Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: Selecting a cloud-based CAT
Poster: Jean Dimitriadis
Post title: Consider Matecat
As it covers all your requirements, and it's free.
Your requirements:
-Cloud based translation interface with MT (DeepL preferred)
It's cloud-based, and you can choose to input your DeepL keys and use that MT. They offer a lite version of ModernMT (which learns on the spot as you go on a project and as per the attached TMs) for free by default (only defaulting to free Google MT in unsupported language pairs).
[url removed]
-One or two project manager, up to 4 seats for linguists
Yes. Once you are logged in with an account, you can manage your projects and assign them to translators or a team, even with the ability of splitting the job.
See here: [url removed]
-Possibility of reimporting existing translation memories and term bases and export them in the future (in a non proprietary format)
Easy TM/Glossary import and export options. [url removed]
-Works on most classic formats (docx, xml, xls, idml, etc)
All classic formats covered. [url removed]
-A reasonably priced subscription
It's free.
---
It does have a few caveats:
- For each project, your need to assign/create a private resource (TM), otherwise the translation segments are stored in a public memory (MyMemory) instead of simply querying that memory. This is super simple to do ( [url removed] ), but it's a dangerous default.
- Matecat is connected to a translation agency, Translated.net, and when creating a job, they offer the possibility to outsource it to them. This is totally optional, and is not customer-facing, but it's not ideal when you are an agency yourself. Maybe contact the Matecat team to see how much a branded version of Matecat would cost. I doubt this would cater to a small agency, but I've already seen such branded versions where no mention of Translated.net, let alone Matecat, was found.
- Their "weighted" word-count during the project analysis phase is absolute trash for the translator, as their calculation applies discounts for MT and bogus public TM entries. The default billing model is explained here: [url removed] Again, this is totally optional. Instead, you can create your own custom billing models: [url removed]
- Matecat lets you export a XLIFF file and do the translation in a separate/offline CAT. However, while they offer a utility to drag and drop the translated XLIFF and export the target document, they don't let you import the XLIFF, only the final TMX. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem. If it is, a solution might be to (systematically or as needed) create a project in another tool and import that XLIFF (instead of the source document) to Matecat. This means however that you will need to export that file and generate the target documents in the CAT tool you used to create the project. This solution is doable but a bit unwieldy, since it adds some additional steps, and you loose the convenience of generating document previews and target documents directly from Matecat. You could use SmartCAT for this scenario (SmartCAT lets you both export and reimport XLIFFs).
Smartcat could be a good option as well, again with some caveats.
[Edited at 2024-06-27 09:44 GMT]
Topic: Selecting a cloud-based CAT
Poster: Jean Dimitriadis
Post title: Consider Matecat
As it covers all your requirements, and it's free.
Your requirements:
-Cloud based translation interface with MT (DeepL preferred)
It's cloud-based, and you can choose to input your DeepL keys and use that MT. They offer a lite version of ModernMT (which learns on the spot as you go on a project and as per the attached TMs) for free by default (only defaulting to free Google MT in unsupported language pairs).
[url removed]
-One or two project manager, up to 4 seats for linguists
Yes. Once you are logged in with an account, you can manage your projects and assign them to translators or a team, even with the ability of splitting the job.
See here: [url removed]
-Possibility of reimporting existing translation memories and term bases and export them in the future (in a non proprietary format)
Easy TM/Glossary import and export options. [url removed]
-Works on most classic formats (docx, xml, xls, idml, etc)
All classic formats covered. [url removed]
-A reasonably priced subscription
It's free.
---
It does have a few caveats:
- For each project, your need to assign/create a private resource (TM), otherwise the translation segments are stored in a public memory (MyMemory) instead of simply querying that memory. This is super simple to do ( [url removed] ), but it's a dangerous default.
- Matecat is connected to a translation agency, Translated.net, and when creating a job, they offer the possibility to outsource it to them. This is totally optional, and is not customer-facing, but it's not ideal when you are an agency yourself. Maybe contact the Matecat team to see how much a branded version of Matecat would cost. I doubt this would cater to a small agency, but I've already seen such branded versions where no mention of Translated.net, let alone Matecat, was found.
- Their "weighted" word-count during the project analysis phase is absolute trash for the translator, as their calculation applies discounts for MT and bogus public TM entries. The default billing model is explained here: [url removed] Again, this is totally optional. Instead, you can create your own custom billing models: [url removed]
- Matecat lets you export a XLIFF file and do the translation in a separate/offline CAT. However, while they offer a utility to drag and drop the translated XLIFF and export the target document, they don't let you import the XLIFF, only the final TMX. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem. If it is, a solution might be to (systematically or as needed) create a project in another tool and import that XLIFF (instead of the source document) to Matecat. This means however that you will need to export that file and generate the target documents in the CAT tool you used to create the project. This solution is doable but a bit unwieldy, since it adds some additional steps, and you loose the convenience of generating document previews and target documents directly from Matecat. You could use SmartCAT for this scenario (SmartCAT lets you both export and reimport XLIFFs).
Smartcat could be a good option as well, again with some caveats.
[Edited at 2024-06-27 09:44 GMT]