According to the categorization I used, there are three different categories of CAT tools -- and the experienced readers among you will know that I'm not only referring to the translation environment tools (TEnTs) like Across, Trados, Heartsome and Déjà Vu, but all tools that supply Computer Aided Translation.

The main categories are

1. tools that independently provide specific functions for the translator.
2. tools that provide functions which enhance the use of TEnTs.
3. tools that provide a comprehensive environment for a large variety of translation-related features, i.e., TEnTs.

There certainly is a lot of overlap between these categories. Many TEnTs, for instance, also provide many of the features that the more specialized tools provide, but it's sort of like with MS Word: it does pretty much everything, but the more specialized things (such as word counts, working in text-based or HTML or XML files, switching code pages, etc.) are done much better by specialized tools. And that's not too surprising -- you have these highly charged, passionate folks who invest all their energy in doing one thing right -- and it would be a shame if they could not get that done extremely well.

So, here are the functions of the first main category and examples of the tools that cover those functions:

• Resource lookup - These include tools such as Wordfinder, which assemble dictionary resources and provide lookup in them from any Windows-based tool, or tools like IntelliWebSearch, which allow for lookup in online and offline resources. (Note: for this or any of the other categories there are other competing tools that may be just as good or better.)
• Terminology management -- Tools such as Lingo or AnyLexic specifically allow you to import term lists or termbases, add to these from any Windows-based tool, and provide lookup in these termbases. Another kind of terminology management tool would be something like ApSIC XBench that allows you easily to manage, convert, and search large existing term lists, like the one from Microsoft or Apple.
  
• Project management -- There are a whole slew of tools that provide project management functions for companies, starting with tools like Worx, Plunet, and ]project-open[, and continuing to some of the workflow tools that also provide the features of TEnTs, such as Idiom WorldServer, Star James, Trados TeamWorks, and several others. For individual translators there are only a handful out there, including tools like Translation Office 3000 and T.O.M. They differentiate themselves from their MUCH more expensive company siblings by not covering areas like workflow or vendor management, and they don't provide interface to systems like SAP, etc.
• Word counts -- I have written plenty about this in the past, so there's no need to say much more. There is a wide range of products out there that provide this function, and I have often mentioned my two Ukrainian "friends" PractiCount & Invoice and AnyCount. What distinguishes these tools is the wide array of formats that they can count in, while using MS Word's parameters (which have sort of become industry-standard and are helpful in avoiding conflicts with clients) without committing the same oversights and errors that Word commits. What is important to realize, of course, is that these tools don't count on the basis of repetition or memory matches -- that is the forte of TEnTs.
• Software localization -- Tools that provide these functions are really a class of their own. Their core function is to provide an environment to both the translator and software engineer that allows them to translate, test, and fix the localized software before deployment. Some of the "normal" TEnTs now also allow the translation of the files that were previously under the care of these localization guys, but typically not nearly with the range of engineering features that a true localization tool would provide. While localization tools typically have a rather underdeveloped translation memory and "glossary" feature, they often provide plug-in capabilities to the memories of grown-up TEnTs. Tools in this category are manifold, with the two most well-known being Catalyst and Passolo.
  

The second category surprised me the most. There are really a whole bunch of tools that cater to the needs of TEnTs -- either by making them better in a specific area or even giving them additional abilities that they flat-out don't have.

• Term extraction -- This is a really useful but woefully underused feature that allows you to extract term lists from translation memories or translated and aligned documents. It's cool stuff because it allows you to build up the core of your terminology database for your TEnT almost on the fly, thereby foregoing the often tedious and painful way of doing everything manually. Interestingly, some of the tools for this are offered by vendors who also offer TEnTs -- SDL offers two different ones with TermExtract and Phrasefinder -- but there are also powerful independent ones such as Synchroterm.
• Text extraction -- In a really interesting (and smart) move, some of the TEnT makers have stopped building solutions of their own for very complex formats -- notably for Quark -- and are promoting the products of other companies that allow you to extract text from complex formats which can then be processed in a regular TEnT. Quark files are done by the famous CopyFlow from Napsys; Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Draw, and Visio formats are taken care of by the SysFilter products from ECM-Engineering; and another product that also deals with Photoshop files is Transmissions for Photoshop. Some of these solutions are not exactly cheap -- but considering that most of the work in these file formats is done in the advertising realm, that shouldn't be a problem -- there seems to be plenty of money to go around among those guys.
• Conversion -- This refers to the conversion that is specifically geared toward translation format. The open-source Olifant offers some cool conversion abilities between different flavors of translation memory/termbase files, as does the above-mentioned XBench and some of the tools of Maxprograms.
• Alignment -- For the longest time just a typically awful after-thought component of TEnTs, there are now some very specialized products out there and they make all the difference as far as I am concerned! AlignFactory is one and the AutoAligner is another, and both of them have suddenly turned alignment into a usable feature again.
• Quality assurance -- Tools that offer only quality assurance -- or maybe it should be called quality control (they are typically used as a last check) -- intrigue me because they do two things: They provide high-quality quality control (duuh) on translation files and translation memories, but they have also forced TEnT vendors to respond and include QA components on their own -- with Trados, SDLX, Transit, Déjà Vu and MemoQ as prime examples. Be that as it may, stand-alone QA tools are here to stay, with QA Distiller, Quintillian, and Error Spy as the most well-known representatives.
  

And lastly, there are the comprehensive TEnTs -- I truly will not spend any time talking about those, since many thousands of words in this newsletter (and in my ebook) have been devoted to the many specimens out there. Just this much: This fall should be quite exciting because there are a number of major upgrades in the pipeline: Heartsome and MemoQ have already released their major upgrades, and Wordfast, Transit, and Déjà Vu are to follow.