What is the simple, easy-to-use CAT tool for my agency?
Trang Nguyen Vietnam Local time: 03:47 Member (2011) English to Vietnamese + ...
Sep 22, 2011
Dear the community,
I am a Vietnamese translator with many years of experience and translation diploma. I’ve also got experience in business expeditions. I am now planning to open a translation agency comprising the best Vietnamese translators serving for foreign markets at affordable rates. So, it’s my sincere desire to get your valuable consulting ideas for my business if it doesn’t mind you. I need a CAT program, that is very simple to be used by translators and to be managed by my agency. As you know, many Vietnamese translators, although they are very good at language skills and have special expertise, they are not very much familiar with CAT tool. Therefore, I need some CAT software that is very simple (because we initially just provide services of translation for basic files such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint) but it can still integrate with other popular CAT software like Trados. And this CAT may be free or have not high cost to purchase). I've read a lot of your articles on many CAT tools, but because I have not yet experienced with many of them, I eagerly desire your experience to tell me to choose the best one that suits with my demand and can help me to avoid getting stuck in explorations and time consuming. That will be my great attitude to your help.
In addition, I need a Project Manager Consultant, who have working experience as a Project Manager to consult me the activities of a translation agency, the corresponding requirements and accompanied document templates (just for reference). I myself can solve this but I know that the requirements for foreign clients are very high and strict as well as the international competition is very harsh. So, I need my agency to be professional from start. If you could be that person or could recommend me someone, please tell me and give me a quote for this service (I think this task will take him/her just several hours for consultation).
I strongly desire to set up a professional translation agency in Vietnam and gradually integrate with the highly professional world outside. Therefore, if you could help me, it will be my great pleasure and very helpful support. Thank you for all.
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WordFast (Classic) is easy to start with to enjoy how CAT should work, and it is free for small jobs. But you need to withstand some bugs. Most demo versions of CAT are also free.
Soonthon Lupkitaro
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Sushan Harshe India Local time: 02:17 English to Hindi + ...
easy-to-use CAT tool
Sep 22, 2011
Hi Trang,
In my opinion, compared to WordFast (with it's features), Trados (with it's features) is cheaper. Secondly; As I believe, still you may buy 2009 studio freelance. This will help you to use on different systems per requirement. This also might be smother when converting other CAT memories. More important is you can have support from there business partners. I will suggest you to buy 2011 freelance Pro as it supports more file formats and having further features.
You idea of hiring Project Manager is fine. This will make you free for client interactions. But let the project manager be at the location as all the time s/he will be required by your in-house translators, freelancers and clients.
Best of luck!
Sushan
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Hermann Bruns Germany Local time: 22:47 English to German
MetaTexis for Word
Sep 22, 2011
Dear Trang,
MetaTexis for Word is an easy-to-use, professional TM tool running in Microsoft Word. And there is MetaTexis TM Server that allows simultaneous use of the same TM which is often required in agencies and companies.
A trial version is available for free at www.metatexis.com. The support page includes links to manuals and demos.
Best regards
Hermann Bruns
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Pablo Bouvier Spain Local time: 22:47 Member German to Spanish + ...
What is the simple, easy-to-use CAT tool for my agency?
Sep 22, 2011
Trang Nguyen wrote:
Dear the community,
I am a Vietnamese translator with many years of experience and translation diploma. I’ve also got experience in business expeditions. I am now planning to open a translation agency comprising the best Vietnamese translators serving for foreign markets at affordable rates. So, it’s my sincere desire to get your valuable consulting ideas for my business if it doesn’t mind you. I need a CAT program, that is very simple to be used by translators and to be managed by my agency. As you know, many Vietnamese translators, although they are very good at language skills and have special expertise, they are not very much familiar with CAT tool. Therefore, I need some CAT software that is very simple (because we initially just provide services of translation for basic files such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint) but it can still integrate with other popular CAT software like Trados. And this CAT may be free or have not high cost to purchase). I've read a lot of your articles on many CAT tools, but because I have not yet experienced with many of them, I eagerly desire your experience to tell me to choose the best one that suits with my demand and can help me to avoid getting stuck in explorations and time consuming. That will be my great attitude to your help.
In addition, I need a Project Manager Consultant, who have working experience as a Project Manager to consult me the activities of a translation agency, the corresponding requirements and accompanied document templates (just for reference). I myself can solve this but I know that the requirements for foreign clients are very high and strict as well as the international competition is very harsh. So, I need my agency to be professional from start. If you could be that person or could recommend me someone, please tell me and give me a quote for this service (I think this task will take him/her just several hours for consultation).
I strongly desire to set up a professional translation agency in Vietnam and gradually integrate with the highly professional world outside. Therefore, if you could help me, it will be my great pleasure and very helpful support. Thank you for all.
To complement Soonnthon's information, there is a free to use online version of Wordfast here: https://www.freetm.com/ . It is very similar to the offline version and has even built a few options that the offline version does not has as the alignment tool. But it is more than enough for a first assessment. Another online tool indicated by Samuel Murray in another post is Boltran: http://www.boltran.com/home.seam.
As other options at the beginning you may consider:
Wordfast Classic
Metatexis
Swordfish
As advanced, but quite more expensive tools you have:
SDL Trados 2009/2007
Atril DéjàVu 2
Star Transit NXT
MemoQ
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Fernando Toledo Germany Local time: 22:47 Member (2005) German to Spanish
I think the question ist not
Sep 22, 2011
how easy a CAT tool can be or not. If you ask as freelancer any of the answers before could be a option. But as agency you have to care about other matters. Organization, splitting orders, managing the translations of the translators, multi-language? etc.
I don't think there are to much options for this.
Trados, MemoQ, Transit and a few more
One of this 3 would be my personal option, depends of the "complexity" of the jobs and the requirements of Project management.
Take a look at the comments of MemoQ here in the site, it seems a very good option for small agencies...
Regards
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Stanislav Pokorny Czech Republic Local time: 22:47 Member (2009) English to Czech + ...
I'd start with asking...
Sep 22, 2011
... the TRANSLATORS which tool they are actually willing to work with. If you simply make a decision and then cannot find a translator to fit into your scheme, you may have a problem.
That's also why I would advise against sticking to a single CAT tool. You may start with one (most popular among your translators and yet suitable for your tasks) and then buy some more.
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Andrea Piu Italy Local time: 22:47 Member (2010) English to Italian + ...
OmegaT
Sep 22, 2011
Trang Nguyen wrote:
Dear the community,
I am a Vietnamese translator with many years of experience and translation diploma. I’ve also got experience in business expeditions. I am now planning to open a translation agency comprising the best Vietnamese translators serving for foreign markets at affordable rates. So, it’s my sincere desire to get your valuable consulting ideas for my business if it doesn’t mind you. I need a CAT program, that is very simple to be used by translators and to be managed by my agency. As you know, many Vietnamese translators, although they are very good at language skills and have special expertise, they are not very much familiar with CAT tool. Therefore, I need some CAT software that is very simple (because we initially just provide services of translation for basic files such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint) but it can still integrate with other popular CAT software like Trados. And this CAT may be free or have not high cost to purchase). I've read a lot of your articles on many CAT tools, but because I have not yet experienced with many of them, I eagerly desire your experience to tell me to choose the best one that suits with my demand and can help me to avoid getting stuck in explorations and time consuming. That will be my great attitude to your help.
In addition, I need a Project Manager Consultant, who have working experience as a Project Manager to consult me the activities of a translation agency, the corresponding requirements and accompanied document templates (just for reference). I myself can solve this but I know that the requirements for foreign clients are very high and strict as well as the international competition is very harsh. So, I need my agency to be professional from start. If you could be that person or could recommend me someone, please tell me and give me a quote for this service (I think this task will take him/her just several hours for consultation).
I strongly desire to set up a professional translation agency in Vietnam and gradually integrate with the highly professional world outside. Therefore, if you could help me, it will be my great pleasure and very helpful support. Thank you for all.
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Trang Nguyen Vietnam Local time: 03:47 Member (2011) English to Vietnamese + ...
TOPIC STARTER
One to lead first
Sep 22, 2011
Dear Stanislav Pokorny, Yes, I understand. But just a thing that there is a number of Vietnamese translators somewhat unfamiliar with CAT tool, so I need one standard but simple and easy to learn and my agency will need to give them some training. And this CAT tool can also use TM of some other popular CAT tools. Thanks.
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Trang Nguyen Vietnam Local time: 03:47 Member (2011) English to Vietnamese + ...
TOPIC STARTER
WordFast (Classic)
Sep 22, 2011
Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.) wrote: WordFast (Classic) is easy to start with to enjoy how CAT should work, and it is free for small jobs. But you need to withstand some bugs. Most demo versions of CAT are also free. Soonthon Lupkitaro
Could you let me know its cost and its link? It's fine if you don't have, I'll search. Thanks.
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Trang Nguyen Vietnam Local time: 03:47 Member (2011) English to Vietnamese + ...
TOPIC STARTER
OmegaT weak points?
Sep 22, 2011
[/quote] Why don't you try OmegaT? It is easy to use and free of charge. http://www.omegat.org/ [/quote] Dear Andrea Piu, As regards OmegaT, I found another post on the forum that “Both Wordfast and Trados can handle MS Office files, which OmegaT can't (unless you client is using MS Office 2007). Both Wordfast and Trados can handle tagged text, which OmegaT can't (unless you're a wizz at OmegaT's powerful segmentation rules)”. It could be kind of you to confirm this. Thanks.
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Trang Nguyen Vietnam Local time: 03:47 Member (2011) English to Vietnamese + ...
TOPIC STARTER
Project Manager
Sep 22, 2011
Dear all,
I'll sure learn and try the tools that you recommended. If you can also recommend me a some Project Manager to consult me on the quality management process as well as some forms/templates for an intial time of my set up preparation, I would be also grateful. With my warm thanks.
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Natalie Poland Local time: 22:47 Member (2002) English to Russian + ...
Moderator of this forum
Definitely Metatexis
Sep 22, 2011
(See the post by the developer of this tool Hermann Bruns above).
This will be a really good choice for the beginners: you work under Word and thus there is no need to learn any new complicated software. Metatexis is very user-friendly, devoid of many bugs characteristic of other software (including Wordfast Classic which is similar to Metatexis), it is compatible with other CAT tools, and, what is most important, the support of users by Hermann is really great.
Natalia
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Marlena Dobosz Poland Local time: 22:47 Member (2011) English to Polish + ...
MemoQ
Sep 22, 2011
An easy to use, professional and user-friendly tool.
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Emal Ghamsharick Germany Local time: 22:47 Member (2010) English to German + ...
Omega T
Sep 22, 2011
Dear Trang,
I have to support Andrea.
After working on it with Trados, I just migrated a big project consisting of XML files to Omega T and I love it!
Here's why:
It's Java-based - so it runs on any operating system
It uses TMX and TBX, so it's compatible with all other tools
There are regular updates that actually IMPROVE the tool
It handles tagged text perfectly fine and also has a tag verification feature
You can easily add your own dictionaries and glossaries, even in TXT format
You can edit your glossary and TM on the fly
Like all CAT tools, it takes some time to get used to it, but Omega T is way easier than Trados, for example.
Once you purchase a commercial tool, you're stuck with one vendor and will constantly need to purchase expensive upgrades. With Omega T, all you have to lose is a few hours.
I have honorably mention MetaTexis - it's also a remarkable tool and based on a translator-friendly business model and, for the features it offers, it's dirt cheap.
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memoQ translator pro is the premium product for professionals. It is Kilgray's best-selling tool among freelance translators: you get all the functionality available in memoQ in your local environment plus the ability to work on remote servers.
Translation Office 3000 is an advanced accounting tool for freelance translators and small agencies. TO3000 easily and seamlessly integrates with the business life of professional freelance translators.
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