memoQ 4: Interview with István Lengyel

I have been trying to diversify the topics we cover on LocLoc; and especially the tools we talk about. It started recently with a QA tool and now continues with a CAT tool. I already know from the survey I’ve had on this page, that a lot of you are familiar with Kilgray’s memoQ. This, is a preview of what to expect from the forthcoming memoQ4, from the mouth of Kilgray’s COO, István Lengyel.

[Nick Peris] Hi István, could you introduce Kilgray and your role within the company?

[István Lengyel] Hi Nick! Thanks for inviting me to do this interview. Kilgray Translation Technologies is an independent company dedicated to the development of clean and innovative tools for translation, but so far we are by far the best known for our memoQ translation environment. Though we are based in Hungary and all the founders are Hungarians, we became quite an international team in the last two years, opening up in Germany, Poland and now in the US. It’s really great to work in this team, as we have people coming from all sorts of companies such as Idiom, Passolo, SDL Trados, etc., and every addition to the team opens up new perspectives and shows new approaches – the company culture builds on respect and cooperation.

I am one of the architects of memoQ and also the chief operating officer at Kilgray, though in reality I’m mostly managing our sales and marketing team and our international expansion.

[Nick] Could you give a general overview of what memoQ is for readers who are not familiar with it?

[István] memoQ is an integrated translation environment that has a couple of focal points. First, it is easy to use, easy to learn. Second, we translate a lot in it and manage memoQ’s localization in memoQ itself, so we developed an eye for details – there are lots of smaller features that really make life easier. Third, from the very beginning we were concentrating on collaboration, and even the first version included an internet-enabled TM/TB server. Fourth, we don’t believe that we should lock in any of our customers – the entire system supports interoperability between tools to the maximum extent, meaning that you can process files prepared by virtually any major translation tool, and you can also prepare files for processing in other tools. There’s also a full set of documented APIs available for integration with other tools. Fifth, leverage, which means that we are trying to make the most of your resources. There were a couple of things where memoQ pioneered: we were the first to introduce real-time previews that change as you type, we were the first to introduce communication such as knowledge bases and instant messaging and offline synchronization into a translation memory server, we were the first to introduce the translation memory-based segmentation where pre-translation emulates the way your translators join and split segments, and we were the first to introduce the automated concordancing. But quite frankly, we are just as happy to take over things that work from other tools as we are to introduce new stuff.

[Nick] I know you are preparing to release a new version; could you give us a release date for memoQ 4?

[István] A few days ago we named January 31, 2010 for the release date, but I was reminded that it’s a weekend. So the first week of February. (Well, who cares about weekends? :))

[Nick] What are the main changes from memoQ 3.5 and main reasons to upgrade?

[István] There are so many changes that I can hardly list them! memoQ 4 is the first memoQ version that really focuses on project management. We like to build bottom-up and believe that an organization will only have a good experience deploying a tool if the translators like it, and we spent the last five years making the translators happy. So let’s start with the revolutionary feature: post-translation statistics. Imagine a situation where several people are working on the same set of similar documents, using a server-based translation memory. There can be a lot of fuzzy matches coming from the other translator’s translated entries, but so far there was no way in any tool to enumerate these matches, because the person who starts working later gets more matches than the person who is the first to start. memoQ 4.0’s post-translation statistics will solve this Gordian knot, and give you the actual fuzzy match analysis for every translator after the project. This way finally there is a business model for server-based translation.

Other than this, the biggest change is that we have upgraded the concept of translation memory servers to the concept of resource servers. So far you could share translation memories, term bases and documents between translators, and you could set up projects for them centrally. In the new version, you can share every other resource such as auto-translatables (for people used to Trados lingo: customizable placeables), non-translatables, segmentation rules, QA settings, keyboard shortcut settings, ignore lists for the spell checker and so on – 12 of them, all together. What’s more, sharing this happens in the background so you can start the publication of a big TM on the server and go on managing other projects in the meantime. These resources can all be exported into an XML-based format so clever project managers can prepare them also automatically.

memoQ 4 also brings finally the concept of multilingual projects. You can create handoff packages and receive delivery packages, or you can simply publish a project on the server. Those who receive the handoff package can in turn create new handoff packages (handy for a multi-tier enterprise-MLV-SLV-translator setup), and through delivery the files and reports are updated automatically. The handoff packages are just zipped containers of open-source format data – XLIFF for documents, TMX for TMs and CSV for terminology. You can process the packages in any tool, so the users are not locked in.

Compared to these improvements, the brand new text editor, the completely revamped user interface and the streamlined quality assurance seem small. Even the previous version of memoQ got quite a lot of credits for its good support of bidirectional and CCJK languages, memoQ 4 takes this further and also introduces support for Indic languages. We are introducing a very advanced multi-tier undo/redo logic, real-time spell checking and other minor improvements. The quality assurance checks have also been dramatically improved and also the interface for fixing warnings has been fine-tuned.

And I failed to mention so many things! memoQ 4 is the single biggest upgrade memoQ ever received.

[Nick] For non-memoQ users, could you give us the main reasons to switch to memoQ 4?

[István] Because other people do and they are happy about it! 🙂 Just like every company, we make mistakes at times but there has not been any single case that anybody asked for a refund. Seriously, I think the main reasons to switch to memoQ are collaboration, interoperability and support. memoQ is a truly collaborative application, it is one of the few tools that enable simultaneous translation and proofreading on the same document, complete configuration of projects for your translators, or using several translation memories or term bases that can be local, remote — they can even be on different servers — or offline synchronized. The server is fast even on a HSDPA connection and it’s also very affordable – no wonder we have over 150 servers out there.

The other important aspect is interoperability. Our main market is language service providers, and an LSP can never say that they use only a single tool, period, otherwise they lose business and what’s more, they can also lose translators. With memoQ you can process documents and packages created by other tools, and you can prepare packages in industry-standard formats for other tools too. Therefore you don’t find yourself in a situation that you bought the tool because you liked it and then you have to fight with everyone around you to make it accepted.

And the third most important aspect is support. I think Kilgray’s support is just great – fast, focused and friendly.

[Nick] What is the pricing structure for memoQ 4?
What are the different Editions of memoQ 4?

[István] memoQ 4 comes in three client editions: translator standard, translator pro and project manager.

memoQ translator standard is for those translators who never work in teams. It does not enable access to servers and does not enable export of files into XLIFF or bilingual DOC, only memoQ’s proprietary MBD format. It also lacks the ContexTM (101%) matching which takes the context also into account, and comes without support. But the price tag is attractive: 99 euros a year.

The memoQ translator pro is the edition for professional translators and very small translation companies who don’t want to invest into a server solution. It costs 620 euros.

The memoQ project management edition comes with multilingual project management and reporting functionality and we charge around a thousand euros for that.

When it comes to server technology, we sell our solution with mobile (ELM or floating) licenses, meaning that companies can give away and take back licenses to translators over the internet. The initial package contains five mobile licenses, and we sell additional bundles of five licenses at very competitive prices. When it comes to servers, we prefer not to sell without a trial period of 30 days – we want everybody to use the tool, not just buy it for the drawer.

[Nick] How did you take into consideration user feedback during the development of memoQ 4?

[István] Oh I could name the people who contributed with their user feedback here! I think it’s worth mentioning how we work. Basically there are four people who decide on what gets into the next release, and every release has a theme. These themes are contained in our 5-year roadmap and we regularly come together for things that we call “walk in the woods”‘ – creative sessions outside the office where we discuss the main ideas and concepts. We personally talk a lot with users and try to learn the rationale behind their feature requests. These talks shape the main themes/features a lot. On top of that, we have a system to archive all the threads on feature requests, and we go through these regularly. I could give you a rather precise list of features for the next three versions!

So basically the user feedback is taken into consideration on two levels: when we realize that a business problem is hard to solve with memoQ, we incorporate the solution into the high-level concepts. The other level is the feature level where for example users request amendments to file filters or suggest small usability improvements. If these are justified, these can go straight into the feature overview.

[Nick] How is Terminology Management undertaken in memoQ 4? What are the Termbase formats supported?

[István] Terminology management is one of the most controversial components in memoQ! So far we only support CSV and – surprise-surprise – TMX as import formats and can also export into Multiterm XML. Why TMX? Just think about software localization and then the help and you’ll understand. With memoQ we decided that this is a translation tool and not a terminology application, and therefore we gave a finite set of attributes but something that is pretty comprehensive: you can have synonyms, definitions, notes, grammatical information, contexts, project, domain, subject, client information, and a few other fields. You can also have images in the term base, and forbidden term variants can also be flagged. From the workflow point of view, memoQ has had a term base moderation feature since v2.0 in 2006, which means that terminologists may need to approve all terms suggested by translators before they become final. Terminology matching is really exciting: you can use wildcards to indicate the end of the invariable part of every word in a term, i.e. for a language like Spanish you can enter cinturón* de seguridad and that will also find cinturónes de seguridad. For translators of Slavic languages this is really crucial (fuzzy matching does not always work for terms). I can list quite a few pros for memoQ’s terminology management but I must say that it’s a very practical approach. However, we understand that corporate terminology management is not a subset of translation, and terminologists may need some more freedom.

Expect that freedom in a third-party tool based on the memoQ engine soon.

[Nick] Is there anything specific to memoQ in the way Translation Memories are created and maintained?

[István] Translation memories are by default context-enabled in memoQ, and memoQ supports two kinds of contexts: the segment before and after and context bound to structural information. This latter means that if you have for example the software strings in an XML or Excel file, with an attribute indicating where the text appears, you will get a 101% match if the attribute is the same to the attribute where you originally entered this translation – this way you can shuffle the translatable strings and still keep the context information. If you speak the Idiom lingo, this is very similar to ICE and SPICE matching.

As for maintenance, there are a couple of things that are quite unique. First, a 100% or 101% match for us is only a match that is identical both in content and formatting to the original. But we have a special bracket, 95-99% that contains segments where numbers, formatting, whitespaces, punctuation marks can be different. Any change in the text results in something lower than that. You can join and split segments wherever you want, and when you get an update to the document, the TM-driven segmentation will automatically join and split the segments according to your previous translation, as it looks into the translation memory for better matches through joining and splitting. During pre-translation, cases where you get multiple 100% matches (because you translated the segment differently in two contexts, and this third context is unknown so far) are flagged and they are very easy to locate. All these features fall under the umbrella term we use for design: “reproducibility”. I think it’s also worth mentioning that memoQ has a built-in TM editor and can work with as many TMs at a time as you wish. Oh, and yes, a minor nuance, just to make things elegant and please those who are really tech-savvy: our support for TMX also covers attributes, so if you import a TMX file coming from another tool that has attributes, even if the TMX attributes there cannot be displayed in memoQ, you can expect that the TMX export from memoQ will preserve and contain them – so memoQ does not swallow the information that it cannot process.

[Nick] Is there any new feature in memoQ 4 you are particularly fond or proud off? Maybe some anecdote about features which took you a lot of efforts to achieve and which you are now very happy to bring to memoQ 4 users?

[István] Well, I’m a person who prefers the big picture to the small details, and for me the biggest achievement – and a big praise goes to Gábor Ugray, our head of development who designed these features – is that the tool did not get more complicated for translators according to the feedback of those users whom we showed the system. We always pay a lot of attention to the user interface, but when we started conceptualizing memoQ 4 about two years ago, keeping its simplicity seemed like a daunting task. The visual marker of the entire resource management and multilingual project management feature is now just two drop-down lists: the server selector and the language selector. And I am of course proud of the fact that the resource concept makes the entire system future-proof – no matter what sort of a linguistic resource comes into existence in the next years, we’ve got a place for it, and savvy users are also welcome to write third-party resource managers.

[Nick] We are seeing a merging trend where tools are less specific to either software or documentation. This is partly due to the content types evolution, and partly to an effort by tool developers to become more all encompassing. How does memoQ fit into this? How is your support for software localisation? Also xml and xliff?

[István] I saw this very much in 2005 when we started off but I don’t see it that much anymore. About a year ago or so we implemented visual localization support for RESX files and quite a few users are using it, but we have no plans to implement visual localization for other formats such as RC or binary files. On the other hand there are quite a few considerations in memoQ that make it a very good tool for localizing Help content. I already mentioned the TMX import into the term base and the support for context based on another column in the Excel file or an attribute in the XML file, I’d like to mention the automated concordancing feature that was inspired by one of our translation jobs – in our earlier lives as translators – where TM management (another issue I could talk about for hours) was virtually non-existent. I don’t want to name the end-client and the LSP we got this from (they are both very reputable and well-known in localization), but basically to translate the help of version 8 of a well-known application we only got a TM that contained version 2 to 7 of the same application. No terminology, no localized software strings for version 8, nothing. We spent hours to find out what screen caption has been translated before and what expressions did we have to coin, because – as it is with software – quite a few of them were 8-10 words long, and of course developers make changes to these every now and then, changing one or two words maximum, adding a few words to the end, etc. The automated concordance automates this manual process: it automatically gives you the longest multiword expressions that appear at least a given number of times in the translation memory. It does not give you the translation in most cases, but if you select it, it opens the concordance window with the right expressions. And yes, the concordance can look for a series of words. So basically we don’t want to take away business from the excellent software localization tools, but we definitely want to be the best technology for translating help and manuals.

[Nick] Do memoQ and Kilgray offer workflow technology allowing supplier and clients in the localisation chain to work together online?

[István] Our workflow is a linguistic one, and not a highly structured one. We coined two terms. For us, horizontal workflow means when people work together on the same task. Vertical workflow is the traditional workflow, passing along the files between different people doing different jobs. memoQ is excellent in helping people work together on the same task and has a lot of workflow tools such as moderated term bases, simultaneous translation and proofreading, different forms of review, communication and knowledge bases, etc. From the point of view of traditional workflows, we only cover translation and review – items that happen within the tool. There’s no way to integrate things like source text review, DTP or settlements into memoQ. However, the extensive set of APIs enable integration with workflow tools, and at this point I have to mention that both Beetext Flow and Plunet Business Manager do a great job when it comes to deep integration. They can both take care of the entire process, and generate and maintain the projects automatically in memoQ. One of the things we are putting a lot of emphasis on nowadays is client review. I think memoQ is one of the best tools for this, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

[Nick] Could you say a few words about the memoQ support network? How can new users avail of the experience of other users and if necessary receive support from Kilgray directly?

[István] Here are a couple of interesting resources: http://rc.kilgray.com – the Resource Center that contains training videos, guides, filter configurations for XML-based file formats, but also interesting articles on general topics such as TM management, technology purchase pitfalls, etc. for people and companies not using memoQ.

The memoQ Yahoo! Group (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MemoQ/) offers the expertise of other users but we also contribute often, and hey, you have the best experts of the competition also there and they often contribute too.

There is a memoQ wikibook too, and the forums on proz.com and other sites can also be interesting.

If direct support is required, it’s primarily through our support email address – please don’t publish the address directly on your website, we don’t want more spam there, but it’s at kilgray.com.

[Nick] Is it too early to ask you about roadmap? What are you plans for memoQ?

[István] It’s not too early at all, but I’m afraid I can’t tell much about the big improvements at this point. One thing is for sure – after 4.0, we will relax a bit and iron out any rough edges that may have remained in this brand new tool. One of the things that many users asked for and will be there in 4.1 (or whatever the final version number will be) is the bilingual DOC table format for review with comments. But one thing is for sure, you can expect another major version with a huge new resource in 2010.

[Nick] This has been a very informative interview. I thank you for your time and detailed answers and look forward to reviewing memoQ4 in the new year!

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QA Distiller 7: Sanity Checks on Steroids

QA Distiller is a great quality control tool I came across when I was working on the Marketing project I already mentioned in an article about XML in Localisation.
Developed and distributed by Yagamata Europe, this tool has a lot to offer to client-side engineers, multilingual vendors and freelancers alike. In fact I was even using it to enforce proper and consistent use of Terminology in source marketing content, before sending for localisation.

With the impending release of version 7 at the end of this month, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to talk about it on Loc Loc. The purpose of QA Distiller is to batch process quality checks on bilingual files. Essentially, it performs similar tasks to the QA Checker in Trados‘s TagEditor, but with some major differences.

The benefits

Multiple file processing: QA Distiller allows you to run a highly customizable list of checks on batches of files. There is no need to open of each individual TTX file, or run the QA Checker successively on each one. Just select the files to process, the settings to apply and run the tool to output a comprehensive report for your follow-up. This is a great way to control and enforce consistency across entire handoffs or projects. Translation quality, Terminology consistency etc. are simultaneously audited across all the files selected.

Multi-lingual processing: better yet, this can also be done across all languages at once, which is particularly powerful for controlling Do Not Translate instructions have been adhered to, for example.

Interactive reporting: the report output is another great selling point. It rates and classifies errors and lets you update it as you review and fix or discard candidate errors. It can be exported to a variety of formats where source, target and error details are summarised and categorised. This is very helpful to communicate with vendors on queries, as well as measure the quality od deliveries. Finally, the report has hyperlinks not only to the file, but to the actual segment where the potential error was detected. This makes the implementation of fixes really quick and easy. No more peeling your eyes out to find typos or endless finger-cramping Ctr+F session. If there is an error, QA Distiller will get you right there!

Software stability: my experience (version 6 in Windows XP) has shown very solid performance and compatibility, and certainly far less crashes than SDL’s QA Checker.

Some rare shortcomings

One of the limitations I found in the current version was that the Translation Consistency check did not work when running QA Distiller across several languages. Instead of reading the language code of each file and filtering the comparison, it reported the fact that translations differed from one language to the next. Not particularly helpful.

Secondly, although the pricing structure offers good choice, the full version seems a bit steep at €1000, especially since it also requires Trados to function on TTX files.

Additionnal Technical Information

QA Distiller supports all languages, and a variety of file formats: TRADOStag documents (TTX), FrameMaker RTF (STF), Translation Memory eXchange (TMX).
Terminology can be checked against proprietary-format dictionnaries (DICT) or the industry-standard Term Base eXchange (TBX).

The upcoming version 7 introduces:

• Tag and ID-aware terminology checks
• New Wrench icon funcitonnalities: batch correction of multiple quotation mark and number formatting
• Fine-grained ignore option for improved noise filtering
• Tag and case-independent consistency check
• Full support for Georgian, Malay (Rumi and Jawi), Serbian (Latin and Cyrillic)

The little green man also told me that there are plans to add support for the many different XLIFF flavours like SDL XLIFF, MemoQ XLIFF, WorldServer XLIFF by the first quarter of next year.

For more details, check the cool demo at http://www.qa-distiller.com/movie/‏

SDL @ Guinness: Trados Studio 2009 Q&A

The SDL Roadshow was in Dublin yesterday.

The “cream” of Ireland’s Localisation community was treated to a big day of product demos and slideshows at the home of the black stuff: the Guinness Storehouse.

As I made my way through Guinness town under a refreshing morning drizzle, I wondered for a minute how the pungent aromas of the early brewing activity would agree with the power breakfast I had had not so long ago.

This was soon to be forgotten however, thanks to a flying start to the proceedings provided by SDL’s Internal Training Manager, Tracey Byrne. Her performance was followed by a few other SDL presentations, as well as a case study on TMS by LSP partner VistaTEC. By the time we reached the Gravity Bar (it must have been 17:59) for some last minute networking opportunities, I think it’s safe to say we were all satisfied by a great event and a fine venue.

There was a lot of information provided throughout the course of the day and I will be releasing separate articles on SDL Passolo 2009 and SDL MultiTerm 2009 soon. What follows below is more directly related to SDL Trados Studio 2009, and what is new or adds to my Preview article. I’m presenting it in a Q&A structure which I hope will be practical to anyone looking for information on specific features, and an easy read for anyone wishing to go through it all. Sláinte!

What is the release date for SDL Trados Suite 2009?

The development cycle has reached Release Candidate stage and SDL are working towards an end of June release target.

Have the development team taken user feedback into account?

Yes, 80 ideas for Trados and 16 for MultiTerm are a reflection of user suggestions on ideas.sdltrados.com

Are TagEditor and Workbench gone?

Yes, Trados Studio combines aspects of SDLX and Trados into a fully integrated User Interface. Even MultiTerm, which still installs separately even though it is bundled with Trados Studio, now offers full functionality from within the Studio UI. SDLX, Workbench and TagEditor simply do not exist anymore.

What are the system requirements?

Here’s what SDL Marketing are saying on the subject of System Requirements:

“SDL Trados Studio supports Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista. As minimum requirements, we recommend a Pentium IV-based computer with 1 GB RAM and a screen resolution of 1280×1024. For optimum performance, we recommend 2 GB RAM and a more recent Pentium or compatible processor with a higher screen resolution.”

Please note that this is still subject to change until closer to the launch in June.

What is RevleX™?

It is a new XML-based TM engine. SDL Trados Studio 2009 uses new file formats for bilingual files (.sdlxliff), translation memories (.sdltm) and termbases (.sdltb). It brings together a slew of new features such as Context Matches, AutoPropagation, AutoSuggest™, Multiple TM support etc.

How does AutoSuggest work?

AutoSuggest is an inline predictive text-like feature which provides suggestion from TM, Termbase or dictionaries as you type. Suggestions appear in a context menu, with an icon clearly indicating whether they come from the TM or Termbase etc.The user can customize the maximum number of entries offered. Suggestions start appearing from the first letter typed and keep updating until you select one or finish typing the word.

Can you turn AutoSuggest off?

I’ve also heard this question about Alchemy Catalyst 8.0‘s ezType™. Perhaps from the same person?. The answer is Yes (in both cases), but developers have spent brain cells trying to make these features work in a non-intrusive yet efficient manner so you should probably give it a fair go!

Are Multi-lingual XML files supported?

Bilingual xliff will be supported but there seems to be a question mark on multi-lingual, and SDL said they’d follow-up with me once it’s clarified.

What are the improvements to format filters?

Main progress has been with PDF, XML, FrameMaker and inDesign.

How does the Upgrade TM functionality work?

Trados Studio will convert your old TM into the new format. In the current implementation this requires for the version used to create these TMs to also be present on the same machine. The alternative is to extract the TM on the machine that has the old version and import the content back into a Trados 2009 TM. I was also told that this may yet change and they may be able to include the components of the old version required for TM conversion in Studio 2009. Watch this space!

How is navigating big files in Trados Studio ‘s Editor improved compared to TagEditor or even Trados-aided Word?

The left panel in UI lists the headers and lets you click them to jump to a particular area in the document.

How does the Editor’s Real-Time preview work?

You need to manually generate the preview once. It uses a built-in stylesheet to simulate the end-result. This does not work on DTP file formats.

Can I lock segments in the Editor?

Yes. Context Matches (CM) are locked by default, but the PM can also manually lock other segments.

How is XLIFF supported?

Standard XLIFF are directly supported. The new default format for Trados bilingual files is .sdlxliff which is a proprietary format developed from XLIFF with additional functionality relating to RevleX™

How does QuickPlace work?

To apply formatting, highlight the word or group of words in the target segment, press CTRL + comma. Choose the required formatting from the inline dropdown list. If there is more than one to apply in a segment, QuickPlace will try to guess which is most likely required and offer it at the top of the list. Alternatively you can also hold CTRL, highlight the formatted text in the source segment, and then highlight the text to be formatted in the target segment. Similar applies to Placeables such as figures, measurements etc.

Is there Real-Time verification in the Editor?

Yes. If an error is detected, an icon will appear in the notification area between the source and target segments. The error message can be viewed in the tooltip of this icon or in a dedicated message panel. In case of False positive, simply remove the warning.

Does Trados Studio 2009 support TTX files?

Yes for editing, no for creating.

Is cross-files AutoPropagate available?

No, not in the first release. But there is a workaround: Merge all project files into one.  Cross-file repetitions are also taken into account when creating a package if the “Recompute” option is selected.

Does the Merge feature support all file types?

Yes files of different formats can be merged together. Once merged they can still be viewed and worked on relatively independently.

What is new with Term recognition?

The Editor allows direct access to full MultiTerm functionality. Terms can be cross-reference by ID so if a term is edited, any other term previously linking to it for definition remains linked.

What is the workflow in a scenario where not all participant to a project have upgraded to Trados Studio 2009?

If the Project Manager has upgraded the translators, reviewers etc will have to upgrade in order to use the TMs, to open the bilingual files or use the Termbase. The Project Manager will be able to work with Trados 2007 files (creates a .ttx.sdlxliff) but not create them.

The only alternative is to provide TMX translation memories and not to pre-translate the deliverables.

Can the PM upload project packages through FTP using the Project panel in Trados Studio?

No. Project packages can only be email through Outlook. This is however optional, and FTP can always be done manually once Trados Studio has created said packages.

Can you import customer details?

Yes but only from Outlook.

Can multiple TMs be used in a project?

Yes multiple TMs and Termbases are supported. A priority order between TMs can be set and there is also an option to “Always use the best match”.

What’s new with fuzzy matches?

The fuzzy band values and their number are now fully customizable.

What reference material can be included into a package?

Package can contain global TM settings, Termbases, AutoSuggest dictionaries etc.

Does Perfect Match still exist?

No, it is replaced with Context Match (CM) but may be added back in a later release.

What does Create Package do?

• creates a folder structure
• creates a package per target language if the option is selected
• lets the user define tasks for individual packages
• recomputes wordcount or analysis for cross-file repetitions.

Are files locked for updates while packages are out for translation?

No. It would be a good suggestion for ideas.sdltrados.com, to mirror a functionality in SDL Passolo 2009.

What is the LSP partner program?

52 Language Service Providers have entered various levels of partnership with SDL. The objective is to create value for translation buyers, help LSP’s become experts at translation technology, and promote training and support.

When will training for Trados Studio 2009 be available?

Training for SDL Passolo 2009 is available now. Courses (including upgrade courses) for Trados Studio 2009 will be available at launch. There will be a split between a Translators and a PM path. There will also be a separate SDL MultiTerm 2009 course.

When will certification exams for Trados Studio 2009 be available?

End of September 2009.

Which training and certification path will be on offer?

For Translators:

• Getting Started
• Intermediate
• Advanced
• MultiTerm

For Project Managers:

• SDL Trados Studio 2009 for Project Managers
• SDL MultiTerm 2009 for Project Managers

Alchemy Catalyst 8.0: Official Launch

On Friday, May 1st 2009, Alchemy Software Development officially launched a new iteration of their visual localisation tool and flag-ship product: Catalyst 8.0.

The event was held in Dublin (Ireland)’s Alexander Hotel, minutes away from Alchemy’s HQ. On offer were a feature highlights demo by Director of Engineering and Chief Architect Enda McDonnell, an informal meet-the-developers opportunity and client case studies by representatives of Citrix, Creative and Symantec.

This article reports and comments on some of what was said and shown.

A Total Visual Localization™ solution

Created mostly as a software localisation tool, Catalyst has now clearly outgrown this limiting description. The trademark visual editing capabilities now cover most aspects of localised content publishing:

• Help
• Web sites
• Software applications

Reaching out to translators

But Catalyst is sometimes still seen as an engineer’s tool. Alchemy are aware of this and have been listening to feedback from professional translators. The result is a translating environment which undeniably seems more linguist-friendly. There is a convergence with the interactive translation environment in Trados, which is only a part of a general strategy to increase translators productivity by lowering the time needed to get accustomed to various tools.

• Translator tool bar:
  • live validation: flagged with non-intrusive warning symbols
  • keywords: locking and validation for in-segment non translatables
  • internal tag management
  • multiple matches displayed
• Switch to the industry-standard terminology exchange format (TBX)
• Supplementary Glossary for translators to populate their own reference material
• Unlimited number of TM’s and web-based Machine Translation (MT) service ensure there is always a match

Changes to ezParse

In order to keep up with the long-served ambition of providing support for the latest file formats, changes have been made to Catalyst’s parsing tool.

• WPF (baml): full compatibility including visual editing of WPF forms and parsing out of.NET 3.0 objects
• Conditional XML: can now set the value of an element (or one of its attributes) to be localisable only if the value of another of its attributes indicates it should be treated as such (similar to functionality added to the settings file in Trados 2007).
  
• Multilingual XML: supported by reading the source segment in one element but storing the translation entered into another. While this is a very up-to-date feature, there seems to be some limitations in term of process. The translators will only deal with one language pair, so post-translation engineering will involve leveraging from multiple partially translated TTK’s back into the “Master” TTK before a fully multilingual file can be extracted. This should however be made easier by the updates made to Experts such as Leverage.

Updates to the Experts

• Programmable API’s (Com and Event) are provided to encourage client-developed automation. This was a strong theme across both the Alchemy presentation and most of the guest speakers’. It has been a feature of Catalyst for some time but is now emerging as the area where Catalyst gets ahead of the CAT pack.
• Multiple TTK’s, multiple languages and multiple TM’s to leverage from, all at once: this sounds like great news and is the feature I personally look forward to the most.
• Target folders can be set and original TTK’s preserved (necessary to achieve previous point).
• Leverage algorithm improved to search for 100% match in all TM’s provided before searching for fuzzy matches.

Cutting-edge Technology

• Improved navigation: thumbnails for Forms, Dialogs, WPF, HTML, graphics…are the latest addition to the visual features.
• Improved validation: live and programmable (API). Catalyst 8.0 comes with an updated list of validation tests and also offers the ability to create your own: custom .NET objects can be called by Catalyst during Validation but also file insertion, extraction etc.
• Underlying technology upgrades make Catalyst future-ready: compiler upgraded to Visual Studio 8 which is relevant both to Windows 7 compatibility and a future 64-bit Catalyst)

Screen caps courtesy of Alchemy

XML in Localisation: What can it really do for us?

Have you ever wondered how xml could possibly be relevant to our needs? Localising xml files is pretty much straight forward. But what of using XML to localise?

As localisation professionals we’ve all known about XML for quite some time now. We understand that as a Markup Language, it is closely related to HTML. We also know that it is Extensible, meaning that the tags and structure are user-specific. This gives us the picture of a very powerful and flexible language.

But I’m sure we also all have come across an xml-based document (a “.xml file”), which we have launched in our favorite browser, only to be treated to a pretty unattractive page of…XML code!

So what can that powerful and yet somewhat undefinable animal really do for us?

This article shows a practical example of xml technology applied to a specific localisation process. In doing so, it also illustrates some of the advantages of having a dedicated Localisation Team or Department, rather than allowing various departments in an organisation to manage their own localisation. In this case, a simple handover of responsibilities from a Marketing team to a Localisation team generated a major leap forward in process, efficiency and quality control. Here is how:

Original setup

In this organisation, the process for creating and localising marketing and web content was the following:

• 1 master document – the product sheet – was created for each new product released.
• The product sheet was localised into 13 languages.
• Relevant  sections were pasted individually into the website for each language.
• Relevant sections were also pasted individually into a printable version which was converted to PDF again for each language.
• The localised doc files were also circulated.

There were 2 major issues with this:

1. Copying and pasting made the process extremely time consuming and error prone.
2. No translation memory system was used, making leveraging impossible and quality control of the localised content solely reliant on proof readers.

Solution implemented

The Localisation team was handed over the responsibility of localising this content mainly to free-up Marketing resources. Rather than simply taking over, they identified opportunities for improvement and initiated an R&D effort in xml Single Source Publishing. The goal now was to automate as much of the process as possible, and free-up time within the agreed standard turnaround for systematic quality control.

The new process ended up as follows:

• Product sheet created in xml by the authors, using the free WYSIWYG XML authoring tool Altova Authentic®.
• The xml schema was designed to be compatible with the web content management system used to create localised product pages.
• A Trados ini file was created to parse out all non-localisable content in the xml code.
• XSL Transformation and Apache FOP were used to automatically generate all localised XML, HTML, RTF and PDF copies after post-translation processing in Trados.
• A VB Developer created a tool to manage all Altova StyleVision®-based automation from one single UI.

Result

• Upload of complete xml product sheets to the website for each language rather than copying and pasting independent fields (unfortunately batch upload was not permitted by the web content management system).
• Internet team saved 75% on the time required for localised product webpages to go live.
• Other content types were all published simultaneously.
• Use of Translation Memories and pro-active Terminology Management cut cost and increased consistency.
• Thorough Quality Checks were also processed in batch using QA Distiller™ which helped catch multiple terminology and value errors before publication.

The key to the success of this new setup, apart from choosing to use XML, was the ability to revise the process from beginning to end. Because the Localisation team were allowed to have a say in the authoring process, efficiencies were generated on the whole span of the Marketing and Web content creation and XML Single Source Publishing was successfully implemented.