Trados, Wordfast, OmegaT...
Tessa
have been browsing thru previous discussions, but haven't quite found
out what I want to know. I'm studying to be a translator in
Switzerland and just did a kind of introductory course on CAT. In
Switzerland apparently the big thing is still Trados, but as I have a
MacBook Pro + Office 2008 I thought I'd go for Wordfast (which seems
to be very similar and compatible with Trados). Now I've found out
that Wordfast doesn't work with Office 2008, so my first thought was I
would downgrade to Office 2004 until there's a solution. However,
according to Dataquest the store I bought the MacBook Office 2004
doesn't run at all well on Leopard. Now before I go out and buy a PC
maybe one of you can tell me whether this OmegaT that I've read about
in the forum is compatible with Trados and Wordfast if I want to
change over at a later date. Thanks.
Tessa
Jean-Christophe Helary
You mention that you are still studying to be a translator, so I
suppose that Trados is what you are _taught_ is the big thing.
Personally, I've been working as a translator for 10 years and I don't
do Trados jobs. I have yet to refuse a Trados job. Period. And am not
looking for them either.
One reason is that I decided to work on a Mac and that, until recently
with all the virtual systems that are stating to abound, it was not
trivial not practical to have a Windows+Trados environment running on
a Mac machine.
If you want to know what it is like to work in Windows on a Mac,
MacLingua is the list where you'll find all the necessary information.
Trados is the big thing just like Word is the big thing. I use
OpenOffice/NeoOffice for my office suite needs.
OmegaT, along with a few other tools like Appletrans, Okapi (on Mono),
a few free tools from MaxPrograms and the Terminal are the only tools
I use to make a living. My wife works in a similar environment, and we
manage to feed our three kids.
Regarding Wordfast and Word. Wordfast does not run on Word 2008.
Because Word 2008 has been stripped by Microsoft of all the things
that were necessary to run Wordfast.
If you want to run Wordfast, you'll need Word 2004. No choice,
whatever the shop guy tells you. Plus, it is not true that Office 2004
has problems on Leopard. Office 2008 runs a little smoother for
technical reasons that you can find by reading reviews, but besides
for that I don't see much difference.
If you want to run something similar to Wordfast in OpenOffice, try
Anaphraseus. The idea is similar.
Also, the latest version of Wordfast (6.0) does not require Microsoft
Office at all. It can run on your Mac without Word or anything else.
As for OmegaT, it is not designed to be "Trados compatible" whatever
that means. It is designed to be a translation memory software that
does not depend on anything but other free solutions.
http://www.omegat.org/en/tutorial/OmegaT%20for%20Beginners.odt
Jean-Christophe Helary
------------------------------------
http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/
lmjsmyth
Hi everyone
Just to give a different perspective. I have a white MacBook that I
bought about 6 months ago. I love it and I don't use any virtual
solutions to run PC software - I have an old PC with PC software for
that. I am currently using Office 2004 and Wordfast, although my work
is not TM-intensive.
I'm happy with Wordfast, although I downloaded the new Mac version for
Office 2008 (they've rewritten Wordfast in Java to avoid macros) and I
don't think it is quite ready for professional use yet. I'm going to
wait for that before I upgrade to Office 2008.
I have had a couple of issues with Office documents in Office 2004 on
the Intel MacBook and I think these were caused by either very
complicated formatting (a giant list inside a giant table, for
example, which slowed the Mac down to a crawl) or customised use of
Office 2007 on PC (macros or something, which caused the document to
crash about a minute after I opened it on the Mac. Note that the same
company once sent a PDF file that froze my PC!).
However, apart from these two docments, I have been using Wordfast on
my Mac with Office for Trados jobs, without too many hiccups, and I am
optimistic about the future possibilities! :)
Mary-Jane
Stephanie Morriss
I don't have any problem running Wordfast + Office 2004 on Leopard.
I bought 2008, returned it to Microsoft for a refund when I realized it
will not work with Worfast and installed 2004. It's much more stable
than my old Office X and has all the features I need.
You could also try Wordfast Pro. It's a standalone application (no need
to use MS Office). I think it is still a beta. You can try it for free
for 30 days I think (http://www.wordfast.com/).
I never used any other CAT tool so I cannot advise on them but I'm very
happy with Wordfast. The people on the mailing list are really helpful
and friendly.
Stephanie
Tessa
for your varied and all very helpful answers. What a great thing a
forum like this is, just when you start thinking there's nobody left
to ask. I think I'll check out Wordfast Pro and OpenOffice and see
where that leads too. I'll be back if I have more questions.
Thanks again,
Tessa
On Jan 25, 2:25 am, Jean-Christophe Helary <fus...@mx6.tiki.ne.jp>
wrote:
Jean-Christophe Helary
On lundi 26 janv. 09, at 00:19, Tessa wrote:
> Thank you Jean-Christophe, Mary-Jane and Stephanie,
>
> for your varied and all very helpful answers. What a great thing a
> forum like this is, just when you start thinking there's nobody left
> to ask. I think I'll check out Wordfast Pro and OpenOffice and see
> where that leads too. I'll be back if I have more questions.
Tessa,
I wrote a "review" of Office 2008 just a year ago, when it was
released, on the blog companion to this list:
http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/2008/01/office-2008-review.html
Also, not especially "Trados compatible" (but Rodolfo may comment on
that here), MaxPrograms has a suite of very powerful tools that you
may want to take a look at if you intend to spend money on a CAT tool
even before you are sure you'll be making money with translation (you
are still a student aren't you ?)
If I were you, I'd go the cheap-but-works way. Which means OmegaT/
OpenOffice/some of MaxPrograms tools/Okapi/Appletrans etc.
I can tell you that when you are done exploring all you can do with
them, you'll know what Trados will or will not be able to bring to you.
People argue that with Trados you can get bigger volumes, but the
problem is that bigger volume often means lower pay. You may want to
consider fields where Trados will _never_ be a requirement (and those
abound) so that you can earn the same amount of money for less work.
Rodolfo Raya
<fus...@mx6.tiki.ne.jp> wrote:
>
>
> Also, not especially "Trados compatible" (but Rodolfo may comment on
> that here), MaxPrograms has a suite of very powerful tools that you
> may want to take a look at if you intend to spend money on a CAT tool
> even before you are sure you'll be making money with translation (you
> are still a student aren't you ?)
Trados bilingual formats for exchanging translation materials are TTX
and "uncleaned" RTF. Wordfast formats are "uncleaned" RTF (Classic)
and TXML (PRO).
If you are looking for Trados/Wordfast compatibility on Mac OS X, you
can try Swordfish, which supports TTX, TXML and uncleaned RTF.
Regards,
Rodolfo
--
Rodolfo M. Raya <rmr...@maxprograms.com>
http://www.maxprograms.com
Tessa Pfenninger
Tessa Pfenninger
problem is that bigger volume often means lower pay. You may want to
consider fields where Trados will _never_ be a requirement (and those
abound) so that you can earn the same amount of money for less work.
Rodolfo Raya
<tessapf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Rodolfo,
> I didn't quite understand all of that, but hopefully in time will.
> Meanwhile, however, about Swordfish - could I use Office 2008 for Mac with
> this?
> Tessa
Hi Tessa,
Swordfish works very well with Office 2008 files.
Actually, Office 2008 is the right tool to use with Microsoft Office
files. OpenOffice is nice, but not good enough.
Betti Moser
:-)
Best wishes
Betti
(who’s never used TM in her life! – though, having said all that, currently struggling with a job where I wish I had!)
From: Tessa Pfenninger <tessapf...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <mac-for-t...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:36:10 +0100
To: <mac-for-t...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [M4T] Re: Trados, Wordfast, OmegaT...
Jean-Christophe Helary
On lundi 26 janv. 09, at 02:28, Tessa Pfenninger wrote:
> Thanks Rodolfo,
> I didn't quite understand all of that, but hopefully in time will.
> Meanwhile, however, about Swordfish - could I use Office 2008 for
> Mac with
> this?
Tessa,
There are only a few cases where Office 2008 will be useful for you.
They revolve around delivering files in the new Office format.
If you just need to open such files, NeoOffice will do well. There
will be some glitches, but they are not worth spending the money on MS
Office.
Swordfish is independent from Word, or Office. So you can translate
files in the new format in Swordfish without having Word.
The fact that you "don't quite understand all of that" is OK.
Everybody starts by thinking Trados is _the_ thing to have, just like
they used to think that Windows was _the_ OS to have and MS Office was
_the_ office suite to have.
This is called marketing. And marketing is not what is going to
efficiently feed you. Quite the contrary, unless you are the one who
translate the marketing things, in which case, as Betti mentions, you
don't need Trados...
Jean-Christophe Helary
------------------------------------
http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/
>
>
JC Helary
On mardi 09 juin 09, at 22:57, andrea wrote:
> that's all very well, but it has to be said that in more than one
> occasion I had to refuse assignments because the client wanted to use
> Trados and at my end I had not the means to open/produce Trados files
> (but not enough to persuade me to part with £800 or whatever Trados
> costs these days).
Andrea,
You already mentioned that you use Wordfast. Wordfast is enough to be
"Trados compatible". You can use other tools too. My understanding is
that Swordfish can do the trick in most cases (Rodolfo ?).
Plus, in _my_ experience, a lot of clients don't really know what they
want. So they require Trados, but in the end, they don't require
anything Trados specific. They just want a rebate for matches, because
for them TM=cheaper.
So it is very important to understand exactly what the client wants
and to be able to have way to offer a satisfying solution that does
not cost you too much and that is compatible with your general workflow.
Jean-Christophe Helary
------------------------------------
http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/
Jean-Christophe Helary
andrea
On 9 Giu, 15:30, JC Helary <brandel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On mardi 09 juin 09, at 22:57, andrea wrote:
>
> > that's all very well, but it has to be said that in more than one
> > occasion I had to refuse assignments because the client wanted to use
> > Trados and at my end I had not the means to open/produce Trados files
> > (but not enough to persuade me to part with £800 or whatever Trados
> > costs these days).
>
> Andrea,
>
> You already mentioned that you use Wordfast. Wordfast is enough to be
> "Trados compatible". You can use other tools too. My understanding is
> that Swordfish can do the trick in most cases (Rodolfo ?).
>
> Plus, in _my_ experience, a lot of clients don't really know what they
> want. So they require Trados, but in the end, they don't require
> anything Trados specific. They just want a rebate for matches, because
> for them TM=cheaper.
"Trados" files, I am at a bit of a loss...
>
> So it is very important to understand exactly what the client wants
> and to be able to have way to offer a satisfying solution that does
> not cost you too much and that is compatible with your general workflow.
the work from scratch and taht's the end of it, that's fine, but if
you have to rely on a Trados TM, I do not know how to go about it, nor
whether you can at all... However I repeat that I have not felt enough
pressure to fork out the money (yet).
Andrea
>
> Jean-Christophe Helary
>
> ------------------------------------http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/
>
> Jean-Christophe Helary
Rodolfo Raya
> Andrea,
>
> You already mentioned that you use Wordfast. Wordfast is enough to be
> "Trados compatible". You can use other tools too. My understanding is
> that Swordfish can do the trick in most cases (Rodolfo ?).
Swordfish handles TTX, Wordfast, doesn't.
Wordfast requires Office 2004. Swordfish does not require Office at
all but works well with files creaded with Office 2008 (Wordfast
doesn't).