Advice to buy the best CAT for Mac

[ndyke]

Hi everyone,

I'm writing from Montreal (french is my first language) and I need
some sound advice concerning the best CAT for Mac. I work on a Mac OSX
version 10.5.8 and Office 2008 (version 12.2.3). I am a freelance
translator since almost 10 years and my clientèle is getting bigger. I
think it's time for me to move on to CAT. In the last few days, I have
made many searches on the Net to try to have a sense of what to buy.
Very confusing indeed :)) I am not a whiz kid regarding softwares, so
I really am looking for the more userfriendly, bug free, efficient
CAT. My searches has led me to these CAT: Wordfast, OmegaT,
AppleTrans, CafeTran.

I've written directly to Y.Champollion from Wordfast just to check the
compatibility: no answer. Ibid with the customer service in the
States, no answer. I've written also to CafeTran: great answer, but I
feel a bit insecure since I have seen a lot of users of that software.
I've checked AppleTrans, but on the website of Apple it says that it
is not an Apple software and that it should be used at our own risk.
Etc, etc.

So, I think my best solution is to ask directly Mac users. Can you
advice me concerning CAT?

It will be a pleasure to read you. Thank you very much in advance.

Nathalie
Montreal, Canada

[Hans van den Broek]

On 06/12/2009, at 7:28 AM, ndyke wrote:

> So, I think my best solution is to ask directly Mac users.

I wish I could, Nathalie. Same problem here. I've been using DV3 for
more than 13 years, but that requires Windows, and I would be happy
to go Mac only. So far, I couldn't find a CAT tool that comes even
close to DV. And AFAIK, AppleTrans is not supported by OS Leopard and
Snow Leopard.

Cheers,

Hans

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[JC Helary]

On 6 déc. 2009, at 11:51, Hans van den Broek wrote:

> And AFAIK, AppleTrans is not supported by OS Leopard and Snow Leopard.

??? I don't think so. They work without problem.


Jean-Christophe Helary
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[Hans van den Broek]

On 06/12/2009, at 10:06 AM, JC Helary wrote:

> ??? I don't think so. They work without problem.

That's good news, J-C. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that that was
the case. Apparently they upgraded AppleTrans afterwards.

[JC Helary]

On 6 déc. 2009, at 09:28, ndyke wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm writing from Montreal (french is my first language) and I need
> some sound advice concerning the best CAT for Mac. I work on a Mac OSX
> version 10.5.8 and Office 2008 (version 12.2.3). I am a freelance
> translator since almost 10 years and my clientèle is getting bigger. I
> think it's time for me to move on to CAT. In the last few days, I have
> made many searches on the Net to try to have a sense of what to buy.
> Very confusing indeed :)) I am not a whiz kid regarding softwares, so
> I really am looking for the more userfriendly, bug free, efficient
> CAT. My searches has led me to these CAT: Wordfast, OmegaT,
> AppleTrans, CafeTran.

Voici la réponse privée qui a motivé l'envoi sur la liste:

==============
Bonjour Nathalie,

> Je travaille avec Mac OSX 10.5.8 et Office 2008 (Word 12.2.3). À partir de mes recherches, j'ai cru comprendre que les outils suivants pouvaient être de bons choix: Wordfast, OmegaT et AppleTrans.

Il y en a quelques autres. Les produits de Heartsome, les produits de Maxprograms, Cafetrans sont ceux qui me viennent à l'esprit. Comme outil d'aide aux CAT il existe Okapi et son Rainbow.

En ce qui concerne Wordfast, seule sa version "moderne" (vs la classique qui ne tourne que dans Word 2004) pourra fonctionner sur votre système.

Le point commun de tous ces outils (sauf Appletrans) c'est qu'ils sont écrits en langage de programmation Java, donc ils sont multiplateforme. Vous pourrez les utiliser dans Windows ou Linux dans avoir à modifier vos habitudes en ce qui concerne l'interface ordinateur/utilisateur.

> Or, en lisant différents forums, je me suis aperçue qu'ils présentent tous des irritants majeurs.

Qui n'en présente pas ? :)
J'ai fait le choix de Mac, ce qui veux dire que je me prive à priori des travaux qui "exigent" Trados.

Pourriez-vous expliciter vos attentes et en quoi ces attentes seraient éventuellement frustrées par les côtés irritants de ces logiciels que vous avez trouvés sur les fora ?

> Enfin, auriez-vous la gentillesse de m'éclairer sur le sujet?

Pas de problème. Je pense que même si cette conversation est en français elle pourrait bénéficier aux membres de la liste. Accepteriez-vous de la continuer là-bas ?

Cordialement,

Jean-Christophe Helary
==============

> I've written directly to Y.Champollion from Wordfast just to check the
> compatibility: no answer. Ibid with the customer service in the
> States, no answer. I've written also to CafeTran: great answer, but I
> feel a bit insecure since I have seen a lot of users of that software.
> I've checked AppleTrans, but on the website of Apple it says that it
> is not an Apple software and that it should be used at our own risk.
> Etc, etc.
>
> So, I think my best solution is to ask directly Mac users. Can you
> advice me concerning CAT?

All the software that you use on your machine is supposed to be used at your own risk. Apple just made it crystal clear.

As I wrote above, on Mac OSX with Office 2008 you have access to:

Appletrans
Cafetrans
Heartsome Translation Studio
OmegaT
Swordfish (Maxprograms)
Wordfast Translation Studio

(I may be forgetting a few other major ones so feel free to correct me)

Besides for Appletrans, all the others are Java applications that will run similarly on Windows and Linux.

Appletrans is the only OSX native application. It is also free of charge.

All the others besides for OmegaT are not free.

OmegaT is not only free of charge but also free in the meaning that you have the freedom to use it, modify it and distribute your modifications at the conditions that they can be used under the same terms.

OmegaT is free software.


If you are only considering a translation memory tool because you feel like it's about time you use one, then my best advice is to try

1) Appletrans, because if you're used to Mac then Appletrans should feel familiar. The manual is short and clear enough to quickly understand how to use it.

2) OmegaT, because it is easy to use too, even if a little alien looking.

3) the rest in any order. Hearstome and Maxprograms provide full featured demo versions for 1 month so you can get used to their workflow. I've only used Heartsome (the previous version) and Sworfish (briefly, a new version will be available around Christmas, seemingly free upgrade for current users).

4) I've never used Wordfast and Cafetrans, but I've heard good things about Cafetrans.

[JC Helary]

On 6 déc. 2009, at 12:17, Hans van den Broek wrote:

> On 06/12/2009, at 10:06 AM, JC Helary wrote:
>
>> ??? I don't think so. They work without problem.
>
> That's good news, J-C. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that that was
> the case. Apparently they upgraded AppleTrans afterwards.

Leopard has been around for 2 years now and I don't remember having had to upgrade Appletrans because of incompatibilities with the OS so I wonder what the issue was really.

[elsu]

Hi, Nathalie,

I am a Latvian freelance translator working on a Mac (currently
10.5.8, but also testing 10.6.2), and I use CafeTran (along with
OmegaT and AppleTrans) already for more than two years.

CafeTran is especially handy for translation of MS Word 2008 documents
(.docx) made from scans or converted PDFs (with lots of tags), because
it allows to join segments even across paragraphs.

A minor shortcoming of CafeTran may be the need to install OpenOffice,
if you want to use spellchecking in this CAT tool.

Hope this helps.
Elmars

[Andrea Re]

Hi there,

I have never managed to make appletrans work:(
I used to use Wordfast (for pc), but on mac I find it is way too slow, so eventually I converted to Swordfish (release 2 due any day now)
http://www.maxprograms.com/products/swordfish.html
The program is pretty new and is not 100% yet (for example the glossary lookup won't do fuzzy matches), but have been using it for some 6 months now and I am pretty happy with it. In any case you can download it and use it for a month for free, only then you have to decide. It is pretty straightforward to use, and if you have any problem, join the support list.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/swordfish_support/

Andrea

elsu ha scritto:

[Andrea Re]

Whoops, forget Wordfast... you need Office 2004 to make it work (I bought it exactly for that reason and ended up not using it...)

Andrea

Andrea Re ha scritto:

[ndyke]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all the info provided, it really helps. This is my
understanding of the situation (remember, I'm a real beginner:)) :

1) If I want to work directly on Word files, the only tool suitable is
Wordfast. However, it is better to work with Wordfast Classic and Word
2004 for Mac, since the Pro version and Word 2008 aren't really
working well together.

2) Concerning AppleTrans and OmegaT, I have to import a word file then
work with CAT and then export it again in Word. I have one very
important question concerning this procedure: I almost exclusively
translate Word files (.doc and .docx) and the respect of the formating
of my clients documents is very important. So: either with AppleTrans
and OmegaT, when you export back the translation in Word, does it
totally respect the formating of the initial document?

3) Yesterday, I have read the user guides of Wordfast, AppleTrans and
OmegaT - this last one at 1 o'clock in the morning! I must tell you
that OmegaT sounds the easiest to use, the user guide is very
userfriendly and the interface looks also very simple to understand. I
have downloaded AppleTrans - download was complicated because the page
where it is found doesn't mention exactly what to download (I
downloaded: AppleGlot3.4, AppleTrans, ADViewer and a french Glossary.
But what is pcxapp2 ? and what are Cocoa and Carbon Ressources ?) The
worst one to read is Wordfast, both version in french and english are
outdated, no one answers my question at the Marketing dept, etc.

4) My last question: why do many of you use two CAT, like AppleTrans
and OmegaT? Is it important to have both?

Thank you again for sharing your experience,

Nathalie
Montreal, Canada

> > <http://groups.google.com/group/mac-for-translators?hl=en>

[Elmars Sumanis]

Hello!

Every one of the mentioned CAT tools has its strong and weak sides.

AppleTrans will not allow to totally respect the formatting of the initial document, but allows to work directly on the source text (a bit like Wordfast Classic).

OmegaT will perfectly recreate the initial document, but not all of Word documents can be converted by OpenOffice to the .odt format which OmegaT handles very well.

Of course, you can translate the MS Word (.docx) documents in OmegaT, but in such case you may have to deal with lots of tags (they even may be inside words). And Omega T has no ability to join or split segments (parts of sentences) on the fly when there are paragraph marks in wrong places.

CafeTran perfectly handles MS Word .docx and OpenOffice .odt documents (easy transfer of tags from source to target; multiple consecutive tags are combined into one; joining of segments even over paragraphs) and recreates the initial formatting very well. Plus the excellent auto-complete function (no need to repeatedly type long words - CafeTran "remembers" them and offers to you when you type the first 3 letters).

Kind regards,

Elmars

2009/12/6 ndyke <nd...@sympatico.ca>

[Marian Dougan]

Hi everyone, and Hi Nathalie, 

I've been following this discussion with interest as I'm in a similar position to Nathalie. And like Nathalie, I'm interested in why and how some of you use two CAT tools.  

And also in your assessment of Nathalie's assessment of the situation, if that makes sense.

Thanks to all

Marian 

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[Karl-Johan Norén]

On 6 Dec, 15:40, ndyke <nd...@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> 2) Concerning AppleTrans and OmegaT, I have to import a word file then
> work with CAT and then export it again in Word. I have one very
> important question concerning this procedure: I almost exclusively
> translate Word files (.doc and .docx) and the respect of the formating
> of my clients documents is very important. So: either with AppleTrans
> and OmegaT, when you export back the translation in Word, does it
> totally respect the formating of the initial document?

With the new XML-based Office file formats (.docx), most CAT tools can
handle those directly, or be made to do so easily. OmegaT explicitly
notes it supports that format. If you get a file in older binary Word
format, simply save it as docx in Word 2007/2008, translate it and
convert it back to the binary doc format before delivery.

My advice about AppleTrans is to forget it. Apple doesn't develop it
anymore, according to friends who had to use it for large projects it
was software to keep away from, and it's developed for software
localisation, not general translation.

> 4) My last question: why do many of you use two CAT, like AppleTrans
> and OmegaT? Is it important to have both?

Yes and no. There are two criterions to look at: what file formats you
get, and any demands on tools made by the customer (which in this case
almost always is a bureau).

If you get a large order that is to be done with a certain tool, then
go out and get that one, especially if you think you can get further
large orders. But if you only work with Word files, then a recent copy
of Word and OmegaT (or another CAT tool that can handle XML) is all
you need from a software standpoint.

Cheers,
Karl-Johan

[Chris Moore]

The one nice advantage of appletrans is that it is wysiwyg in terms of
formatting… no playing with tags and so on. In general though the UI
is extremely obtuse, and the actions you want to do by default require
multiple modifier key presses coordinated with clicks… OmegaT works as
advertised and has better documentation than AppleTrans, but I found
even very simply formatted docx documents would open segments with
more tags than text making the original almost impossible to read. I'm
currently looking forward to trying out swordfish and seeing how it
compares (waiting for when I get back from vacation/new version comes
out).

Chris Moore

2009/12/7 Karl-Johan Norén <karl-...@norensoversattningar.se>:

[Martina Krížiková]

Hi everyone,

I'm a translator from Slovakia and I've been using OmegaT for over 2 years now. 

Only recently I've bought Office for Mac, so I've used OmegaT for formatting only and it works really well but you need a certain period time and patience to get used to it. The problem with converting word files to odt files is that sometimes I get files from clients that are so badly formatted that I need to correct the formatting otherwise I would go crazy :)) That's why I decided to buy Office.

The disadvantage of OmegaT is that you can't split or join segments. You have to open the original file and look up the sentence, change it there and save it. Then you reload the file in OmegaT. 

CafeTrans seems like a nice alternative. I'll check it out. Thanks

MARTINA KRÍŽIKOVÁ

[Bonnie Brusky]

Hi Nathalie,

I was in your exact spot a few months ago.  I opted for Wordfast (follow this link for some background: http://www.proz.com/forum/apple_mac_operating_systems/144983-wordfast_solution:_office_2004_neo_office_parallels.html), mainly because  I am not very computer literate and I had the opportunity to do a face-to-face training module in Wordfast. Had the training module been in OmegaT or AppleTrans, maybe I'd be using one of  these programs....

Just in a nutshell: WF is compatible with Mac. But not with Office 2008, only the previous version (2004). And if you are running Snow Leopard, Office 2004 is EXTREMELY slow. My link above explains all this. I ended up creating a virtual Windows machine in my Mac using the freeware Virtual Box, and run Office XP. It works just fine for me. Occasionally weird things happen in WF (it freezes up), and I haven't taken the time to figure out what is going on, but it's rare, so for now, I just deal with it.
Now, you can run WF Pro on your Mac, and use office 2008. WF Pro is a stand alone program, where as WF runs INSIDE of Word. You could test out both, actually, as you can download light versions of these programs for free (WF has a try before you buy philosophy).

Feel free to write me if you want more info!

Best,
Bonnie

2009/12/6 ndyke <nd...@sympatico.ca>

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[JC Helary]

Since we are talking about Wordfast, I'd like to mention an alternative that I had totally forgotten in my first mail: the free software Anaphraseus. Anaphraseus is a free alternative to Wordfast. It works not in Word but directly in OpenOffice.org.

It is not as mature as the other applications already mentioned but I think it is worth a try.

[Marian Dougan]

Good morning all

Bonnie mentions the availability of face-to-face training in Wordfast as a factor in her choice of CAT for the MAC (sounds like something from Dr. Seuss!). 

Training would be an important consideration for me too - more time-effective than figuring it out yourself. Are there any training modules available for OmegaT or the other programmes?

Marian

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[JC Helary]

On 7 déc. 2009, at 18:13, Bonnie Brusky wrote:

> I ended up creating a virtual Windows machine in my Mac using the freeware Virtual Box,
> and run Office XP. It works just fine for me.

The Maclingua fora has recently seen a lot of discussions about virtual solutions for Windows.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MacLingua/

That's also one of the reasons why I created "Mac For Translators"... :)

[JC Helary]

On 7 déc. 2009, at 18:30, Marian Dougan wrote:

> Training would be an important consideration for me too - more time-
> effective than figuring it out yourself. Are there any training
> modules available for OmegaT or the other programmes?

Depending on your time zone, a number of people can provide you with remote face-to-face training for OmegaT.

Also, in the Documentation section of the main site, you can find a lot of information:

http://www.omegat.org/en/documentation.html