Do you think that Déjà Vu DVX Professional is a good tool for a free-lance ? Thread poster: Leticia Barcon
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I'm a translation student and I would like to know if Déjà Vu DVX Professional is a good translation memory for a freelance and why? Tell me please what are the strong and weak points of this tool. Thank you very much.
| | | | | DV as a tool for freelancers | Nov 16, 2007 |
There are a large number of comparisons published on the Web and in various professional journals which I am sure you can find with a little effort. These often have nice little tables comparing features, though occasionally the information is inadequate because the reviewer was looking at the wrong version.
I'm sure that most people can give you a lecture on why their tool of choice is "best" and recently there have been some interesting new entries to the market that show promise.... See more There are a large number of comparisons published on the Web and in various professional journals which I am sure you can find with a little effort. These often have nice little tables comparing features, though occasionally the information is inadequate because the reviewer was looking at the wrong version.
I'm sure that most people can give you a lecture on why their tool of choice is "best" and recently there have been some interesting new entries to the market that show promise.
I am not familiar with all tools on the market, but I do know a few of the "big boys" rather well, including SDL Trados and Star Transit. For several years I kept records on how quickly I was able to do various jobs in DV, Trados or Star Transit. I found that my productivity (i.e. the speed at which I got work done and quality-checked) was consistently higher with DV. How much higher? Twenty to thirty percent in my case. That translates to a big difference in earnings or lifestyle (free time for other things). There are several other DV users in this forum who also use other tools, and it would not surprise me if they had similar experiences.
As a consequence, most of my Trados and Transit projects actually get translated in DV with preparation and post-translation processing in the other tool. This is a common practice.
As for other tools, so far I have not experienced anything with ergonomics of use as comfortable as DV. Across doesn't do it for me - I've been testing the program, and all I can really say about it is that a freelancer gets what he pays for with it. I've heard great things about MemoQ from a picky DV user, but I don't have any experience with it myself, and I think the tool does not handle the breadth of formats that DV does.
It's not a perfect tool by any means, but I think it is probably the best value for your money. The fact that you can handle most Trados projects well (using the demo version of Trados) with it gives you a lot of additional market leverage. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Olaf Reibedanz 
Colombia
Local time: 23:32
Member (2003)
English to German
+ ...
In my opinion Deja Vu X is an excellent translation tool.
The features I like most include:
- AutoAssemble (Déjà Vu can assemble translations from translation memory, terminology database and lexicon)
- AutoPropagate
- Sort segments by natural or alphabetical order
- Selective display of segments (fuzzy matches, exact matches, duplicate rows, pending rows, locked rows, assembled rows, etc.)
- Export translations into a 2-column table in RTF that is ... See more In my opinion Deja Vu X is an excellent translation tool.
The features I like most include:
- AutoAssemble (Déjà Vu can assemble translations from translation memory, terminology database and lexicon)
- AutoPropagate
- Sort segments by natural or alphabetical order
- Selective display of segments (fuzzy matches, exact matches, duplicate rows, pending rows, locked rows, assembled rows, etc.)
- Export translations into a 2-column table in RTF that is very easy to edit and that you can send to your proofreader (even if he doesn't work with Deja Vu) and then reimport it into Deja Vu.
- Be able to display database entries on the right hand side while you are doing your translation, and insert those entries into your translation by using the drag and drop function
- Batch Terminology Validation: this allows you to check for consistency at the end of your translation
- Translate projects into multiple languages
- Create and use databases with multiple languages
- Large number of supported file formats
- Import only portions of texts (after hiding the irrelevant portions in the source file)
- Translate Trados and SDLX files without the client even noticing I haven’t used those programmes
- All upgrades are free
- Excellent and very helpful Déjà Vu user group on Yahoo
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dejavu-l/files)
Moreover, the programme is extremely stable and highly customizable.
You may also want to check out this link:
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/portal/pls/portallive/docs/1/7307707.PDF
Have a look at the table on page 31, in particular
Kind regards,
Olaf
[Edited at 2007-11-16 19:17] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 00:32
German to English
I've been using DVX (or its predecessors DV2/3.x) for 10 years. I've used other CAT tools when so directed by a client, but when given a choice, I use DVX. I've found DVX to be significantly less buggy than Trados. In the past year, I don't think DVX has crashed more than a few times (usually when I was running several processes). I was working with Trados TagEditor this morning, and the programn refused to save changes I made in a file, stating that file file was in use by another process ?!). ... See more I've been using DVX (or its predecessors DV2/3.x) for 10 years. I've used other CAT tools when so directed by a client, but when given a choice, I use DVX. I've found DVX to be significantly less buggy than Trados. In the past year, I don't think DVX has crashed more than a few times (usually when I was running several processes). I was working with Trados TagEditor this morning, and the programn refused to save changes I made in a file, stating that file file was in use by another process ?!). Fortunately this was after the first few changes I had made, so I didn't lose much work. To get the program to stop this behavior, I had to reboot. I've never had to do that with DVX. Some files have caused Workbench/TagEditor to crash multiple times when working on them, thus impeding my efficiency.
One feature that DVX offers that comes in handy is the project-specific lexicon. You may not want to have "XYZ Corporation" or a brand name in your permanent terminology database, for example, but in a lengthy report, the name of the company / product may come up a hundred times. Once entered into the lexicon, the name of the company / product is inserted automatically in to the target text.
But as with most software, it's all a matter of what you're used to. DVX was my first CAT tool, so I'm prejudiced in favor of the program. ▲ Collapse
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| DVX is quite good | Nov 16, 2007 |
Hi,
Trados was my first tool (I used it for 8 years) but I dropped it two years ago after trying DejaVu - well, almost, because I work for a couple of agencies who send protected TMs that I can't export to DVX.
Same arguments as Olav (nice list!) and Kevin: stability, assembly, integrated terminology database, ability to give back Trados-like files because lots of agencies don't know anything else but Trados...
Small weaknesses: somethings mixes perfect matches when a se... See more Hi,
Trados was my first tool (I used it for 8 years) but I dropped it two years ago after trying DejaVu - well, almost, because I work for a couple of agencies who send protected TMs that I can't export to DVX.
Same arguments as Olav (nice list!) and Kevin: stability, assembly, integrated terminology database, ability to give back Trados-like files because lots of agencies don't know anything else but Trados...
Small weaknesses: somethings mixes perfect matches when a sentence contains lots of numbers or quotation marks, does not handle Quark XPress files directly... I had to think about this question for a few minutes to find something negative to say
You can try it to make your own opinion (Atril offers a free 30-day trial version).
Marie-Céline ▲ Collapse
| | | | Csaba Ban
Hungary
Local time: 06:32
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
| some additional benefits | Nov 17, 2007 |
With DVX you can translate a large number of files at the same time. A project may consist of several hundreds of html/ttx/doc/rtf/whatever files, organized in a specific file structure. With DVX you can keep the original file structure and process all files at once. It will look like as if you are translating a single file, while in fact you are translating a large number of files, even in different formats. When you export the project, all translated files will be neatly organized exactly the ... See more With DVX you can translate a large number of files at the same time. A project may consist of several hundreds of html/ttx/doc/rtf/whatever files, organized in a specific file structure. With DVX you can keep the original file structure and process all files at once. It will look like as if you are translating a single file, while in fact you are translating a large number of files, even in different formats. When you export the project, all translated files will be neatly organized exactly the same way as the source files.
Anther great benefit is that you can find and replace any phrase across the entire project. There are several quality check features as well.
I'm also addicted to this tool, I do all of my projects in DVX. I also have Trados, but I only use it for preprocessing the files. DVX can also easily handle TradosTag (ttx) documents.
Csaba ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marc P (X)
Local time: 06:32
German to English
+ ...
| Do you think that Déjà Vu DVX Professional is a good tool for a free-lance ? | Nov 17, 2007 |
The November-December 2007 edition of the ITI Bulletin contains a five-page review of the latest version of DVX. You should be able to purchase a copy of the article or of the whole Bulletin from the ITI office.
HTH,
Marc
| | | | Textklick
Local time: 05:32
German to English
+ ...
In memoriam | A few observations | Nov 17, 2007 |
I learned to ride my CAT bicycle using SDLX, when working for SDL. At that time, (prior to the company takeover and subsequent amalgamation of Trados into SDLX), Trados was deemed by many to be more sophisticated than SDLX in a few ways, but certainly by no means as robust.
Indeed, I know of people who had suffered from desperate experiences when Trados crashed, which can, of course, be attributed to their lack of knowledge, but also to the complexity and possible dangers that Tra... See more I learned to ride my CAT bicycle using SDLX, when working for SDL. At that time, (prior to the company takeover and subsequent amalgamation of Trados into SDLX), Trados was deemed by many to be more sophisticated than SDLX in a few ways, but certainly by no means as robust.
Indeed, I know of people who had suffered from desperate experiences when Trados crashed, which can, of course, be attributed to their lack of knowledge, but also to the complexity and possible dangers that Trados had concealed beneath its bonnet. Over the years, the number of desperate pleas for help concerning Trados submitted to this site certainly did not go unnoticed with me. Special mention should be made of Ralf Lemster who inevitably jumped in rapidly with advice. At times, I wondered how he managed to run a business and be an unpaid "express" Trados consultant at the same time.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and SDL have taken time to amalgamate the products in a way that seems to be working by all accounts.
I am still working with good old SDLX and have used it to import and export TMX translation memories that had been generated in Trados, but of course DVX can do that as well as can all tools that are TMX compatible.
Interestingly enough though, I have noticed over the years from networking (Powwows etc.) that many respected peers all seemed to use DVX.
At the German Powwoww in Düsseldorf in October, advertised as: "DVX—What makes Trados users jealous?", organiser Klaus Herrmann made a very interesting presentation of what DVX could do and how it did it. Martin Hesse also stated the figure of 20-30% increased productivity that Kevin Lossner mentions in this string. I see this as being a key benefit in the endless "Which CAT tool discussion?" and remember Klaus once telling me that he was working on a file, while DVX was "cutting through it like a hot knife through butter."
I was going to point to the lengthy research result published by Imperial College London, but note that Olaf has already done so. Still: to quote but one sentence: "From a general perspective, Déjà Vu seems to gain a higher rate of user satisfaction compared to the three competing TM packages. Wordfast comes second, followed by SDL Trados 2006, and TRADOS."
So really, the only question remaining is "why the hell am I making this contribution, rather than downloading the DVX trial version; something which is long overdue on my to-do list."
Good luck
Chris ▲ Collapse
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| and there is SQL! | Nov 17, 2007 |
In addition to all things stated here, DVX offers me the possibility of many steps for quality assurance.
Several options are in the program ready to use, but there is not one project (well maybe a one-liner), where I do not use a number of SQL commands to check some quality issues.
I am also an old timer (using DV/DVX since 1996), I also have Trados, SDLX, Across, MemoQ, but all my projects are done in DVX.
I once jokingly said - other tools have users, D... See more In addition to all things stated here, DVX offers me the possibility of many steps for quality assurance.
Several options are in the program ready to use, but there is not one project (well maybe a one-liner), where I do not use a number of SQL commands to check some quality issues.
I am also an old timer (using DV/DVX since 1996), I also have Trados, SDLX, Across, MemoQ, but all my projects are done in DVX.
I once jokingly said - other tools have users, DVX has fans
kind regards
Judy Ann ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Quality Assurance - Trados Proofreading | Nov 17, 2007 |
Judy Schoen wrote:
In addition to all things stated here, DVX offers me the possibility of many steps for quality assurance.
Indeed. One QA application for which we use DVX frequently is proofreading translated TTX files or Word/RTF files translated with Trados. I personally find it a nightmare to do so using the original tools (Tag Editor or the TWB macros in MS Word). With DVX one gets a beautiful two column view which allows fast proofreading and allows quick corrections of errors (in the source or target).
[Edited at 2007-11-17 14:33]
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I agree with everything that's been said above. I too am a CAT power user: Trados since 1999, Transit and DV since 2000, SDLX since 1994. I've also tried across recently. If I can help it, I do all my projects in DV. If a client insists on a Trados bilingual file, I still do the project in DV then either send a Trados-compatible TM or do an alignment with WinAlign.
I'd like to add what I perceive to be the advantages of DV over the its competitors.
1) Pretranslate featu... See more I agree with everything that's been said above. I too am a CAT power user: Trados since 1999, Transit and DV since 2000, SDLX since 1994. I've also tried across recently. If I can help it, I do all my projects in DV. If a client insists on a Trados bilingual file, I still do the project in DV then either send a Trados-compatible TM or do an alignment with WinAlign.
I'd like to add what I perceive to be the advantages of DV over the its competitors.
1) Pretranslate feature: this is especially beneficial when the text is internally repetitive. This saves you a great amount of typing time.
2) No format change: the vastly annoying Trados bug of changing the format does not happen in DV.
3) On-the-go terminology entry: Highlight source and target term and make your own dictionary as you translate, then store the terms in your lexicon at the end of the project. You can do this as well in Transit but Transit adds 2 more steps (Alt+T, Enter) to retrieve dictionary terms.
4) Preparing texts of whatever supported format for translation is standardized. You don't have to deal with the complicated and irksome Trados filters.
The only problem I have with DV is when I get a large manual with lots of embedded diagrams. It may stem from a lack of available space in my pc and not from an inherent DV flaw. But I usually have to delete all diagrams manually before I process the file for translation. I then manually paste them back into the translation at the end.
[Edited at 2007-11-18 12:26] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Filters & big MS Word files with lots of graphics | Nov 18, 2007 |
Marcus Malabad wrote:
You don't have to deal with the complicated and irksome Trados filters.
A bit of messing with filters is indeed necessary for XML jobs, but that is fairly easy. With CMS systems finding increasing use it is a great advantage to be able to customize a filter for an XML export of the content.
The only problem I have with DV is when I get a large manual with lots of embedded diagrams... I usually have to delete all diagrams ... then manually paste them ... at the end.
A rather fine alternative for this is making a TTX out of the Word file using TagEditor v7 or later. Just make sure that you can actually create a target document BEFORE you do any translation, because Word docs often need a bit of "adjustment" before they can be used this way in Trados.
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| New patch for build 302 | Dec 21, 2007 |
A new patch is available for build 7.5.302 which seems to considerably improve assemble and propagation as well as fixing a number of minor bugs.
You can download it here:
http://www.atril.com/dvx/builds/302%20/Patch6.zip
BR,
David Turner
| | | | | How do you apply this patch | Dec 23, 2007 |
there is nothing about it in Atril support
do you just execute the exe file?
Piotr
| | | | F.
Italy
Local time: 06:32
Swedish to Italian
+ ...
| Evaluating DejaVuX | Jan 30, 2008 |
I downloaded the last version of DejaVu X and I'm evaluating it. I have Windows XP and already use Across.
I have already noticed some issues in DV:
- When choosing the files to import in a project, if you choose "all supported formats" it accept also pdf and other files that CANNOT import, so it freeze and you have to kill the process.
- When importing an InDesign file, it is very slow and the first time has frozen, I had to retry and the operation succeed... See more I downloaded the last version of DejaVu X and I'm evaluating it. I have Windows XP and already use Across.
I have already noticed some issues in DV:
- When choosing the files to import in a project, if you choose "all supported formats" it accept also pdf and other files that CANNOT import, so it freeze and you have to kill the process.
- When importing an InDesign file, it is very slow and the first time has frozen, I had to retry and the operation succeeded.
- The import/creation of a TM is not so easy and it uses a lot of memory.
- It is not immediate to understand how to pretranslate: in Across I have a sentence and a window shows fuzzy matches, but here you cannot see. I imported a TM from Across, but the pretranslation is not so good.
I think that there are things I have to learn, but the slowliness and the first problem are not so good.
Any suggestion? Did you notice the same things? ▲ Collapse
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