Forum: CAT Tools Technical Help
Topic: Why are more and more agencies these days choosing memoQ or SDL Studio as their "preferred" tool?
Poster: José Henrique Lamensdorf
Post title: An analogy with DTP
[quote]Michael Beijer wrote:
In an ideal world, of course, the industry would appoint a single body, to develop a single standard, and all CAT tools would then stick to this standard: ...
Someone will now tell me that these standards all already exist. Yes, I know. But the CAT tool vendors have not succeeded in working together to actually use them properly, and contribute to their success and development.[/quote]
To illustrate, let's consider the "professional" DTP apps to be InDesign (and its father, Page Maker), QuarkXpress, and Frame Maker. The amateur-level DTP apps would be Microsoft Publisher, Serif PagePlus, and Scribus.
There is NO common ground between their files. As a Page Maker user for over a quarter century, I've seen "DTP file converters", tested them, and found none that worked reliably, when they did at all.
Some CAT tools can "trespass" into DTP-app files to allow translation of the text therein without having the specific DTP app, however someone having that DTP app will have to go there later and fix all the layout issues caused by text swelling or shrinkage during translation.
The worst case for translation is MS Publisher. It is capable of EXporting a DTP file into MS Word format, however it is INcapable if IMporting it back. Anyone who has ever done any kind of DTP knows that Word is - and will always be - a word processor, NOT a DTP app, no matter how many bells and whistles Microsoft patches into it.
The solution I found to offer translation AND layout fixing services in all DTP app files was beyond DTP... working on the PDF files all DTP apps - and other programs as well - are able to generate. An example of the entire process is shown [b][url= [url removed] ]here[/url][/b].
It is quite fortunate for Adobe that all three - PDF, InDesign/Page Maker, and Frame Maker - are their own.
However NO CAT-tool developer has its own DOC/DOCX - the market standard - word processor, and Microsoft doesn't have its own CAT tool that their marketing could impose as the one-and-only market standard. Hence bridges will have to be built outside.
Like Iceni developed Infix Pro to translate and fix the layout on DTP files, some smart software developer could make a bundle from devising a TM converter capable of transforming, for instance, a lame *.txt TM from WFClassic into a *.xliffploft - or whatever is that suffix - "as if" it had been originally created by SDL Studio, bridging all different CAT tools.
This could render it pointless to demand/impose one or another specific CAT tool, just as nobody specifies the distilling engine required to generate a PDF.
[Edited at 2015-11-14 12:11 GMT]
Topic: Why are more and more agencies these days choosing memoQ or SDL Studio as their "preferred" tool?
Poster: José Henrique Lamensdorf
Post title: An analogy with DTP
[quote]Michael Beijer wrote:
In an ideal world, of course, the industry would appoint a single body, to develop a single standard, and all CAT tools would then stick to this standard: ...
Someone will now tell me that these standards all already exist. Yes, I know. But the CAT tool vendors have not succeeded in working together to actually use them properly, and contribute to their success and development.[/quote]
To illustrate, let's consider the "professional" DTP apps to be InDesign (and its father, Page Maker), QuarkXpress, and Frame Maker. The amateur-level DTP apps would be Microsoft Publisher, Serif PagePlus, and Scribus.
There is NO common ground between their files. As a Page Maker user for over a quarter century, I've seen "DTP file converters", tested them, and found none that worked reliably, when they did at all.
Some CAT tools can "trespass" into DTP-app files to allow translation of the text therein without having the specific DTP app, however someone having that DTP app will have to go there later and fix all the layout issues caused by text swelling or shrinkage during translation.
The worst case for translation is MS Publisher. It is capable of EXporting a DTP file into MS Word format, however it is INcapable if IMporting it back. Anyone who has ever done any kind of DTP knows that Word is - and will always be - a word processor, NOT a DTP app, no matter how many bells and whistles Microsoft patches into it.
The solution I found to offer translation AND layout fixing services in all DTP app files was beyond DTP... working on the PDF files all DTP apps - and other programs as well - are able to generate. An example of the entire process is shown [b][url= [url removed] ]here[/url][/b].
It is quite fortunate for Adobe that all three - PDF, InDesign/Page Maker, and Frame Maker - are their own.
However NO CAT-tool developer has its own DOC/DOCX - the market standard - word processor, and Microsoft doesn't have its own CAT tool that their marketing could impose as the one-and-only market standard. Hence bridges will have to be built outside.
Like Iceni developed Infix Pro to translate and fix the layout on DTP files, some smart software developer could make a bundle from devising a TM converter capable of transforming, for instance, a lame *.txt TM from WFClassic into a *.xliffploft - or whatever is that suffix - "as if" it had been originally created by SDL Studio, bridging all different CAT tools.
This could render it pointless to demand/impose one or another specific CAT tool, just as nobody specifies the distilling engine required to generate a PDF.
[Edited at 2015-11-14 12:11 GMT]