Compatibility with SDL Trados Thread poster: Ricardo Gouveia
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I have recently (3 hours ago, to be precise) downloaded and installed the trial/free version of MemoQ and found the software quite interesting.
I have been working with it for the last hours and I have been productive and quickly learned what I "need the most" and exported a TM from Wordfast and have been using it.
Now, as I am still very confused and with so many options in the CAT Software World, and to make sure MemoQ is a great "contender", I have a few questions, which I hope th... See more I have recently (3 hours ago, to be precise) downloaded and installed the trial/free version of MemoQ and found the software quite interesting.
I have been working with it for the last hours and I have been productive and quickly learned what I "need the most" and exported a TM from Wordfast and have been using it.
Now, as I am still very confused and with so many options in the CAT Software World, and to make sure MemoQ is a great "contender", I have a few questions, which I hope there will be someone to help me.
1. (The most important one, and probably the dumbest) If one agency or client hands me a "SDL Trados only Project" and/or sends me a Trados format package, will I be able to use it and translate it normally in MemoQ, and deliver the final result as pretended?
2. In the Project Home tab, I find in a document's progress: "28%/0%". I suppose the 28% stands for the complete and repeated segments. Is the 0% for Proofreading? If so, how do I proofread in MemoQ?
3. I do it in Microsoft Word + Wordfast, but I am not sure if it is possible in MemoQ or if I can explain it well. I have written a word, let's imagine "I am using MemoQ", oh, that's not what I wanted to write "I am starting to like MemoQ". Now, I should erase "am using", so I click between the "i" and "in in "using" and push it left towards to "am". I want to select the whole words "am using", instead of "am usi" - since I only selected since the last "i".
I am not sure if I was very clear, I want to select the whole word once I select more than a half of it.
Other than that, the program works nice in my netbook and it's helping me on the final 30 pages of my actual project.
Thank you,
Best regards,
Ricardo Gouveia ▲ Collapse
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Selcuk Akyuz 
Türkiye
Local time: 08:12
English to Turkish
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| Trados versions | May 9, 2011 |
MemoQ users will describe it in detail, but you can use MemoQ for both Trados 2007 (bilingual word files and ttx files) and Studio 2009 files. AFAIK, almost all CAT tools (except Across) have good filters for Trados files. MultiTerm is a different story.
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Jerzy Czopik
Germany
Local time: 07:12
Member (2003)
Polish to German
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| You are playing with the devil | May 9, 2011 |
If you have sufficient knowledge about CATs and MemoQ and especially Trados, you will certailny be able to handle most such jobs with MemQ instead of Trados.
But just being naive enough to believe you will get a gasoline car and fuel it with alcohol to get it working (this is in fact what you're here) is playing with the devil.
All the statements MemoQ is so much superior to Studio are to be put in the same line as statemets, that OS X is superior to Windows, or even more precise Ope... See more If you have sufficient knowledge about CATs and MemoQ and especially Trados, you will certailny be able to handle most such jobs with MemQ instead of Trados.
But just being naive enough to believe you will get a gasoline car and fuel it with alcohol to get it working (this is in fact what you're here) is playing with the devil.
All the statements MemoQ is so much superior to Studio are to be put in the same line as statemets, that OS X is superior to Windows, or even more precise Open Office is superior to MS Office. All those products have theri strong and weak points, but the "superiority" is only a very subjective and personal impression. ▲ Collapse
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Michal Glowacki
Poland
Local time: 07:12
Member (2010)
English to Polish
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| Playing with the devil? | May 9, 2011 |
You are playing with the devil
I think you're exaggerating, Jerzy. And also, I don't think this was the askers question or intention
1. (The most important one, and probably the dumbest) If one agency or client hands me a "SDL Trados only Project" and/or sends me a Trados format package, will I be able to use it and translate it normally in MemoQ, and deliver the final result as pretended?
If they send you a: TTX (pre-segmented by them) or an SDLXLIFF you can open them in memoQ, translate and send them back. The agency shouldn't notice the difference. If you receive a Trados project package (from Synergy or Studio 2009) - I'm not sure, but I don't think these would be compatible. On the other hand - I don't think I've ever met an agency that does that, so I wouldn't worry about that.
2. In the Project Home tab, I find in a document's progress: "28%/0%". I suppose the 28% stands for the complete and repeated segments. Is the 0% for Proofreading? If so, how do I proofread in MemoQ?
You can go to "settings" and tick the "I am proofreader" box. The first number shows the percentage of "confirmed segments" the second "proofread' segments (double-ticked).
3. I do it in Microsoft Word + Wordfast, but I am not sure if it is possible in MemoQ or if I can explain it well. I have written a word, let's imagine "I am using MemoQ", oh, that's not what I wanted to write "I am starting to like MemoQ". Now, I should erase "am using", so I click between the "i" and "in in "using" and push it left towards to "am". I want to select the whole words "am using", instead of "am usi" - since I only selected since the last "i".
I am not sure if I was very clear, I want to select the whole word once I select more than a half of it.
I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. You can't work with memoQ and word, but you can edit the source segments in memoQ - just press F2 when you're in the translation grid.
Hope this helps.
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| I think she means packages | May 9, 2011 |
Michal Glowacki wrote:
If they send you a: TTX (pre-segmented by them) or an SDLXLIFF you can open them in memoQ, translate and send them back.
I think the question is if a agency send you a Studio "package", not a single file. Can you deliver the package back?
I read MemoQ can do this with Transit, but with Studio?
@Jerzy: Who is speaking about superiority? Or fight between OS? You are in another film, I think
Regards
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Michal Glowacki
Poland
Local time: 07:12
Member (2010)
English to Polish
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Can you deliver the package back?
I don't think so. But I don't have Studio, so I can't check. Jerzy will know - can you open a Studio package without Studio? (e.g. change the ending to zip or something equally cunning?)
If not, then AFAIK memoQ cannot process Studio packages out of the box.
[Edited at 2011-05-09 08:41 GMT]
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| package formats | May 9, 2011 |
Hi Ricardo,
I think you meant SDL Trados Studio project packages, correct? Unlike the memoQ projects which come as a zip in open standard format, unfortunately SDL Trados Studio puts binary files into the project package. This way memoQ cannot work with Studio projects, but it can work with SDLXLIFF files. On the other hand, please have a look at just some translation companies who use memoQ and are happy to offer projects in memoQ: ... See more Hi Ricardo,
I think you meant SDL Trados Studio project packages, correct? Unlike the memoQ projects which come as a zip in open standard format, unfortunately SDL Trados Studio puts binary files into the project package. This way memoQ cannot work with Studio projects, but it can work with SDLXLIFF files. On the other hand, please have a look at just some translation companies who use memoQ and are happy to offer projects in memoQ: http://kilgray.com/company/references. While memoQ-enabled translation companies can work with freelancers using other tools too, they usually prefer memoQ users.
I hope this helps!
Best regards,
Istvan ▲ Collapse
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| Interesting news | May 10, 2011 |
István Lengyel wrote: Hi Ricardo, I think you meant SDL Trados Studio project packages, correct? Unlike the memoQ projects which come as a zip in open standard format, unfortunately SDL Trados Studio puts binary files into the project package. This way memoQ cannot work with Studio projects, but it can work with SDLXLIFF files. On the other hand, please have a look at just some translation companies who use memoQ and are happy to offer projects in memoQ: http://kilgray.com/company/references. While memoQ-enabled translation companies can work with freelancers using other tools too, they usually prefer memoQ users. I hope this helps! Best regards, Istvan
Hello István,
I wasn't aware that there was an open standard format for a package? I'd be interested to learn more about this if you can point me in the right direction?
I think anyone wanting to pass files over to memoQ for translation would be better just taking the sdlxliff, in the same way as we would do for memoQ. The memoQ package isn't much use for us either since the files inside are not all based on a standard that we could use without further manipulation.
It's also worth noting that if an Agency sends you an sdlxliff for translation that the agency can expect the following after roundtripping in memoQ:
- locked segments will be ignored
- statuses will be ignored
- match values from a pretranslation will be ignored
- previews for any filetypes that work with a preview will not be available
- segments that have been merged in Studio will not be so in memoQ
- the use of Google or other MT tool in memoQ will not be shown in the returned sdlxliff
There may be more, and there will be similar things (less though) when opening a memoQ XLIFF in Studio and round tripping it.
I think there is a long way to go before anyone can claim interoperability, and this is why an Agency using memoQ will prefer memoQ users and an Agency using Studio will prefer Studio users. Anything else requires workarounds on both sides. We have tried to offer a little more by opening up the API's to anyone who wants to use them, so one advantage an Agency using Studio will have is that they have the ability to provide plugins for any other tols they want through the OpenExchange. We can already see some of this taking effect, not just through applications that have been made public in here, but also through some of the integration work our customers are doing for themselves.
http://www.sdl.com/en/language-technology/partners/sdl-openexchange/
This will help the interoperability question. But without this I don't think anyone can claim they are offerring more than anyone else. An interesting example from the OpenExchange would be the SDLX Translation Memory where we used the SDK to develop a plugin that allows a Studio user to connect directly to an SDLX filebased TM, or to a Server TM coming from SDL TMS. We also have examples of Machine Translation plugins written by competitors to us so that Studio users can take advantage of the technology they choose. I think these are some of the reasons an Agency would choose to use the Studio platform because the ideal of an interoperable society between vendors needs a little more help than being "open", particularly when the "open" standards are not clearly defined.
That would be my take anyway.
Regards
Paul
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Selcuk Akyuz
Türkiye
Local time: 08:12
English to Turkish
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| Thanks that SDL is the market leader | May 10, 2011 |
It is not so difficult to translate SDL files with other CAT tools. ApSIC Xbench now supports Trados Studio Files as well. But unfortunately MemoQ project files, TMs are not supported by Xbench.
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| Agree with Paul | Jun 1, 2011 |
There's a lot of SDL-bashing going on here, some of it justified, some of it not... but that's sort of par for the course for the market leader. However, SDL has indeed done its homework to a reasonable extent on interoperability through standard formats and the OpenExchange, and it's nice to see SDL set the record straight here without too much spin.
Still, I can't give SDL a passing grade on interoperability until they fix the miserably broken tab delimited export feature in Multiterm th... See more There's a lot of SDL-bashing going on here, some of it justified, some of it not... but that's sort of par for the course for the market leader. However, SDL has indeed done its homework to a reasonable extent on interoperability through standard formats and the OpenExchange, and it's nice to see SDL set the record straight here without too much spin.
Still, I can't give SDL a passing grade on interoperability until they fix the miserably broken tab delimited export feature in Multiterm that has been unusable for years. They dragged their feet on TBX compatibility as well, so there's not a lot in this area that SDL can be proud of.
The take home message is, as always: most of the time, you can do "Studio" jobs is MemoQ and vice versa, but only if you really know both tools like the back of your hand. Sometimes not even then. It's best to tell your client that you can process X file format using tool Y and ask if that's good enough for them. ▲ Collapse
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John Taylor
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:12
German to English
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| If you actually have Studio 2009... | Jun 16, 2011 |
translating the Studio Project in memoQ isn't too difficult.
Follow these steps:
1) Open/import the Studio package in Studio.
2) (optional) Make sure you export any TMs that come with the package (check the "Tm" folder in the Studio package directory to make sure you're not missing anything from the agency/client) and import into memoQ project
3) Copy the sdlxliff file from the *target* language directory under the Studio package directory (e.g. "en-GB") to ... See more translating the Studio Project in memoQ isn't too difficult.
Follow these steps:
1) Open/import the Studio package in Studio.
2) (optional) Make sure you export any TMs that come with the package (check the "Tm" folder in the Studio package directory to make sure you're not missing anything from the agency/client) and import into memoQ project
3) Copy the sdlxliff file from the *target* language directory under the Studio package directory (e.g. "en-GB") to a suitable location
4) Import the sdlxliff file to your memoQ project
5) *Important bit* If there were locked/pretranslated segments etc. in the original file....
a) Open the sdlxliff file in your memoQ project and sort by "Target text length (longer first)".
b) Select all entries that have something in the target (some should be marked as "100%" - not sure this applies to locked rows though)
c) Confirm all these rows (I usually do this with the proofreader flag checked, then switch back to normal translator to do the actual translation - avoids you overwriting these pretranslated/locked segments)
6) Translate
7) Export file from memoQ and copy back into the Studio package directory
8) Open Studio and open the relevant file - your translation should be displayed
9) Verify the file with Studio
10) Select all segments in Studio (select first row, scroll to end, press shift and click last segment)
11) Change status of all segments to "Translated"
12) Close and save file changes
13) Create return package
This may look like a long process, but it's quite quick once you've done it once or twice. I really don't get along with the Trados interface and *hate* swtiching between CAT tools (the change of interface is very disruptive), so use this as often as I can.
If anyone can spot any potential problems with this scenario, please say so! ▲ Collapse
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| Export TM and termbase data for work outside Trados | Oct 4, 2011 |
In a Studio 2009 project, the TM data is in fact a SQLite database that can be accessed with SQLite tools. Similarly, termbases are Access databases and can be accessed with Access compatible db tools.
Once the data is accessed, it is trivial to export it and convert it to any supported format in the target tool, preferably TMX for the TM and csv for the glossaries.
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| I could not agree more | Oct 17, 2012 |
Most of the CAT tools offer more or less the same functionnalities with no real added value from one to another. A few years ago, one of my customer forced me to buy the soooo excellent and wonderful Wordfast Pro. It could make everything, from translation to coffee.
What happened is I lost hours trying to get use to it and to deal with the numerous bugs it had.
The agency told to its client that he could save money if translators were using Wordfast. And then, in order to be inline ... See more Most of the CAT tools offer more or less the same functionnalities with no real added value from one to another. A few years ago, one of my customer forced me to buy the soooo excellent and wonderful Wordfast Pro. It could make everything, from translation to coffee.
What happened is I lost hours trying to get use to it and to deal with the numerous bugs it had.
The agency told to its client that he could save money if translators were using Wordfast. And then, in order to be inline with their internal policy, "advised" their freelance translators to buy it.
In the end, the client just stopped the project any way.
Wordfast gained a customer and I just lost money and client.
As translators, we offer technical and linguistic expertise, we can't just buy infinitely new tools.
Gabriel
Jerzy Czopik wrote:
If you have sufficient knowledge about CATs and MemoQ and especially Trados, you will certailny be able to handle most such jobs with MemQ instead of Trados.
But just being naive enough to believe you will get a gasoline car and fuel it with alcohol to get it working (this is in fact what you're here) is playing with the devil.
All the statements MemoQ is so much superior to Studio are to be put in the same line as statemets, that OS X is superior to Windows, or even more precise Open Office is superior to MS Office. All those products have theri strong and weak points, but the "superiority" is only a very subjective and personal impression. ▲ Collapse
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