them (you need to enable the 'sibling TM' setting, under Terminology > Other).
| | | |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Is the concordance search feature limited in WFC's demo mode? If not, then Jorge could also use the aligner in PlusTools to create TMs
He says he has no source documents. He translate direct from paper to target.
I still think that for someone without knowlege in CAT Tools and regarding the minimal pretended use of it (only Glossary) the best solution is a list in Excel. It is easy, no need to learn anything and with copy&paste is reliable fast, and can be use anywhere and at any time, also without Word
[Edited at 2014-09-30 17:34 GMT]
| | | | Jorge Amador
Local time: 17:37
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Some clarifications (maybe) | Sep 30, 2014 |
Thanks for the continuing ideas, tips, and suggestions -- this is all greatly appreciated, even if (or perhaps because) everybody doesn't agree!
A word about the pen-on-paper method. Normally this is what I prefer doing, but in the case I described (and it looks like I'm heading into a similar situation), I ended up with dozens of pages of terms and their translations scribbled on them, in no discernible order other than that was the "order of appearance" in which I encountered them... See more Thanks for the continuing ideas, tips, and suggestions -- this is all greatly appreciated, even if (or perhaps because) everybody doesn't agree!
A word about the pen-on-paper method. Normally this is what I prefer doing, but in the case I described (and it looks like I'm heading into a similar situation), I ended up with dozens of pages of terms and their translations scribbled on them, in no discernible order other than that was the "order of appearance" in which I encountered them in the source.
The new project I'm going into is derived from another one I did two years ago, so my memory of how I handled things back then is not fresh. It would be good to be able to (in effect) ask my computer to tell me how I translated X the last time, instead of having to sort through my handwritten notes every time.
Sorry about not drawing a clearer distinction between "CAT tools that require the user to work outside of MS Word," on the one hand, and on the other hand solutions "that do not involve the use of any CAT tools." You can attribute that to my ignorance of the CAT field. Let me describe what I basically had in mind:
A few months ago I viewed a number of video demos from several of the major vendors, all of whom are advertising in this week's ProZ.com translation conference. Every one that I watched seemed to want me to put the source file in some unfamiliar environment, and then do waaaaay more processing to it than I envision having the software do for me. I thought to myself, "This is entirely too complicated. I wonder if there's a way to simply enter or highlight a troublesome term or phrase in my translation file while I'm working on it in Word, and have it tell me how I handled it before?"
I hope this will help to crystallize the issue. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Preference for a Word-based environment | Sep 30, 2014 |
JorgeAmador wrote:
I thought to myself, "This is entirely too complicated. I wonder if there's a way to simply enter or highlight a troublesome term or phrase in my translation file while I'm working on it in Word, and have it tell me how I handled it before?"
OK, you made it clear you enjoy working in Word and a Word-based CAT tool would therefore best suit your preferences. Nothing wrong with that, and you're not alone. Tools that would match your preferences include: Wordfast Classic, MetaTexis and Trados Workbench. Trados was the one that started the trend, but it is now "abandonware" and it's no longer possible to buy it. This leaves Wordfast (Classic) and MetaTexis, both of which have been mentioned in this thread already.
| | |
|
|
|
Jorge Amador
Local time: 17:37
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | The leading candidates | Sep 30, 2014 |
Thanks, based on the comments here Wordfast Classic and MetaTexis do seem to be the leading candidates for the stated purpose.
IIRC, MetaTexis is considerably less expensive, but your suggestion that my needs might be met by Wordfast's demo mode is intriguing. I'll give both WFC and MetaTexis a try. And if they don't fit well into the workflow, I'll create an Excel spreadsheet as Fernando Toledo proposed and see how that method pans out.
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 17:37
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
I can confirm that I used Wordfast Classic for some years in demo mode and it worked perfectly and simply. It had a limit of 500 translation units in the active memory (that one that gets written to each time you confirm the translation), but no limit to the read-only background memory. So if the main purpose is to look up how you translated a term or phrase before, the concordance feature will do a quick look-up. When your active memory reaches 500 units you can just transfer it to the backg... See more I can confirm that I used Wordfast Classic for some years in demo mode and it worked perfectly and simply. It had a limit of 500 translation units in the active memory (that one that gets written to each time you confirm the translation), but no limit to the read-only background memory. So if the main purpose is to look up how you translated a term or phrase before, the concordance feature will do a quick look-up. When your active memory reaches 500 units you can just transfer it to the background memory and keep working.
WFC also has one of the quickest startups of any CAT tool, as well. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Wordfast vs. MetaTexis | Sep 30, 2014 |
JorgeAmador wrote:
IIRC, MetaTexis is considerably less expensive, but your suggestion that my needs might be met by Wordfast's demo mode is intriguing. I'll give both WFC and MetaTexis a try.
Wordfast's demo mode (no time restriction, mostly functional) gives it an "unfair" advantage, which may explain why it outsells MetaTexis by a wide margin, in spite of being much more expensive.
| | | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2] | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Translation software for Microsoft Word? | CafeTran Espresso | You've never met a CAT tool this clever!
Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer.
Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools.
Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free
Buy now! » |
| | Protemos translation business management system | Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!
The system lets you keep client/vendor database, with contacts and rates, manage projects and assign jobs to vendors, issue invoices, track payments, store and manage project files, generate business reports on turnover profit per client/manager etc.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news related to CAT tools
