Tips 'n' Tools for Translators - memoQ

Going back to an earlier version of memoQ

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 15:24:00 +0100

If you have a valid support & maintenance agreement for memoQ, you are entitled to download the latest release of the software (either a build or a major upgrade) and install it on your PC. After doing that, however, you may find it doesn't do some things quite as well as your previous version, and if you come across enough of these shortcomings, you may want to go back to your old version and carry on using that for a while until the shortcomings get ironed out by the software development team. How do you get hold of that older version, though, now that it's been replaced by the latest one on your computer?

If you haven't had the foresight to save the installation file beforehand, don't worry – all is not lost! All you need to do is go to a page on the memoQ website and download the right installation file from there – it's https://www.memoq.com/en/downloads.

The versions of memoQ you can currently find here go back all the way from the newest one to memoQ translator pro 4.2, which was released several years ago.

Download the file, save it to your desktop (for example) and double-click on it to install it over the existing installation. The next time you launch memoQ, this earlier version will be used automatically.

And that's all there is to it!

Best,

Carl

MemoQ 8.1 and translating PDFs

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Sun, 28 May 2017 02:30:00 +0200

Software-maker Kilgray has just released a new version of memoQ 8 that is likely to be something of a landmark development. Although memoQ has been able to import non-scanned PDF files for translation for some time, this was not a particularly strong feature up till now. Version 8.1 changes that, however, as it comes with the ability to link up to Iceni's TransPDF servers to convert PDF files and produce translatable, formatted texts that have been extracted from the source files. PDF files get converted into XLIFF format and can then be imported into memoQ by adding them to a project via a new tab called "TransPDF import/export".

For more information on the steps involved, read Peter Reynolds' post on this feature (Peter works for Kilgray) and then watch this short video about it on YouTube.

To take advantage of Iceni's software, you will need to set up a user account with them first. A trial account is for free. After that, you will need to buy some "credits" off them to be able to use the OCR feature on scanned PDFs and get a PDF file as your target format after translating it.

According to Iceni, their PDF-conversion system supports a wide range of file types, including those from CAT tools like memoQ, Memsource and Déjà Vu. (Memsource has actually already "incorporated" TransPDF the way memoQ 8.1 has.) Rather than having to convert your files on Iceni's website and then import them into your CAT tool, you can now do this through memoQ, which is obviously more convenient.

It's helpful to know that Iceni converts source PDFs into a file with a text-based format for free, so you can translate the resulting file and then send it to your customer for them to check or modify and then export it as PDF themselves, which is really the usual procedure. That way, they will have a copy of the translation in a format they can work with easily; if you were to send them a translated PDF, on the other hand (which Iceni would charge you for producing), then they would essentially be getting a final version off you and could only work with it by using PDF editing software such as Adobe Acrobat or ABBYY PDF Transformer.

If you haven't heard of Iceni's PDF conversion before, why not try it out and see how well it does the job on a typical PDF file of your own? It's an alternative to using an OCR application like ABBYY FineReader and can be used regardless of whether or not you have memoQ.

Regards

Carl

images: memoQ © Kilgray, TransPDF © Iceni

SDL Trados Studio 2017 - first impressions

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:13:01 +0100

Over the last 30 days, I have been trying out SDL Trados Studio 2017, the latest version of SDL's flagship CAT tool for translators. My first impressions have been mixed: some good, some bad.

The very first thing you should be aware of when you request a free trial version of Studio 2017 online is that you will not be getting a full-feature version of the package to try out, but one with some major restrictions. This was my first surprise as the other CAT tools I have tried out so far like memoQ translator pro, Déjà Vu X3, OmegaT, Swordfish and memsource have always been fully functional versions. Although the interface of the trial version of Studio 2017 includes icons for MultiTerm, the termbase program, and for software localisation using a powerful tool from SDL called Passolo, clicking on the icons will trigger a message saying that these programs are not installed. In other words, you can't try them out. Trying to use a CAT tool that has a translation-memory ('TM') module but not one for terminology is frustrating as it means you can translate proper files with it, but you can't import terms from other programs, which would help you with the translation.

Funnily enough, some features of MultiTerm are actually included in the trial version, meaning you can save new terms if you want, but you can't export the termbase you create to send it to someone else or import into another CAT tool; it's stuck inside Studio 2017. I hope SDL decides to include full MultiTerm support in the next version of Studio, if not before, as being able to draw on terminology you have already collected is important for a translator.

What did I like about Studio 2017?

- The interface, which is quite easy to work with (i.e. it's designed in a logical way) and uses a colour scheme I now find easy on the eye (I didn't like the gaudiness of earlier colour schemes). The interface also contains a number of very useful icons such as links to tutorials and to SDL AppStore (an external, web-based resource from SDL where you can get extra add-ons to enhance Studio's out-of-the-box functionality; it used to be called OpenExchange).

- The amount of customisation possible for the interface - you can add specific functions you need a lot to a Quick Access bar, for example.

- The vertical translation grid, which - like memoQ's - is clear and easy to use; the source language is displayed in segments on the left, the target in segments on the right (at least in my LTR language pair, German and English; I presume this order is reversed for languages written in RTL scripts like Hebrew and Arabic).

- You can filter segments using a wide range of practical criteria.

- The two or three software updates that Studio installed during the trial period went quickly and smoothly.

- The Release Notes that come with the package tell you exactly what's new in Studio 2017. They also say what issues there are with it (optical character recognition, or OCR, in PDF files that Studio can read is limited to 14 languages at the moment).

What didn't I like about Studio 2017?

- It's not very easy to export a TM to TMX format (which is a common file format for exchanging TM data between different programs). You can get around this limitation by installing a special add-on for exactly this purpose or by checking a settings box that allows you to export the TM in 'a Trados 2007-compatible format' (i.e. TMX!).

- Some features that are a standard part of memoQ translator pro are not included in Studio 2017; if you want them, you need to install an add-on from SDL AppStore first. MemoQ lets you import terms from a CSV file, for example, and you can look up tricky terms on the web straight from the translation grid. Not so with Studio (yet, at least):

- The trial version includes a small number of pre-installed apps, but you can't install any extra ones of your own choice (like the Glossary Converter), meaning you can't see what they do or how well they work. (That was disappointing since there were a number of apps from SDL AppStore that I wanted to try out, too.)

- The Studio 2017 software package is considerably bigger than memoQ translator pro's in terms of hard-disk space and takes longer to launch as well.

- Studio 2017 won't run on Windows 8.0, Windows Vista or Windows XP; it will only run on the latest versions of Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. So some versions of Windows are fine, others aren't. Woe you've got the wrong one on your PC!

- Studio 2017 also has issues with certain web browsers and versions of Microsoft Office.

Please read the Release Notes carefully to see if your PC meets Studio's requirements before you install it.

In sum, I enjoyed using the trial version of the program, which in my opinion is the best one I've worked with so far. However, my experience as a user would have been even better if all of Studio's functionality had been available. Since trial versions of programs are intended to persuade potential new users to buy the package, it doesn't make sense to offer them a restricted-feature version that will hamper their productivity rather than boost it. Apart from that, having worked with CAT tools for a good few years now, I found Studio 2017 relatively straightforward to use – many of them now work in a similar way. What I wasn't able to see instantly, however, was what clear advantages the tool has over other sophisticated packages like memoQ.

If you are interested in getting a licence for SDL Trados Studio 2017, I recommend you to take a look at the group buys that frequently take place on Proz.com as you can save a lot of money that way. SDL also runs several promotions a year itself. If you are a member of a translators' association, that may have made a special arrangement with SDL to allow its members to buy the software at a reduced rate. So there are various options you can benefit from.

Regards,

Carl

Related articles elsewhere on the internet

- Product review by Andrea Luciano Damico

- FAQs about Studio 2017 on SDL's own website

- Emma Goldsmith's blog post on fragment recall in Studio 2017, a new feature in Studio to improve automatic assembly of target sentences

- Order a free trial of Studio 2017 from SDL

MemoQ in 5 minutes (3): changing the font used in memoQ's translation grid

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 22:32:00 +0100

Did you know you can use a range of different fonts to display segments in memoQ's translation grid? You don't just have to stick to one, but can customise the appearance.

Many translators probably don't even consider using a different font to display text in their CAT tool, but it may well be worth your while to try a few other fonts out from time to time. You may even want to change which font you use in the course of a day as your eyes get tired.

I find that sans serif fonts are particularly easy to read on screen. These include popular fonts such as Calibri and Arial. MemoQ allows you to select a different font from a drop-down list and pick a different size as well. To do this in memoQ 2014, you need to call up the 'Options' menu from 'Tools' in the main menu ...

... and then select the item called 'Appearance' in 'Category'. The dialogue below will then be shown.

To pick a different font, go to the 'Editor fonts' section in the top half and pick a font from 'Font family and size' (click on the downward arrow in the font box to open a drop-down menu listing all the fonts available on your computer). Separate font families are listed for Asian languages like Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Apart from adjusting the font you'll see in the translation grid, this dialogue box also lets you switch the colour of the text – to do this, move down to 'Editor colors' and click on the box to the right of 'Text color'.

After making your new settings, activate them by clicking on 'Apply' or 'OK'. For some specific help on the options available here, just click on the 'Help' button on the far right.

To call up the 'Options' menu in memoQ 2015, go to the dark-blue 'MemoQ' tab at the top left of the screen, click on it and then move down to 'Options' near the bottom of the list, which will display various items. Pick the 'Options' item (the three cogs) to access the settings in the dialogue.

More details are available in the help documentation or on Kilgray's website.

Regards

Carl

Related links

Paul Filken's blog post on making similar adjustments via the 'View' menu in SDL Trados Studio 2014

Two virtual events from Proz on International Translation Day

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 20:00:30 +0200

Translators' platform Proz.com is going to be staging its 7th annual virtual conference shortly, in celebration of International Translation Day on Wednesday, 30 September 2015.

This conference is actually one of two training events for translators running over two whole days starting from 29 September.

100+ hours of scheduled and on-demand sessions and content

30+ hours of LIVE content including Q&A sessions, panel discussions, chat rooms and more

Panel discussions on “Terminology management” and “Customer relationship management”

Exhibit booths where you can chat live with exhibitors and software vendors (including prize giveaways)

Earn 10 ATA CE credits for attending

Save up to 50% on popular CAT tools including SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Wordfast, Déjà Vu and more

Here are some of the topics that are going to be discussed according to Proz:

How to find direct clients and run a business that you love

Translation or Interpreting? & the Emerging Market for Hybrid Communication Models

Getting in the game: a 'how to' for translation beginners

The beauty of machine translation

10 essential tips that are most helpful for a professional translator

Where to find clients and how to approach them and do the follow-up without sounding too pushy

Glossary & terminology management

Panel discussion on client relationship management

Panel discussion on leveraging voice-recognition technology for greater efficiency.

View the full programme here, after which you can click here to register as an attendee. (It's free!)

N.B. If you attend at least one live event, this will give you free access to recordings after the event, which you can watch any time for a period of at least 90 days.

For events concerning CAT tools on 29 September, see the special programme here. This will include the following talks:

Free Tools for Translators

Technical translation: is it really about terminology?

Setting up an MT system

Managing client expectations

Economics of pricing for the translation industry

Panel discussion on meeting clients

Panel discussion on machine translation

Medical documents for academic publishing: creating English content with precision, accuracy and style

How to participate in EU tendering procedures for translation services.

I'm sure you'll find something worthwhile as the topics are very varied. There are also quite a lot of pre-recorded webinars to accompany the two-day event that you can watch on demand, i.e. whenever it suits you.

Regards,

Carl

image: © Proz.com

Related links

FIT (the International Federation of Translators) on International Translation Day

The British Library's day-long programme of events on translation in London on 2 October ("An opportunity for translators, students, publishers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers and reviewers to gather and debate")

Coping with a bug in memoQ 2014

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 13:21:00 +0200

This post is rather technical and will only be of real interest to other users of memoQ, which is the main computer-assisted translation tool I use. Software bugs can be minor annoyances, but from time to time, a major one appears in a new software build that can play havoc with your workflow and productivity. So much for CAT tools saving you time! Don't believe everything you read on the glossy pages of CAT-tool websites!

Over the last week or so (middle/end of March), a serious bug has appeared in memoQ 2014 (build 71) and R2 (build 58) that has been causing many users headaches, it seems (including me). It stops you from exporting your translation back to the original .docx file format – you get a puzzling error message like this:

..............

TYPE:

System.InvalidOperationException

MESSAGE:

Die Sequenz enthält kein übereinstimmendes Element.

SOURCE:

MemoQ.Project

CALL STACK:

bei MemoQ.Project.TranslationDocImportExport.LocalExportController.<DoJob>b__12(ExportUnitBase eu)

..............

[The equivalent English version is this, apparently:

TYPE:

System.InvalidOperationException

MESSAGE:

Sequence contains no matching element

SOURCE:

MemoQ.Project

CALL STACK:

at MemoQ.Project.TranslationDocImportExport.LocalExportController.<DoJob>b__12(ExportUnitBase eu)]

.............

... and can't get your translation out of memoQ! There is a simple way of dealing with the issue, however – if you happen to know how.

First of all, don't panic, as your translation is safe and sound inside memoQ; nothing has been lost. One way of getting your translation back into the original file format (only Word files are affected) is to re-import the source file, pre-translate it – in which case everything will be inserted automatically if the segmenting has been done the same way – and then simply export the file as usual. Voilà! And it's all done in a matter of minutes.

So why does this work if the export didn't work before? Well, it's because your original translation will have contained comments, apparently. (Comments can be inserted deliberately, but they are also added by memoQ by default if you happen to mark a word or phrase to highlight it and return to it later.)

To get things working smoothly again until the bug has been fixed (which will probably be the case shortly in the next build), change the settings to export .docx files without any comments:

- go to 'Options' in R2 (use the icon in the top menu bar)(or go to 'Tools' > 'Options' in memoQ 2014) and select the 'Miscellaneous' category.

There are five options in the middle that you can set to define which type of comment you want to export (e.g. 'Export information-level comments to final file'):

- uncheck all of them, click on 'OK' to save the setting and then try to export your documents again. It ought to work now.

Thanks to Technical Support at Kilgray for this advice, which I am passing on here to spread the word faster. (Once the bug has been fixed, you will need to go back to these settings and tick them again to re-activate them if you want comments to be exported, otherwise they won't.)

Last but not least, despite all the enhancements that Kilgray's developers keep on adding to memoQ, which, like any piece of user software, is a work in progress, it's always worth remembering you can re-install a previous, stable build of memoQ and work with that until the major bugs in the latest build have been rectified. Just double-click on the installation file and it will get installed 'on top of' the current installation. That will also save you a few headaches.

It's a wise idea to keep the last few builds on your computer for this reason rather than deleting them soon after installing them – that way, you will always be able to access them, no matter where you are and what your internet access is like (sometimes it can be poor or even non-existent, especially if you're travelling somewhere and trying to work at the same time). Alternatively, you can just ask Kilgray's Support team for a particular build and they will send it to you.

Hope these pointers prove helpful.

Carl

image credits: memoQ logo courtesy of Kilgray Translation Technologies

Useful links and addresses

E-mail Kilgray's Technical Support team at support [@] kilgray [dot] com

The thread about this particular issue on the memoQ user group at Yahoo! Groups, where memoQ users can discuss issues they are having with memoQ and sometimes resolve them with each other's help (you will need to have a Yahoo! account to be able to access this).

MemoQ in 5 minutes (2): keyboard short cuts

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 18:24:08 +0100

This short post is about a selection of keyboard short cuts I find particularly useful in memoQ.

There are actually quite a number of blog posts on this topic already, which are either quite detailed or just brief lists of short cuts the writer has found to be useful personally. My post here falls in the second category. Perhaps you'll also benefit from using these combinations of keys in your own work with memoQ.

Five useful "F" keys (in the top row of your keyboard)

Press F1 to call up memoQ's help documentation

... F2 to edit a source segment, e.g. to correct a spelling mistake

... F4 to auto-assemble a target segment, i.e. automatically insert matching target terms from your project TBs into the target segment to assemble a preliminary translation (using your own resources, not MT)

... F7 to do a spelling check

... F9 to insert the next tag into the target segment.

Five other useful functions called up by pressing Ctrl and another key simultaneously

Ctrl + K: calls up the concordance window so you can search for a word or phrase in all the TMs attached to your current project. To use it, double-click on a term to mark it, then press Ctrl and K at the same time. You'll then see a list of occurrences of the term in your TM entries if it crops up there.

Ctrl + Enter key: confirms the current target segment and sends it off to your primary TMs

Ctrl + P: look up a term in your project TBs

Ctrl + Q: save a source and matching target term to your primary TB instantaneously (remember, Q = "quick")

Ctrl + E: save a source and matching target term to your primary TB and then change or supplement either entry in a term-base dialogue (remember, E = enter a term)

------------------

On a final note, it's helpful to know that quite a number of keyboard short cuts used in memoQ are identical to those used in the popular Office programs made by Microsoft. One example is Ctrl + F (or H) to find (and replace) a phrase (F = "find"). Pressing F1 to call up the program's help documentation is another.

A full list of keyboard short cuts is included in memoQ's help documentation, both offline (press F1!) and online (http://kilgray.com/memoq/2014/help-en/index.html).

Try some of the short cuts out and see if you find them handy. There are far too many of them for users to be able to remember them all, unfortunately, but the ones you use most often will obviously be the ones you recall best. Whichever short cuts you pick up, they'll save you time and improve your productivity.

Incidentally, did you know you can customise a lot of short cuts in memoQ? To find out more, see Kevin Lossner's blog post and Kilgray's help documentation on the subject (see the links below).

Regards

Carl

Photo and logo credits: memoQ logo © Kilgray Translation Technologies, keyboard © Viktor Mildenberger, pixelio.de

Related links

Kilgray has a detailed list of short cuts in its online knowledge base (there's a PDF file you can download from there, too)

Here's a nice overview of memoQ's short cuts arranged in practical groups

Kevin Lossner's post on customising keyboard short cuts

For the sake of comparison, here's one on SDL Trados Studio 2014:

Translator Emma Goldsmith has written several blog posts on keyboard short cuts found in this CAT tool. This one is on basic commands

and this is one on short cuts for more advanced users of Studio 2014.

MemoQ 2014 R2 is due out soon...

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:19:47 +0100

For anyone interested in computer-aided translation, which has become as omnipresent in the translation world as Microsoft Office has in business generally, it's always intriguing to hear when a major new release of a CAT tool appears on the market. MemoQ has become very popular among freelance translators and translation agencies in recent years and has been evolving at a very fast pace – faster than the product documentation, in fact. This week (the second week of December), a new version of the tool is going to be released called memoQ 2014 R2.

What exactly's new about it? Well, the most obvious change is that it now has a ribbon interface. This aligns it with Microsoft's Office products as well as with a number of memoQ's competitors like SDL Trados Studio 2014 and Déjà Vu X3. Although memoQ's current interface (I'm referring to memoQ 2014 "R1" and memoQ 2013 here) has been around for a while and users have got used to it and can find functions reasonably easily on it, there have been plenty of calls for a better menu bar from users.

The new menu bar is now divided into sections of related functions. This makes the interface more intuitive to use and less cluttered, which is also due to the fact that the functions that used to be available in the bottom half of the screen have now been moved up into the ribbon as well. The groups of features have been designed to reflect a typical translation workflow:

The ribbon bar can be reduced in size just like Word's menu bar to save space if you need more room to view your translation or other windows in the interface. This is also useful if your list of projects is quite long as more of them are now displayed. At the moment, the ribbon can't be customised by removing or adding any features, however (which I personally like about Word). What it does do, though, is change its contents, depending on whether or not you have opened a project to work on. Besides having a "memoQ" tab and "Project" tab, it then adds one called "Documents", another one called "Preparation" and one called "View". If you click on an icon like "Translate" in the "Documents" tab, four more tabs appear: "Translate", "Review", "Edit" and "Quick Access", all of which contain functions of particular interest for that step of the translation workflow. So this is a nifty way of putting a lot of functions at a user's disposal as and when they need them.

The ribbon toolbar displays tooltips whenever you move your mouse over specific icons, which can be instructive en passant and may even help you re-discover features you forgot about in the old interface, where many of them were hidden from view.

Another new aspect of memoQ 2014 R2 is that its translation memory editor has been pepped up and made more convenient to use. Meta-data (e.g. the name of a customer) can now be altered, for example, and tags can be handled better (e.g. they can all be removed from the segments you select just by clicking a button). It's also possible to edit an unlimited number of segments at one go, whereas that was limited to a hundred in the past. Filtering has been enhanced as well: you can now select specific groups of segments (those translated by a particular person, say) and then search for certain segments in that group (e.g. those containing a particular term). To make it easier to resume your editing work later, it's now possible to mark segments with a flag as well. A short video on these points is now available on YouTube.

Segmentation of source files has also been improved by making it easier for users to add abbreviations to the list of existing segmentation rules and even re-segment a file on the fly after doing so, giving better segmentation results in the translation grid.

Compatibility with other software formats has always been an important aspect of memoQ, which supports a large number of formats and makes working with files processed by users with different CAT tools relatively simple. In memoQ 2014 R2, Kilgray has improved compatibility with WorldServer by improving how it deals with SDL WorldServer’s file formats, XLZ and WSXZ.

To help you learn more about this new version, Kilgray is offering a number of free webinars on it in December. These are intended for both freelance translators and project managers (as each user group works with a different version). To see which webinars are being staged and register for them, go to their webinar page.

Regards,

Carl

picture credits: courtesy of Kilgray

Related links

- Overview of memoQ 2014 R2 on Kilgray's website

- Kilgray's blog

- A recorded webinar on memoQ 2014 R2 by Kilgray on YouTube

- Translator Dominique Pivard explains how to create a project and translate a file in memoQ 2014 R2

- Kevin Lossner's blog post on the first project he did using memoQ 2014 R2

- A post of my own on the introduction of SDL Trados Studio 2014, which also features a ribbon interface.

MemoQ in 5 mins (1): 100% matches + auto-propagation

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 10:17:00 +0100

"What do you mean 'it's identical'?"

1. Matches

One of the main marketing arguments for buying a CAT tool is that it is capable of "translating" files that contain a lot of repetition very quickly, thus saving you time. This statement is basically true, but it ignores the fact that it may still be necessary to check the "100% matches" and other very close matches to see if they fit the context, which also takes time and calls for great care on the translator's part.

Kilgray has made this easier for users by introducing the concept of a "101% match" in memoQ, which simply means that the segments directly adjacent to the 100% match are also taken into account; if they match up, too, then you have a highly dependable 101% context match.

2. Auto-propagation

Matches get copied – or "propagated" – throughout the text you are translating if you have set memoQ to do this. The setting is accessible via "Translations" > "Auto-Propagation..." in the main menu bar at the top of the screen when you have a document open in a project, as the following screen shot shows (auto-propagation is the fourth item down):

If you click on the item, the following dialogue will appear:

As you can see, you can set memoQ to propagate translations of identical segments in a particular direction: (a) "only forward", i.e. downwards from the cursor or (b) "backward and forward", i.e. upwards as well as downwards (= throughout the document you're translating). Various other settings can also be made.

Translations that have been propagated, i.e. copied to "identical" segments, are indicated by a dotted green arrow pointing downwards:

3. No go!

Before you choose an option, though, you might want to ask yourself if auto-propagating translations of "identical" segments is actually a wise idea; there are cases where it isn't, namely if a source segment needs to be translated in different ways, depending on its position in the overall text (= the context).

I encountered this situation in a recent translation in which a short source segment was used as a heading in one place and as a bullet point in another, which called for capitalisation in the first case, but not in the second one. It's also in cases like this that you might want to pick different translations for the same source text. But beware! If you set memoQ to propagate "identical" segments automatically upwards and/or downwards, it will insert one translation wherever the source text occurs, regardless of its contextual function.

To prevent this from happening, you need to de-activate auto-propagation altogether, after which you can handle seemingly identical segments on an individual basis rather than as a group. To do this, just unclick the box at the top, next to "Allow auto-propagation":

When you decide to re-activate the function afterwards (don't forget!), just go up to the menu again, select the item, click on the box again and a tick will re-appear. Close the dialogue and then memoQ will be set to propagate identical translations automatically again. (It would be nice if auto-propagation could be switched on or off with a single click on an icon in the main toolbar one day...)

Regards

Carl

images: my own screen shots & courtesy of Kilgray

Related information on the topic

Kilgray's online help documentation on auto-propagation

More details about the auto-propagation settings dialogue

And a quick look over the fence...

Changing SDL Trados Studio 2014's auto-propagation behaviour (a blog post by Jayne Fox)

Auto-propagation and "one-to-many" matching in OmegaT

Goodbye Heartsome! Hello Open Source!

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:33:00 +0200

Some of you may already have heard of Heartsome, a firm that produces computer-assisted translation software. Its two main products these days are TMX Editor and Heartsome Studio, a suite of translation tools. The company is based in Hong Kong and has partly been catering to the Chinese-language market in Asia and partly to speakers of English. What's unusual about it is that it's about to close its doors for good. And it's making its products available for further development in an Open Source environment.

Heartsome says it's doing this in the hope that other software developers will pick up where its own developers left off and make the two tools more helpful to translators and agencies (see the farewell note on their website [which may get discontinued]).

Development and technical support at Heartsome is going to stop tomorrow, on 31 July. This is an unusual move in the CAT-tool industry, or at least one that doesn't happen very often. But like any business, if the sales figures just won't offset your business costs, you can only keep going for so long before drastic action is called for. Other companies in the field have seen bad times, too (like Atril, the makers of Déjà Vu), but they may manage to consolidate their business and carry on (which Atril did with a French financier's help).

I'm sorry to hear about this step as the more producers there are on the CAT-tool market, the better, at least in terms of competitive product development and pricing in the interest of users. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Heartsome's products in the future. I also hope the Open Source move is a positive one and that competent developers will step in and not let development stagnate.

Anyone who wishes to try out Heartsome Studio 8.0 and/or TMX Editor 8.0 now (à la Heartsome) can do so by downloading them from the GitHub site Heartsome has set up (see below) or from other trustworthy software platforms (even so, please make sure your PC is well protected from web-based viruses before downloading the packages; the software links are sound as far as I can tell, but you never know...).

The products can run on several operating platforms: not just Windows and Mac OS, but also Linux, for example.

I haven't tried out Heartsome Studio yet, but I know it can create bilingual XLIFF files, which can be easily modified for importing into other CAT tools (such as memoQ and SDL Studio 2011 or 2014). For more details about the Heartsome Studio suite, check out the features listed on GitHub.

I'll have a go when I get a chance and see what it's like in terms of usability. As for TMX Editor, that's a useful program you can use to edit and modify TMX files created by other CAT editors if their own TMX editing features are lacking. Why not try them both out and see what you think?

Regards,

Carl

images: © Heartsome

Related links

- blog post in German by Torsten Rox-Edling: "Heartsome wird Open Source"

- Dominique Pivard's short e-training video on how to translate using Heartsome Translation Studio 8 (it lasts 8.5 mins)

..........................

Online training on memoQ (2014!)

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 23 May 2014 14:39:13 +0200

Kilgray, the maker of memoQ, my main CAT tool, is going to be holding a series of virtual events that might interest you on Wednesday 28 May (just five days from now). In fact, this is their third "Virtual Conference" on Proz.com, and like past events, it's free for anyone to attend. All you have to do is register for it beforehand; you don't need to be a paying member of Proz.com to do so.

Here are some of the benefits of attending at least some of the events in Kilgray's view:

learn first-hand about the firm's most recent development, memoQ 2014, which will be released after the conference [more on this in a moment]

attend various sessions and download training videos [to watch at your leisure on your own PC]

learn the ins and outs of memoQ

hear about some useful tips & tricks

chat with Kilgray’s support team

take advantage of special offers on memoQ

get some hints on how to become a well-employed translator [presumably from LSPs that employ memoQ] and on dealing with customers.

The programme of events includes various presentations (live and on-demand webinars), discussion panels and live chats with staff at Kilgray in which you can ask questions of your own about memoQ and the firm's other products for translators. The on-demand presentations are likely to be particularly interesting for intermediate and advanced users of memoQ:

The highlight at this conference, however, is definitely going to be the preview you can get of memoQ 2014, a revamped release which includes a number of new features and productivity enhancements. These include:

project templates, which will save you a lot of time when setting up projects [this might sound old-hat to some, but it's new to memoQ]

automated steps in a workflow, which can be set in your project templates to simplify certain operations during a project (e.g. pre-translation, X-translate or export to MQXLIFF or a two-column RTF)

productivity improvements such as better tag handling, grammar checking (not just spelling checks) and presenting several documents in a single view

automatic assignment of files to specific translators working on online projects

the ability to process embedded files and localise images

easier terminology import from third-party packages (Studio and STAR Transit)

project-management integration with Language Terminal (tracking projects)

and many other productivity boosters (e.g. a built-in stopwatch feature for gauging the time it takes you to edit assignments).

The Virtual Day is due to take place between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. GMT (12 noon to 7 p.m. CEST), but may run a bit longer because of the live chats. Those participants who attend it will be able to watch the recorded webinars again afterwards for a certain period of time.

More on memoQ 2014 in a later post; like memoQ 2013, this version really does seem to help translators and make many operations easier. (You can also read about memoQ 2014 on Kilgray's blog and Kevin Lossner's excellent Translation Tribulations.) As mentioned earlier in this post, the version is due to be launched after the virtual conference (in June).

Bye for now,

Carl

P.S. A free webinar dedicated to the new features that memoQ 2014 includes is going to be held by Kilgray on 11 June (at 3 p.m. GMT/5 p.m. CEST). All you need to do is register to attend it (click here).

As of 10 June, you can download a copy of memoQ 2014 from Kilgray's website. Try it out for free for 45 days or simply upgrade to it if you already have a current licence.

To hear what users of the new version have to say about its strengths and weaknesses, it's a good idea to follow the discussions about it in the memoQ user group hosted by Yahoo! (You need to sign up to use the list, but it's free and can be very informative.)

images: courtesy of Proz.com and Kilgray; sources of information: Kilgray's recent announcement and pre-launch briefing

Free translator training at Proz

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 18:40:00 +0100

Proz, the international translators' portal, is going to run a series of free webinars for registered users in March.

According to the programme of events now available here, the sessions will mainly be covering computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools:

Wordfast Pro 3.3

memoQ 2013 R2

SDL Trados Studio 2014

Déjà Vu X3 (aka "DVX3")

Fluency

and Wordbee Freelancer.

In addition, you will also be able to learn more about utilities like WordFinder, a web-based dictionary suite, and Translation Office 3000, a package for managing your translation and proof-reading assignments, your customers and your accounting. Several of these programs are now available in brand new versions with fresh interfaces.

There are also going to be two sessions on getting in touch with potential customers via Proz's own web platform. At the time of writing this post, places were still available for the session on 20 March.

To participate in any of these events, all you have to do is register to attend them. If you aren't a registered user yet, sign up for free or take out a paid subscription, depending on what features you would like to use.

Proz.com regularly stages training events for translators and interpreters, not just giving them an opportunity to learn about the latest software tools, but also to improve their knowledge of subject areas they work with such as legal contracts, interpreting in court or for the police, medical translation, tourism and travel, software localisation and audio subtitling, to mention just a few examples.

Some of the events are recorded and can be viewed any time, albeit at a small cost. These are known as "on-demand courses".

The training Proz offers isn't just in English, but that does seem to be the main lingua franca used. Sometimes presentations are held in other languages; some of the events in March are going to take place in Spanish, Italian, French, German, Russian or Chinese, for instance.

Quality-wise, the free webinars and "virtual conferences" I have attended so far have generally been reasonable to good. Not brilliant, but generally interesting. Some were a bit too commercial for my taste, but still, you learn to pick out the cherries after a while...

Why not take a look at the events lined up in March and see if there are any that interest you?

Regards,

Carl

images: screen shots taken from Proz.com

The EuroTermBank project

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:06:00 +0100

As you may have gathered by now, I use a translation tool called memoQ to help me with most of my translation work. MemoQ comes with an interesting dictionary plug-in linking it to a huge external terminology database called the EuroTermBank, and if it is activated (which it is by default in version 6.0 and 6.2), then memoQ constantly looks up expressions that appear in my source texts in the database and "suggests" any English translations of them to me that it finds there.

The terms that are "recognised", i.e. correspond to the source words in appearance, are displayed in a window to the right of the translation area in memoQ so you can see them easily while you translate and decide whether or not to pick them (sometimes they match the context, sometimes they don't). You can insert them manually or by using a combination of keys on your keyboard. The ETB entries have a special symbol next to them in the results list, as you can see from this screen shot showing a German source text and matching term-base results (the empty space in the middle is for the translation that is about to be done):

Fig. 1: The translations found in the ETB term base are conveniently shown to the right of the translation grid. Those from my own term bases are directly above them.

Now, you won't find everything in the ETB term base, of course, but you will find a lot of material in a large number of European languages (currently 33, in fact), including those used in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States (Lithuania and Latvia, for example). That's because the ETB is actually a terminology project involving a large number of countries from the European Union.

The EuroTermBank was set up by a consortium of organisations specifically with Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in mind, but other new EU member states and interested countries and organizations outside the EU are invited to get involved in the project as well. The idea, they say, is to "exchange terminology data with existing national and EU terminology databases by establishing cooperative relationships, aligning methodologies and standards, [and] designing and implementing data-exchange mechanisms and procedures".

According to the ETB website, www.eurotermbank.com, the project focuses on harmonisation and consolidation of terminology work in new EU member states, "transferring experience from other European Union terminology networks and accumulating competencies and efforts of the accessed countries". The aim of the project is to provide a source of "consistent, harmonised and easily accessible terminology" in the European Union, a "centralized online terminology bank for languages of new EU member countries interlinked to other terminology banks and resources".

The terminology the ETB draws upon is taken from public-sector terminology resources, so it's obviously of particular value if you translate texts concerned with any of these (widely varying) areas. Business, finance and institutions are covered, for example.

There's a quick summary of what the database covers on the left (as of 14 Nov. 2013). As you can see, the EuroTermBank is a big, ongoing multilingual project. What I find particularly useful about it is the fact that source terms are not just listed in the target language you pick, but some of them also come with a definition, giving you some background information that can come in handy as you translate.

To access the ETB, you don't have to have memoQ (even though Kilgray is its first technology partner); you can access it from your own web browser by calling up its URL, http://www.eurotermbank.com/, in which case you'll see something like this at the top of the page:

Fig. 2: The ETB on the internet (showing a window for an advanced search with several options, including definitions)

The subject areas that are covered are displayed in the "domain" field, which is shown on the left when you do an advanced search (click on "Show advanced options" next to the orange search button). If you click on the little arrow there, a drop-down list will appear. Here you can see that the ETB covers a wide range of areas: politics, international relations, European Community law, trade, social issues, education, employment, energy, transport and more... Amazing!

Incidentally, you can also download a special plug-in for Microsoft Word® that will help you with dictionary look-ups while you use that program. This enhancement can help you understand a text better, particularly one in a foreign language – mark a tricky word and then call up the ETB by right-clicking your mouse. Go to "Terminology..." and then a special pane will open listing possible equivalents in various languages.

If you fail to find any terms you look up, the portal enables you to build up a personalised list of such words (in "My ETB"), which you can share with other users from the ETB community if you'd like to.

This is a great resource for translators!

Regards,

Carl

images: ETB website and my own screen shots from memoQ

Webinar on memoQ 2013 R2

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:05:57 +0100

As I mentioned at the end of last month, the Hungarian CAT-tool maker Kilgray recently released a new version of its main product for freelance translators, memoQ, called "memoQ 2013 R2" (the "R" stands for "release", apparently). I've been using this version of memoQ ever since then and have found it to be robust and very convenient thanks to various enhancements to existing features and several brand new features it comes with.

To find out more about this particular release, you can now sign up to attend a free, one-hour webinar by Kilgray on the tool's new features, which is going to be staged later this week: on 14 November at 4 p.m. GMT (= 5 p.m. CET). Click here to sign up.

In Kilgray's own words on the event, the features to be discussed include "monolingual review (to update your translation memory by importing reviewed monolingual documents), PDF file import with full formatting (imported PDF files will keep the layout of the original file and texts can be translated as .doc or .docx files), a start-up wizard (to make configuration easier) and a couple of Microsoft Office Word integration enhancements".

The last point is a very modest description of some major achievements in memoQ: "Use Microsoft Word dictionaries for spell-checking; change fonts automatically in .docx files according to the most widespread fonts when you translate between European and Asian languages (CCJK); comments added to your source document will appear as comments or translatable content in the translation grid, depending on your preference; and comments added during translation can be exported into a Word file", as Kilgray says. (The above outline is just a small part of a more comprehensive summary available on the CAT-tool maker's website – click here to view the whole page.)

Reading about features is a good start, but watching a webinar will give you a lot of visual information as well as being more informative in general. You can also ask questions that may be answered straightaway, so it's a good way of finding out about key aspects of the program quickly. After which you should give it a spin yourself. Download a free user's guide from Kilgray's website and find out how the tool works – and most of all, how (like all CAT tools) it can help you improve your productivity and make sure you use the right terminology consistently as you translate. (More about the benefits of using translation software in a later post...)

See you at the webinar.

Regards,

Carl

image: logo courtesy of Kilgray Translation Technologies and my own screen shot from Citrix webinar software

Closely related posts: Promising new features in memoQ 2013 R2

Promising new features in memoQ 2013 R2

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 10:46:29 +0200

MemoQ (pronounced "memo kyu") is a CAT tool that has become very popular among translators, partly because it offers a lot of convenient features and is relatively easy to use; beginners can learn how to set up a project and translate and export texts with the tool in just 1-2 hours. Plus it can process a wide range of file formats smoothly, including Trados 2007's bilingual RTF and SDL Trados Studio 2009/2011 files in XLIFF format. Last but not least, I personally think it's good value for money, especially if you buy it as part of a promotion or group purchase!

A new version of memoQ called memoQ 2013 was released at the end of May and includes lots of enhancements and several new features, including an integrated online dictionary search facility that you can configure yourself using as many of your favourite Web resources as you like. (This is in addition to the Eurotermbank plug-in that memoQ comes with.)

Release 2 of memoQ 2013 is now just about to be launched, and this promises to be a great leap forward in terms of user convenience. For one thing, it has a feature called monolingual review that translators will love! It saves you a great deal of time updating translation memories (TM) when a customer or reviewer sends you the final version of a translation you've done. In most CAT tools, updating a TM to include the latest changes is a laborious manual process, but memoQ 2013 R2 has automated the step for Word® and other documents, employing a re-alignment procedure to update the segments stored in your TM.

Fig. 1: When you import the final version, memoQ opens an alignment window. The green lines mark the segments that have been changed.

Another enhancement is the ability to import term bases straight from SDL's terminology tool MultiTerm®. This is useful if a customer sends you a document to translate using specific terms they work with and have stored in that format. More specifically, memoQ 2013 now enables you to import MultiTerm XML or TBX files, extract the terms and include them in a term base of its own, which you select yourself. This gives you faster leverage of the customer's resources.

Fig. 2: To import a MultiTerm XML file (term base), click on "Import terminology" and then select the format.

There are a number of other improvements as well, some of which concern the DOCX filter for importing and exporting Word® documents. Exporting comments made in memoQ along with a translation has now been implemented. (This has been possible in other CAT tools such as Déjà Vu X and X2 for ages, but not in memoQ, and saves you a lot of time inserting comments into your translation manually after exporting it.)

But to find out more about it, why not attend Kilgray's introductory webinar on the new release? It's going to be held from 5-6 pm CET (4-5 pm GMT) on Monday 28 October. It's free – all you have to do is register in advance. Click here to go to the registration page.

Have fun trying out the program! (You'll be able to download it shortly and can try it out for free for 45 days.)

Best,

Carl

memoQ logo: courtesy of Kilgray Translation Technologies; screen shots: my own.

P.S. (written on 13 Nov. 2013) A free recording of the webinar is now available on the internet – click here to access it.