Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: Your input on CAT Tools with specific requirements
Poster: user_3042476
Hello everyone and my first post here. A little background... I have been doing some translation work for decades as part of my work in Sales & Marketing. Although this was by no means a major part of my work. A year ago I started as a freelance with 3 different industries with a fixed set of customers. I enjoy this work and work mainly with Word docs and some online tools for help and verifications (DeepL, Google Translate).
About 6 months ago one of my customer started using Memsource (I had not been aware of CAT tools until then). I don't know exactly why but Memsource leaves me underwhelmed - I end up exporting the document into word and upload it back when done.
I would welcome your suggestions if you have had the opportunity to test various CAT Tools. I like my work to be focused on the text rather than be confused with a myriad of options, tools, widgets and a busy screen. Since I work in different industries (some very technical) I would like whatever CAT Tool I choose to have a very robust Term and glossary feature. In some industries, one term may have 2 or more definition depending on its application/context etc... Therefore, I'd like to store and manage multiple definitions to one term if possible.
I have looked but not tested the following and leaving my thoughts to see if I can get your input:
Wordfast: Watched some Youtube videos. Correct me if I'm wrong but it feels like a Win95 application
Déjà-vu : I liked what I saw but looking deeper it looks like development has stopped since the original owner passed away. This was further strengthened on their web site as the X4 version button brings you to the X3 page with no updated info on X4. All the videos are many years old. So I dont have a good feeling.
SDL: Looks very strong in TM but has a steep price and learning curve it seems.
SmartCat: Has many good reviews on this site but many mention it is light in features and focus on market place (jobs) which is not a selling point for me at this time.
As you can see, I want my cake and eat it too! I want a clean UI / Interface with a strong set of tools. I am willing to pay for the tool but if someone has a good suggesting for a free version so much the better... I would rather PC based than cloud based but since I use many cloud based apps anyway, its not a deal killer.
I know many of these apps offer a 30 days trial. Since I am doing this part time, I cannot afford the time to test all the CAT tools out there to settle on one. This is why I would like to ask the experts here on this site.
Thanks again for your input