Thinking of purchasing Trados - very basic question Thread poster: Nesrin
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Nesrin 
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:30
English to Arabic
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I'm finally thinking of taking the big step and purchasing the Trados software, but I have a very basic question to ask which will make all the difference.
When I've bought Trados, will it be possible for me to enter into its memory all the documents I've previously translated? I'm still not entirely sure I understand how the whole thing works, but it would be great if I could make use of all the material I've translated so far. So - is that possible?
Sorry if my question appears sil... See more I'm finally thinking of taking the big step and purchasing the Trados software, but I have a very basic question to ask which will make all the difference.
When I've bought Trados, will it be possible for me to enter into its memory all the documents I've previously translated? I'm still not entirely sure I understand how the whole thing works, but it would be great if I could make use of all the material I've translated so far. So - is that possible?
Sorry if my question appears silly to all you experts out there!
And thanks!
Nesrin ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Yes, it can be done | Feb 20, 2006 |
Hi Nesrin,
Yes, it can be done! You use the part of the programme called "WinAlign". We'll tell you how to work it once you have Trados.
Astrid
| | | | Nesrin
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:30
English to Arabic
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TOPIC STARTER
Astrid Elke Johnson wrote:
Hi Nesrin,
Yes, it can be done! You use the part of the programme called "WinAlign". We'll tell you how to work it once you have Trados.
Astrid
That's great news - thank you Astrid!
Nesrin
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Hi,
Yes, as Astrid Said, it is possible, but it can be a very tedious and cumbersome work, assuming you have *lots* of files in your PC...
It won't be a piece of cake
Sylvain
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| Well, it depeneds on what you call "enter files into memory" | Feb 20, 2006 |
You can use WinAlign, but the procedure is not fully automatic and there is certainly a "sweat fee" - you must always adjust the aligned segments manually. It may depend on the character of your texts, languages and their inteprunction rules, but this necessity is always there.
This is logical and I am pretty sure the principal difficulty must must be about the same for whatever CAT tool you use. I find the "post-alignment correction" process a bit more user-friendly in some other t... See more You can use WinAlign, but the procedure is not fully automatic and there is certainly a "sweat fee" - you must always adjust the aligned segments manually. It may depend on the character of your texts, languages and their inteprunction rules, but this necessity is always there.
This is logical and I am pretty sure the principal difficulty must must be about the same for whatever CAT tool you use. I find the "post-alignment correction" process a bit more user-friendly in some other tools, but that diffrence is more or less negligible compared to the main work you have to do during alignment.
To be frank, I hate the work on file alignemnt.
Trados was my first CAT tool and I started with the idea I would align many files I had translated before I bought it. In the end, though, I gave up that idea and found more useful to "re-build" the memory by translating.
Hoping it makes some sense to you.
Antonin
[Edited at 2006-02-20 19:32] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Waleed Mohamed
United Arab Emirates
Local time: 17:30
English to Arabic
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| Not that easy! | Feb 20, 2006 |
Dear Nesrin,
Although I am not a professional user of Trados and still consider myself a beginner, I guess that you cannot enter all types of file formats.
I understand you want to make use of your translation legacy. Most of our output formats are MS Word files. In order to enter your old translation into Trados memory, the source and target file formats need to be supported by Trados.
WinAlign is a Trados tool which can be used to benefit from old tran... See more Dear Nesrin,
Although I am not a professional user of Trados and still consider myself a beginner, I guess that you cannot enter all types of file formats.
I understand you want to make use of your translation legacy. Most of our output formats are MS Word files. In order to enter your old translation into Trados memory, the source and target file formats need to be supported by Trados.
WinAlign is a Trados tool which can be used to benefit from old translations in future translation jobs.
I will be happy to know the answer of our colleague experts here the answer to this questions: What file formats supported by WinAlign? For example, if I have a target file format of MS Word and source target format of PDF (or any scanned format), can I enter my translation into Trados memory?
Dear Nesrin, if this issue- i.e. benefiting from your old translations- is the main reason encouraging you to buy Trados, I think you will need to reconsider this issue. Try to get more information on what file formats are supported by WinAlign. Even with file formats supported by WinAlign, it will not be easy in all cases.
I hope this helps!
Best regards,
Waleed ▲ Collapse
| | | | Brandis (X)
Local time: 15:30
English to German
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| You can try Fusion for free with full functionality | Feb 20, 2006 |
to get used to trados interface and workings, it is very similar to Trados, same short cuts and the optic and functionality, but Trados is older, established widely used ,mainly customers demand it most. Best Brandis
| | | | Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 15:30
English to German
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| File formats - PDF | Feb 20, 2006 |
Hi Waleed,
I will be happy to know the answer of our colleague experts here the answer to this questions: What file formats supported by WinAlign?
MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, not Access), plus RTF
RTF Help files
HTML, SGML, XML, XLIFF
Windows Binary/resource files
CSV files
For example, if I have a target file format of MS Word and source target format of PDF (or any scanned format), can I enter my translation into Trados memory?
No, because PDF is - by its very definition - a non-editable format. See the various Knowledge Base articles on how to handle PDFs.
HTH, Ralf
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Lia Fail (X)
Spain
Local time: 15:30
Spanish to English
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Sylvain Leray wrote: Hi, Yes, as Astrid Said, it is possible, but it can be a very tedious and cumbersome work, assuming you have *lots* of files in your PC... It won't be a piece of cake Sylvain
Yes, the theory of WinAlign is great, but in practice it takes more or less ages to align documents.
| | | | Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 16:30
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| I'm afraid aligning won't be very helpful | Feb 21, 2006 |
When you start to use Trados or other TETs (translation environment tools) you soon develope a set of TMs which are useful in successive jobs. But TMs from aligning projects are seldom very useful without heavy editing.
That's because without a TET you translate more freely, combining or splitting sentences, even changing the order of sentences, whereas a TET like Trados or Wordfast forces you more or less to translate one sentence at a time.
I once aligned a large project, it looke... See more When you start to use Trados or other TETs (translation environment tools) you soon develope a set of TMs which are useful in successive jobs. But TMs from aligning projects are seldom very useful without heavy editing.
That's because without a TET you translate more freely, combining or splitting sentences, even changing the order of sentences, whereas a TET like Trados or Wordfast forces you more or less to translate one sentence at a time.
I once aligned a large project, it looked great in WinAlign, but when using the TM it offered horrible "100 % matches", because the sentences didn't match in reality. I had to through the TM out.
Regards
Heinrich ▲ Collapse
| | | | Waleed Mohamed
United Arab Emirates
Local time: 17:30
English to Arabic
+ ...
| Related question: Can we use WinAlign with multilingual websites? | Feb 21, 2006 |
Dear Colleagues,
As you know, there are many websites with multilingual versions. I wonder if we can benefit from the translations of these multilingual websites. Can we use WinAlign for these websites? and if so, is it easy and what are the problems that may stand against this?
Thanks for your expert help!
Waleed
| | | | | Simply using Trados gives some good TMs | Feb 21, 2006 |
I rarely use WinAlign, though I have added a few selected files to my TMs (Translation Memory/ Memories) to start off with. It's not difficult, but it may not be worth the time you spend.
If you translate a lot of repetitive texts, it is really easier just to start using Trados than to spend a lot of time on WinAlign.
If the texts are not closely similar, then you won't benefit much from feeding a lot of legacy texts into the TM anyway.
In fact simply using Trad... See more I rarely use WinAlign, though I have added a few selected files to my TMs (Translation Memory/ Memories) to start off with. It's not difficult, but it may not be worth the time you spend.
If you translate a lot of repetitive texts, it is really easier just to start using Trados than to spend a lot of time on WinAlign.
If the texts are not closely similar, then you won't benefit much from feeding a lot of legacy texts into the TM anyway.
In fact simply using Trados soon adds up to a lot of helpful TMs. I have TMs for different subject fields (in each language pair) and use the 'attributes' to differentiate clients and individual texts.
There is no advantage in aligning lots of similar texts to add to the TM - one good one of each type is probably enough.
The concordance function works from Document 1 for terminology within the document, and this is one of the really great advantages. (It shows you words you have used before, even when the match does not come up in a whole sentence.)
My clients sometimes send TMs together with projects, and those are usually helpful. (But they may contain errors...)
Trados calls for a lot of work in itself, but so did old-fashioned typing in repetitions, 'cutting and pasting' and keeping terminology lists... Trados is a good tool if you use it in the right way.
I never thought I would get to like it, but for suitable texts I do.
Best of luck! ▲ Collapse
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