The 127th Tool Kit - Premium Edition

A computer newsletter for translation professionals

Issue 8-11-127
(the one hundred twenty-seventh edition)

Contents

1. A New Chapter for Wordfast? (Premium)

2. From Anaphraseus to Virtaal

3. CHM for All

4. Heavenly Smacks

5. Lots of Little Treasures

6. Conversions

7. A Love Story (continued)

The Last Word on the Tool Kit

Blunders

I know, I know, this has been all over the place but I just can't resist, partly because I can so clearly see how this happened. Here is the gist of the story:

A BLUNDER by officials led to the erection of a road sign asking drivers to e-mail in any translation work instead of its intended message of banning lorries from a street.

The sign in English read: "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only."

But the Welsh version directly underneath translates as: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

You can read the full story here (and in many other places).

1. A New Chapter for Wordfast? (Premium)

By now many of you will have heard about Wordfast's new incarnation as a stand-alone tool that is no longer bound to the restrictions of Word. In fact, it really has very little in common with the old Wordfast (now dubbed "Wordfast Classic" -- which supposedly is going to be supported and developed as long as Word still supports Visual Basic macros).

Awhile back I had a glance at an early beta version, and now I've taken another look at the pre-release version that was passed out at the ATA. As you read the following, keep two things in mind: a) this is a beta version -- in fact, very much so -- and b) I didn't get much feedback on a number of questions I had.

There are some real positives: The interface is pretty and refreshingly simple and well-organized. The tool is Java-based so it runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows and is not dependent on a third-party application like Word (unless you want to use the preview feature for Word files). And you can view all files, independent of type, the same way and in the same interface.

The format into which files are converted for translation purposes is an XML format, which should make it easy to convert to TMX or XLIFF files in the future (there is no preconfigured way to do this right now). When you import Excel files, you are automatically guided through a wizard that allows you to select which data within the Excel file should be translated and which not. I really liked that. I also liked the fact that TBX is supported as an import format for terminology, and that you can choose between different schemes for keyboard shortcuts (for instance, you can say: I am used to the way that SDLX or eMac computers do certain things and that's what I want to use for Wordfast).

All this said, it seems that there is still quite a bit to do before this tool will be ready for a full release. The number of supported file formats is way too small (essentially Office formats and HTML -- and the HTML did not work yet) and RTF, FrameMaker, and XML did not seem to be supported. In my opinion, there needs to be a more intuitive and automated way to view termbase and translation memory entries, there needs to be a better way to enter termbase entries, and it would be helpful to be able to combine the views of many files in one.

One thing this showed me is that it is not an easy task to essentially create a tool from scratch in a relatively short amount of time, even when somebody as experienced as Yves Champollion is behind those efforts. Still, I look forward to reviewing the final version, and I am VERY interested to see how it will be accepted by the current Wordfast community.

2. From Anaphraseus to Virtaal

In the last newsletter I mentioned the enigmatically named Anaphraseus, the successor to OpenWordfast. (By the way, the representatives of Wordfast at the ATA assured me that there had never been any legal threat to persuade the maker of the tool rename his program.) I asked you to share some of your experience and, believe it or not, some of you did! Here's what Corinne McKay had to say:

I tried Anaphraseus and it works just fine. It's a tiny file and installs right in OpenOffice.org with a menu in your main toolbar, and you can activate or deactivate keyboard shortcuts. It definitely doesn't have the variety of features that the commercial guys or OmegaT do, but it's nice to have a free tool that does Trados-style cleaned and uncleaned files. I used it for a small test file and I thought it was very easy and pleasant to use; if you've used Wordfast, the paradigm is about the same.

Now we know.

Here is another tool: Renato Beninatto from Common Sense Advisory asked me last weekend whether I had heard of Virtaal, a new open-source translation tool from South Africa. My Afrikaans is . . . well . . . non-existent, so upon my return home I tried to find information about this tool in all variations of spellings that I could come up with -- just not the correct one. Renato finally gave me the link again this morning, and this is how the makers themselves describe the tool:

Virtaal is a graphical translation tool. It is meant to be easy to use and powerful at the same time. Although the initial focus is on software translation (localisation or l10n), we definitely intend it to be useful for several purposes.

Virtaal is built on the powerful API of the Translate Toolkit. "Virtaal" is an Afrikaans play on words meaning "For Language," but also refers to translation.

Essentially, Virtaal gives you very fast and easy access to bilingual files, including XLIFF, TMX, TBX, Wordfast .txt memories, and PO files (the typical format for open-source localization). As of now there is no translation memory or glossary that you can use in the process, so it should probably not be your primary translation tool, but there are a couple of other productivity features that are helpful, including AutoComplete (comparable to OpenOffice.org's feature that automatically completes previously entered words).

There is a nice little presentation on the site by one of the developers , and among other things he lists the features that they plan to include, including support for more file formats, translation memory support, and a terminology component. And then he ends his presentation by saying, "Maybe next year is going to be the year of Virtaal." Maybe.

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3. CHM for All

Most of you know that I sell the Translator's Tool Box, my computer primer for translators, in parallel formats: a normal PDF file that lends itself to actual reading, and an HTML help (.chm) file that contains the same content but is more helpful when it comes to quick referencing. I have received a lot of emails from folks who bought the book/help file but could not open the help file on either a Macintosh computer or on a Windows Vista machine. Here's how to fix that.

For all versions of Windows, you might have to open the .chm file on your local computer; this means that you probably shouldn't have it on a network location. In Windows Vista, it is possible that you will be able to view the .chm file table of contents, but you might see the following message on the right-hand pane: "Navigation to this webpage was canceled." This error is caused by the stringent security requirements of Windows Vista and can be circumvented by right-clicking on the file, selecting Properties, and clicking on the Unblock button in the lower part of the dialog. You can find some more information on this procedure right here.

For Macintosh computers there are essentially two ways of going about this. You can either download and install the open-source application Chmox, which will allow you to open and use a .chm file, or you can install the CHM Reader Firefox add-on, which permits you to view .chm files inside Firefox. This add-on is also available as a Windows or Linux version.

Of course, all of the above is not only true for the Translator's Tool Box help file, but also for any other .chm file. . . .

4. Heavenly Smacks

The ATA conference last week in Orlando was simultaneously fun and exhausting. This was my favorite moment: I gave a talk on Saturday, the last day of the conference, when everyone is kind of tired and either wants to go home or out to party. I had all the attendees sit very close together and be very quiet. I then counted to three and asked everyone to break into a broad (slightly deranged) smile. IT WAS AMAZING! The sound made by all the 150 or so smiling mouths was one I thought I would only hear in heaven: it was a loud SMACK -- but all in smiles.

Anyway -- I had a little exhibition stand at the ATA where I sold my ebook and access to TranslatorsTraining.com. Since I had many other obligations I had to leave the booth deserted for much of the time, so if you were an attendee at the ATA and did not have a chance to see me at the booth, I am willing to extend the special conference price ($35 for each or $60 combined) until the end of the month. You can find the order form here.

I have tried to condense my talk at the ATA into a 10-minute video blog (fast-talking has always been one of my fortes!). You can find it at the bottom of www.translatorstraining.com.

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Speed through Automated translation (beta) integrated into your translation software environment
Innovation by incorporating technology for visual translation of software user interfaces
Extended support for the latest file types, including Office 2007 & QuickSilver 3.0

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5. Lots of Little Treasures

Software utilities are little programs that do one thing really well. (Conversely, one could make the point that public utilities are large organizations that do nothing particularly well, but we won't go there. . . .) While large programs like operating systems or office suites might in principle also offer the same functionality as the software utilities, they are often left in the dust by the performance of these little guys.

I have previously listed some sites that have all kinds of collections of freeware and shareware tools, but this site that Becky Blackley has pointed me to is a little different. These are small utilities developed for PC Magazine that either cost a few dollars individually or you can subscribe for a few more dollars and download as many of the little helpers as you like.

Here are some that I thought were quite helpful:

ButtonBoogie allows you to re-arrange the buttons on your Windows taskbar to your heart's content.
DiskPie Pro's very easy and fun-to-play-with interface lets you view exactly what is taking up all that space on your hard drive.
AltTabIt lets you extend the functionality of the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut to not just switch between open programs but also any other closed program or file you might desire.
NoteWhen is a tool to plaster your desktop with virtual post-it notes.
And StoreItAll lets you lock up all those passwords, credit card, and bank account numbers in one central and safe place on your computer.

I know that there are other tools that offer the same or similar features, but I found this a good place to go "Windows shopping."

6. Conversions

Several of you wrote to say that little conversion utilities to convert between measurements -- like the one I suggested in the last newsletter -- are not necessary because you can always enter "2 meters in feet" (my height!) into Google. You're right, of course, but I gotta tell you, it's sure easier not to have to figure out the exact syntax you need to type into Google and just enter some numbers instead.

7. A Love Story (continued)

Those who have been reading this newsletter for a while know that this is an intermittent series about characters I really like. I get a real high from exploring different writing systems, character sets, and fonts. You can find my collection right here. As a German (and recent Berliner), this latest addition is close to my heart.

If you have a Javascript-enabled browser, hold your cursor over the character for a definition.

The Last Word on the Tool Kit

If you would like to promote this newsletter by placing a link on your website, I will in turn mention your website in a future edition of the Tool Kit. Just paste the code you find here into the HTML code of your webpage, and the little icon that is displayed on that page with a link to my website will be displayed.

Here is a colleague who loaded the code last week: