| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Trados vs OmegaT Thread poster: Eyob Fitwi
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Jerzy Czopik 
Germany
Local time: 23:11
Member (2003)
Polish to German
+ ...
| There is no best tool (and never will be IMHO) | Sep 6, 2010 |
TvNellen wrote:
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However, if your customers want Trados and nothing else, it's probably best to buy Trados, even if it's not the best tool on the market. Compatibility issues can usually be solved, but this often requires complicated workarounds, and solutions may not work in all cases.
In case the customer wants Trados then it is simply the best tool, because you have less work than with other tools. However if you are able to do some CAT hoping as you have enough experience in that, another tool of your choice will be then the best one, but in most cases you will need Trados for preprocessing and postprocessing files.
Because of so many personal habits, needs and expectations there cannot simply be the best tool anywhere. Exactly as iPhone 4G is not the best mobile phone or Apple the best possible computer.
| | | | TvNellen (X)
United States
Local time: 16:11
English to Dutch
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I know you're a fan of Trados, Jerzy. I am not, but I will not get into the reasons here because this is hardly the right thread for that. The cons of Trados have been discussed and continue to be discussed in other threads.
| | | | Eyob Fitwi
Ethiopia
Local time: 00:11
English to Amharic
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TOPIC STARTER | lots of good info | Sep 7, 2010 |
Thank you all for the useful info and tips you've been giving me.
Actually, I am in no hurry now to take up any CAT tools right now as most of the translations I currently undertake is in the 'traditional' way. I am asking you this because 1st, I intend to use the technology to make myself more efficient and 2nd, I want to prepare myself in advance before I'm ready to take up Trados-requiring or other similar projects (It looks like there is a lot of technical elements of a CAT too... See more Thank you all for the useful info and tips you've been giving me.
Actually, I am in no hurry now to take up any CAT tools right now as most of the translations I currently undertake is in the 'traditional' way. I am asking you this because 1st, I intend to use the technology to make myself more efficient and 2nd, I want to prepare myself in advance before I'm ready to take up Trados-requiring or other similar projects (It looks like there is a lot of technical elements of a CAT tool that I have to get well-familiarized with).
So don't worry about me taking any Trados-requiring project before I'm ready for it, cause I won't. I intend to practice well. The other reason I want to use OmegaT is first, as mentioned earlier, because its free (of course, duh) and second, I am a fan of open source software.
Piotr Bienkowski wrote: Jerzy Czopik wrote:
between tools. Please do not always believe, that what is stated to be compatible will deliver the same result as the product for which it is the "compatible" replacement.
Piotr is fully right, TMX will be read by nearly all if not all CAT tools on the market.
So you can "pretend" to be compatible in delivering translated monolingual files and a TMX export of your translation memory. However, when the customer then imports that in his system and makes an analysis it is really very likely, that he will not get all 100% matches - it may even happen he will not get any 100% matches at all! This will certainly depend on the source format. But the segmentation differs between the tools greatly. Also tag handling differs. So if you wish to stay "fully" compatible you need both the original tool for preprocessing and postprocessing and the compatible tool for translating.
This is of course possible, but you need experience in CAT technology. I would strongly advise against doing so, if you are a beginner! Jerzy is right about possible differences in leverage (the quality of matches you get from your TM) between various CAT tools. But I can understand why the topic poster wants to try OmegaT. It is free and even a discounted Trados price can be prohibitive for a beginner. I started with a free CAT too, namely Wordfast, which was free at that time. If your client provides and expects TagEditor TTX files, then there are (free) tools which will convert them to OmegaT format (XLF) and back. If your client provides you with Word files and expects Word files with workbench segments then you will have to use Wordfast without a license, which supports a TM of up to 500 units, well unless you buy a different CAT tool which supports both of these formats and there is more than one such CAT tool on the market. Regards, Piotr
The potential slight but noticeable mismatch you guys mentioned is an eye-opener, but I am interested in Piotr's suggestion of using converters. How effective is it? I don't mind tinkering with computers to solve any potential problems (I like playing with computers, as long as it doesn't render me inefficient ). I also know about some of the formatting incompatilities between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office.
Also, I would appreciate any tips on how acceptable it is to negotiate with potential clients about requiring their flexibility so that I can use a CAT tool other than Trados (from what I've been reading, I don't think Trados is something I'm going to end up happy with).
Once again, the tips ur giving help a lot. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:11
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Piotr Bienkowski wrote:
If your client provides and expects TagEditor TTX files, then there are (free) tools which will convert them to OmegaT format (XLF) and back.
OmegaT can translate some very specific types of XLF files, but XLF is not the OmegaT format.
If your client provides you with Word files and expects Word files with workbench segments then...
I have only ever once or twice had a client who specified that I'm not allowed to use segmentation that is different from the default segmentation in Trados 2007. None of my other Trados clients specify that I should use Trados 2007's default segmentation.
And... you can change the way Trados 2007 segments a text, which may be different from the way the client's other translators segment similar texts, and this will impact on their TM leveraging capabilities.
But is that really your problem (even as a Trados user)? If the client doesn't specify "do not change the default segmentation", why should you not adjust the segmentation rules so that the text is optimally segmented? So I do not regard the fact that OmegaT may segment the file differently as an obstacle or even as an incompatibility.
The real problems with TM incompatibility are (a) that OmegaT's method of converting a source text to a tagged format is different from Trados', and (b) that OmegaT's method of representing tagged text inside the TM is different from Trados'. This means that if you open the same document in Trados and in OmegaT and you use the same TM (say, one created by a third CAT tool) to pre-translate or analyse it, you'll get different word counts, different match percentages and different amounts of leveraging.
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| OmegaT struggle | Feb 26, 2015 |
John Fossey wrote:
...In addition, you will find some formatting problems. OmegaT won't open .doc files directly (last time I checked) so you have to convert to .odt using OpenOffice, which sometimes creates formatting problems. You can work on .docx files directly, but its rather a tag jungle....
[Edited at 2010-09-06 19:01 GMT]
Being only new to OmegaT, and as of Feb 2015 at least, although it still cannot handle .doc files, it can handle .docx well, without heaps of tags messing around I thought.
Conversion back and forth .doc/.docx runs extremely smoothly with the help of Libreoffice (Fresh) so no worries there.
However what I'm concerned with are the issues one might encounter with clients that are using Trados exclusively. By the price of its licence, I know I'll always like my free OmegaT software better and stick to it no matter what, especially being on Linux and not liking Wine. It all goes to say OmegaT is the only natural, best, most efficient, logicial choice for any freelance translator (assumingly low on software budget) running plain old *nix systems exclusively.
Using OpenOffice when every corporate client I had knew only of MS-Office and kept throwing docx or pptx that always brought formatting problems along, I was still able to make it - and that's before LibreOffice came along, allowing to save to docx format -, so, I reckon it's up to the OmegaT freelancer to individually stand up the industry at least while new harmonized protocols get to the surface (not just .tmx) and/or even better/more reliable functionality is implemented.
[Edited at 2015-02-26 15:10 GMT]
[Edited at 2015-02-26 15:16 GMT]
| | | | | Alternatives to OmegaT | Feb 26, 2015 |
RolandC wrote:
It all goes to say OmegaT is the only natural, best, most efficient, logicial choice for any freelance translator (assumingly low on software budget) running plain old *nix systems exclusively.
Since you're reviving an old thread from 2010, a lot has happened since, for instance the rise of cloud-based computing, which makes operating systems less important (a browser is a browser, on any OS).
Nothing against OmegaT, but there are other free alternatives for Linux users, for instance Heartsome Translation Suite, Memsource Personal and Wordfast Anywhere. All three can open the old MS Office formats (DOC, PPT, XLS) without any conversion, btw. Not that it matters much in 2015.
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