Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: CAT tool that allows to work on the same MS Word doc. (source lang. and target lang. side by side)
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: @Nameless
[quote]Nameless person wrote:
As far as I know, CAT tools create an exact copy of the original document, replacing the text of the source language with the text of the target language. [/quote]
Yes, but you can often specify which parts of the document must be translated and which parts should remain untranslated. So if you have a table with two columns, and you have the same text in both columns, you can sometimes tell the CAT tool to leave the first column as-is and only make changes to the second column. In certain formats, you can even translate columns even if the second column does not yet contain a copy of the first column (e.g. Excel files).
[quote]But what if, as in my case, I want to insert the target language not in a separate document but inside the same document beside the source language (in different columns, as I said)? Is this possible at all with any CAT tool out there? [/quote]
Some CAT tools do indeed work inside the document itself (and does not simply create a translated copy of it). Wordfast Classic (WFC) is one such tool. To use WFC, you'd have to copy the source text from the first column into the second column, and then tell WFC not to translate the first column. So you're essentially translating the second column and gradually replacing the source text with the target text.
You can mark text as untranslatable in WFC by setting the font as "hidden", or by changing the style of the font to something, e.g. tw4winExternal style, or by using a font alteration that you specify as "do not translate". However, this is fairly advanced usage in WFC, so you'll probably spend some time figuring out how to do it.
[quote]I find myself constantly looking up the same basic expressions (en este momento --> at this moment, on this moment, at this point, etc. / por teléfono --> by phone, over the phone), "in the report" or "on the report", "in the video" or "on the video", and things like these, which is annoying and tiring. With a CAT tool I wouldn't need to be looking up these same things over and over again and I could work faster. [/quote]
Most CAT tools can only recognise segments, not phrases within segments. [Some CAT tools do attempt to recognise phrases, e.g. Trados 2019, but your mileage will vary -- it is unlikely that Trados will recognise "en este momento", for example.]
So, if for example you have the segment "Programas ejecutándose en este momento o concluídos en XYZ", the CAT tool won't tell you that you've already translated "en este momento" nor will it tell you what its translation is. Even if you have translated "en este momento" separately once before, the CAT tool will still not flag "en este momento" in the segment "Programas ejecutándose en este momento o concluídos en XYZ" because that phrase is only 25% of the full segment, and very few CAT tools serve 25% matches.
You would be able to search for "en este momento" quicker if you've used a CAT tool, however, because you can search the TM manually to see how the phrase was translated previously. Or, you can add "en este momento" to the glossary and then the CAT tool will automatically recognise it and offer the translation to you. But creating the glossary with each translated phrase is something you'd have to do manually.
[quote]- Everything I type into the second column of the Word document (the target language) should be automatically included in a translation memory. [/quote]
In order for a CAT tool do add something to the translation memory (TM), the CAT tool must have some way of accurately identifying the source text of the segment that you're trying to add to the TM.
[quote]In every project (document) I work on (and I'd need this for my past projects too).[/quote]
You can use a single TM with more than one document.
To create a TM from old translations, figure out how "alignment" works (often available as separate programs).
[quote]- Using this translation memory, suggestions should appear throughout the document where there's something that's similar to something I've already translated before. [/quote]
In WFC (and other tools that work inside the document itself), the suggestions do not appear automatically all over the document, but appear only at the point where you are currently busy typing a translation. Other CAT tools do have that feature, but they don't work inside the document itself.
[quote]Any suggestions? [/quote]
Yes... the suggestion given by John Fossey (who has a name) is a good one.
[Edited at 2018-09-26 09:03 GMT]
