Software: automatic glossary application Thread poster: Tim Gutteridge
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Does anyone know of any software (a Word add-on or whatever) which could read from a glossary (in Excel, Word table, or similar format) and then automatically search through a text to identify all the items which exist as source language entries in the glossary.
I know that this is possible when using glossaries in a TM context, but I have a lot of texts which are quite creative but also contain a lot of technical or in-house terms, and which I prefer to translate without using TM.<... See more Does anyone know of any software (a Word add-on or whatever) which could read from a glossary (in Excel, Word table, or similar format) and then automatically search through a text to identify all the items which exist as source language entries in the glossary.
I know that this is possible when using glossaries in a TM context, but I have a lot of texts which are quite creative but also contain a lot of technical or in-house terms, and which I prefer to translate without using TM.
Seems like a problem crying out for a solution. Is it already out there? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dmitry Belyaev
Russian Federation
Local time: 03:24
English to Russian
| Why can't you use standard CAT tools? | Feb 23, 2007 |
Maybe I didn't catch what the problem is, but I think you could use Trados for this aim.
Create a MultiTerm glossary and an empty Trados TM, then pretranslate your file using Translate terms -> Insert function. It will automatically insert comments into the sentences where glossary terms are used.
Plus, such method have a great advantage over Excel/Word terminology tables since it takes grammar (inflexions etc.) into account.
| | | | pep
Local time: 02:24
English to Spanish
| Perhaps ApSIC Xbench does the trick | Feb 23, 2007 |
Disclosure: My company is the developer of ApSIC Xbench.
ApSIC Xbench (http://www.apsic.com/en/product_xbench.html) does something that I think might be of help. It is freeware.
It can load several bilingual formats (in your case it seems that what you should do is arrange the terms in two columns of an Excel sheet and then save the sheet as tab-delimited text.
... See more Disclosure: My company is the developer of ApSIC Xbench.
ApSIC Xbench (http://www.apsic.com/en/product_xbench.html) does something that I think might be of help. It is freeware.
It can load several bilingual formats (in your case it seems that what you should do is arrange the terms in two columns of an Excel sheet and then save the sheet as tab-delimited text.
The tab-delimited file is one of the formats supported in Xbench.
Once the glossary is loaded in Xbench, you can query terms from your translation application (for example, Microsoft Word). To do so:
1. Mark the term you want to search in Word.
2. Press Ctr+Alt+Ins in Word. Xbench will appear with the search.
At this point if you want to paste the translation, you should hit Enter in Xbench (Xbench will disappear) and press Shift+Ins in Word.
So, as you translate it is necessary that you are able to identify which the key terms of the sentence are, mark them and search them (instead of them being automatically searched for).
I hope this helps,
Pep. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Craig Meulen 
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:24
German to English
| Imperfect solution: Wordfast with paragraph segments | Feb 25, 2007 |
Hi Tim,
You've asked a question which I'd like an answer to as well, so I'm looking forward to any more answers.
What I do in this situation is to use Wordfast, since I'm familiar with the Wordfast glossaries - converting to and from text files, Excel etc.
The problem is, I haven't figured a way to use ONLY the glossary - so I have to use the full translation memory system.
So where I don't really want to use the TM function (prose text, low re... See more Hi Tim,
You've asked a question which I'd like an answer to as well, so I'm looking forward to any more answers.
What I do in this situation is to use Wordfast, since I'm familiar with the Wordfast glossaries - converting to and from text files, Excel etc.
The problem is, I haven't figured a way to use ONLY the glossary - so I have to use the full translation memory system.
So where I don't really want to use the TM function (prose text, low repetition ...) then I set Wordfast to segment the text by paragraph, not by normal segment.
Then I can translate the paragraphs in the freer, prose style I want, but all the glossary words are highlighted and I have full glossary functionality.
An imperfect solution, but it serves the purpose.
Craig ▲ Collapse
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Hi Pep,
Thanks for this. Looks interesting. By the way, the URL in your post was slightly faulty, so anyone else who wants to check the product out should try the following:
http://www.apsic.com/en/products_xbench.html
Any chance of it being adapted so that glossaries could be applied automatically to a whole document, rather than having to select terms in the source text and then query the glossary to see if they are contained in it?
Tim
| | | | pep
Local time: 02:24
English to Spanish
| Something similar is alerady in Xbench's pipeline | Feb 25, 2007 |
Hi Tim,
Apologizes for the wrong URL in my previous post and thanks a lot for fixing it.
There's a feature in Xbench development pipeline that aims to cover that functionality (terminology exploration). The user interface we have in mind would not be populating the external document as you seem to suggest, but I hope that it would still be useful.
If you wish to be notified when such feature is available to see if it does the job, feel free to e-mail me at... See more Hi Tim,
Apologizes for the wrong URL in my previous post and thanks a lot for fixing it.
There's a feature in Xbench development pipeline that aims to cover that functionality (terminology exploration). The user interface we have in mind would not be populating the external document as you seem to suggest, but I hope that it would still be useful.
If you wish to be notified when such feature is available to see if it does the job, feel free to e-mail me at pcondal _at_ apsic.com and I'll let you know when a build includes it.
Regards,
Pep.
Tim Gutteridge wrote: Hi Pep, Thanks for this. Looks interesting. By the way, the URL in your post was slightly faulty, so anyone else who wants to check the product out should try the following: http://www.apsic.com/en/products_xbench.html Any chance of it being adapted so that glossaries could be applied automatically to a whole document, rather than having to select terms in the source text and then query the glossary to see if they are contained in it? Tim ▲ Collapse
| | | | Comunican
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:24
Spanish to English
+ ...
| I just found wordfisher | Mar 1, 2007 |
Wordfisher seems like it might be a good solution to often repeated small phrases and words etc.
For me the big CAT tools are just too heavy and complicated, and I find the investment needed (in terms of time and money) is unlikely to be repaid in terms of repeated blocks of text.
I am about to try wordfisher - anybody else tried it? Opinions would be interesting...
... See more Wordfisher seems like it might be a good solution to often repeated small phrases and words etc.
For me the big CAT tools are just too heavy and complicated, and I find the investment needed (in terms of time and money) is unlikely to be repaid in terms of repeated blocks of text.
I am about to try wordfisher - anybody else tried it? Opinions would be interesting...
http://www.wordfisher.com
[Edited at 2007-03-01 23:05] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Machine Translation and Translation Memory | Mar 1, 2007 |
I occasionally do search and replace, but I actually prefer not to start replacing other predictable translations because this then means I end up working with a Spanglish document (very confusing) and also because it forces me to stay closer to the wording and structure of the source document than is healthy. (One of the reasons why I am also sceptical about TM for most translations.)
I had a look at XPipe (mentioned in an earlier post) but it seems pretty expensive for what it is... See more I occasionally do search and replace, but I actually prefer not to start replacing other predictable translations because this then means I end up working with a Spanglish document (very confusing) and also because it forces me to stay closer to the wording and structure of the source document than is healthy. (One of the reasons why I am also sceptical about TM for most translations.)
I had a look at XPipe (mentioned in an earlier post) but it seems pretty expensive for what it is. (Particularly given that it isn't really designed for ths purpose in mind.)
Tim ▲ Collapse
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Craig Meulen
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:24
German to English
| Clarification | Mar 5, 2007 |
ApSIC Xbench seems to be a tool to *manage* glossaries (and other terminology collections). Could be useful, but it's not what I'm looking for.
I haven't tried it, but Wordfisher describes itself as a basic translation memory tool. Fine. But I have one (Wordfast) which I'm happy with (and I *do* like TM tools for clients where there is a lot of repetition).
What I'm looking for is a tool that maintains client-specific and general bilingual glossaries. Upon starting a t... See more ApSIC Xbench seems to be a tool to *manage* glossaries (and other terminology collections). Could be useful, but it's not what I'm looking for.
I haven't tried it, but Wordfisher describes itself as a basic translation memory tool. Fine. But I have one (Wordfast) which I'm happy with (and I *do* like TM tools for clients where there is a lot of repetition).
What I'm looking for is a tool that maintains client-specific and general bilingual glossaries. Upon starting a translation:
- I would run the tool and all occurrence of glossary terms in my document would be highlighted (e.g. blue background) I need this because otherwise I forget that I've already translated a particular word in a particular way for that client
- there's way to select the terms individually (thru a keyboard shortcut) and there's a toolbar or window that then shows the corresponding target language word(s) from the glossary
- ideally a keyboard shortcut would then quickly insert the target language entry into my document when needed (to save me typing it!)
As I wrote before, Wordfast does all this. So I use Wordfast.
BUT, it is a translation memory tool and so it "segments" the text and is busy doing more than I need, and I have to go through all the steps of segmenting, cleaning up and so forth, even though I don't need a translation memory for that client.
Segmenting also disrupts the flow of a prose text. Setting the segment delimiter to 'paragraph' and not to sentence or part-sentence does minimise this problem, however.
And there is one advantage of working with a translation memory - the"context search". I can search for any word that I know has occurred before, even one that I hadn't entered into the glossary, and the TM shows me every instance of that word *in context* - i.e. with the surrounding sentence.
So in many ways I'm happy with my Wordfast "partial solution" - but still curious to see what else is on offer in terms of glossary functionality.
Craig ▲ Collapse
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