One of the most pressing needs for translators in regard to PowerPoint presentation is how to change the spelling language. It's easy to change the spell-checking language for individual text boxes, but not for a complete presentation. I know I've written about this in the past, but since PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 don't follow the same procedure as the previous versions of PowerPoint, and there are many more translators who read this newsletter since we last talked about it (do you realize that there are about 10,000 folks who receive this newsletter directly and several more thousand through newsgroups?), let's talk about it. At first glance this looks really complicated, but the main reason is that I'm trying to cover all PowerPoint versions from version 2000 up -- so you'll just need to read what's relevant to your copy of PowerPoint.

PowerPoint 2003 and below

On the Microsoft website you can find a macro that allows you to change the spelling language of your PowerPoint presentation into the language of your choice. Within the macro you will find the line

shp.TextFrame.TextRange.LanguageID = msoLanguageIDEnglishUS

To change this declaration into the language of your choice, you'll need to change the msoLanguageID at the end of that line. Here you can find your language (as well as many other languages you most likely have never heard of).

To insert a macro into a PowerPoint presentation, select Tools> Macro> Macros (or select Alt+F8). Give it a name and select Create. The Visual Basic editor opens. Delete everything in the right-hand window (that starts with "Sub Lingo()"), paste the code from the Microsoft website, and change the msoLanguageID.

Close the Visual Basic editor and you will now have a macro in your PowerPoint presentation.

To run the macro, you need to once again select Tools> Macro> Macros (or select Alt+F8), highlight the macro, and select Run. The spelling language in all text boxes should now be changed.

Not too bad, but probably a little involved to do for every single PowerPoint presentation, right? So we'll need to find a way to make this macro available for all files (unlike in Word, macros in PowerPoint are stored on a per-file basis).

The first step is to verify the security level for your PowerPoint installation. Different versions of PowerPoint contain different levels of security measures, some of which prevent running of "Visual Basic projects," i.e., macros from other files. In PowerPoint XP and 2003, you need to have Trust access to Visual Basic project enabled under Tools> Security> Trusted Publishers (PowerPoint XP: Trusted Sources), and the security on the Security Level tab needs to be set to Medium. In PowerPoint 2000 there are no limitations and you don't need to do anything.

When these settings are secured, you can use the macro from another file in your current file. There are two ways to do this. You can have both files open, select Tools> Macro> Macros (or select Alt+F8), and select All open presentations under Macro in. This will display the macro in question that you can now execute.

Or, much easier, you can create a button that contains the macro. Open the file with the macro, select Tools> Customize> Commands, and scroll down the list of Categories until you get to Macros. On the right-hand side you will see the name of the macro. Drag this to your toolbar and that new button will now give you access to the ability to change your language for any PowerPoint presentation, PROVIDED that you do not delete the original .ppt file that contains the macro.

Not bad.

PowerPoint 2007/2010

Unfortunately, things have not been made easier for the newer versions. Still, it is possible to change the spelling language, and here is how:

Open a text file in Notepad or another text editor and copy the following content into that file:

Sub Lingo()

   Dim sld As Slide

   Dim shp As Shape

   For Each sld In ActivePresentation.Slides

       For Each shp In sld.Shapes

           If shp.Type = msoTextBox Or msoPlaceholder Then

           If shp.HasTextFrame Then

               shp.TextFrame.TextRange.LanguageID = msoLanguageIDEnglishUS

           End If

           End If

       Next

   Next

End Sub

Just like for the earlier versions of PowerPoint, the line

shp.TextFrame.TextRange.LanguageID = msoLanguageIDEnglishUS

contains the declaration of which language the file needs to be changed into. This needs to be changed to your desired language. You can find your language right here.

Make the change and save the file as a *.bas file (note that placing the file name in quotation marks prevents the addition of .txt at the end of the file name).

For the next step, you'll have to do some preparation (you'll need to do this only once). If the Developer ribbon is not displayed, select

• File> Options> Customize Ribbon and, in the list of main tabs, select Developer for PowerPoint 2010 or

• Office button> PowerPoint Options> Popular> Show Developer tab in the Ribbon for PowerPoint 2007.

To adjust the security settings, select Office button (File)> (PowerPoint) Options> Trust Center> Trust Center Settings> Macro Settings> Trust access to the VBA project object model and select Disable all macros except digitally signed macros.

Once that is done, select the Developer ribbon and click on Visual Basic (if you don't want to deal with the Developer ribbon you can also simply press Alt+F11).

In the now opened Visual Basic Editor, select File> Import, browse to the location where you saved the *.bas file, and open that file.

Once that is done, all you need to do is press F5 or click the Runbutton in the Visual Basic Editor and the language in your PowerPoint file will be changed.

OK, I admit, this does sound a little complicated. But here is the bright side: most of the steps have to be done only once per computer (or PowerPoint installation). Once the *.bas file is created, the Developer ribbon is ready, and the security settings have been selected, all you need to do (for every PowerPoint presentation) is to

• Press Alt+F11 or select Visual Basic on the Developer ribbon

• Open the *.bas file

• Press F5 or press Run.

Not too shabby!

Here is the caveat, though: the Notes text is not changed by any of these acrobatics. That will have to be done manually, note by note. Oh, well.

Who says that English is not a very expressive language?! (I'm indebted to Kevin Lossner for this colorful expression of dismay on the prospects of machine translation post-editing.)

I had a number of interesting on- and off-line conversations about MT post-editing this past week. For the uninitiated, MT post-editing refers to the editing of machine translation output (and possibly helping the machine translation engine do a better job next time around.) This can be done on your own volition (because you might feel that it increases your productivity if you do this -- and according to a good number of responses that I received, many are doing this) or at the wish of a client. The machine translation can be a generic machine translation program (such as Google Translate or Microsoft Translator) or one that your client has customized. The nature of the underlying engine can also differ. It could be a statistically based machine translation engine (such as Asia Online or an engine based on the open-source Moses project) or it could be a rules-based MT engine (such as ProMT or Systran).

But despite the fact that there are so many variables, we tend to be very categorical. Whenever we encounter something that has the potential of relevance to us, we seem to feel the need to place it into categories of good or bad. Crowdsourcing? Terrible. Machine translation? Pathetic. Riding lawnmowers? Evil.

Now, how many of you have been directly and negatively affected by either machine translation or crowdsourcing? And I don't mean as a consumer -- most of us have been affected on that level -- but as a professional translator. I would be surprised if we are talking about more than a couple of percent, if that. Still, we feel very strongly about it. Case in point: Last week I talked to a friend, a very experienced and successful translator, who told me that he is thinking about opening a completely different business, just to make sure that once MT takes over he still has a leg to stand on. And he was not even kidding!

My hope is that with the upcoming co-location of the main conferences of translators (ATA) and the machine translation community (AMTA) here in the US (see the ad in this newsletter) those kinds of fears will be laid to rest.

Back to the post-editing. These past few days I've been talking to various colleagues about what, if anything, needs to be done to train MT post-editors. And those conversations have made me understand a great deal more.

There is a lot of hype. Yes, commercial, productive use of machine translation is happening in some very specific areas: companies with a need for VERY large amounts of translated data that would likely not be translated otherwise, such as Microsoft or Symantec; companies that try to make a point (like the non-English, machine-translated help for Google Translator Toolkit); the military, which probably acts more as a financier than an actual power user (but if it's true, you and I will never know about it . . .); and a good number of companies and organizations that are gearing up for a greater use of MT (the member list of the TAUS Data Association might give you a good starting point to see who is interested, at least in statistically based machine translation). Eventually, there will also be a greater number of LSPs offering customized machine translation services (many of those that already are, are also on TDA's member list), especially those that work for large clients with a lot of existing data. And all this will grow.

Now, I might have written almost the same statement four or five years ago. Clearly things are moving a lot slower than many anticipated. And this despite the huge amount of coverage devoted to MT in the news media and the very widespread private use of services like Google Translate, etc.

Still, for some of us, post-editing might become a field that we could choose to work in if it matches our interest and expertise.

It is sometimes said that post-editing machine translation is like editing fuzzy matches from translation memory. I don't think that's quite true.

The fuzzy matches you receive from a traditional TM are terminologically and syntactically "correct" (and if not, it's time to clean your or the client's TM) -- they're just not quite the right match for the current source segment. You don't have any problem understanding the fuzzy match on its own merit (after all, you or a colleague authored it) and can relatively quickly decide whether it makes sense to correct the match or start from scratch.

It's also different than the assemble process that some translation environment tools provide in which your translation is pieced together from subsegments in the terminology database or translation memory. Assembled segments follow the syntax of the source segment and are very helpful as reliable sources for terminology, but relatively rarely as likely sources for a finished translation.

What's also very different -- and maybe this is the most important point -- is the goal of the translation, the usability factor. Often, if there is machine translation involved, especially when dictated by the client, the famous triangle of quality vs. cost vs. turnaround time is shifted toward cost and turnaround time, making a selective edit the primary goal for the post-editor.

In a talk with Mike Dillinger of the AMTA, who has been involved with training post-editors, he stressed the prioritization factor he tries to teach his students. The critical question is "How much editing is enough?" What is the acceptable level of usability for this to be a "successful translation"?

Now, is it a translator who needs to do this or are we talking about a completely new profession here? I think there will be a new profession at some point, but that point depends on the quality of the machine translation output. The more unreliable the output, the greater the need for translation skills. But again, those skills differ from what we are used to in our TEnT-driven lives, and we will need to acquire those skills.

I think it's intriguing to see who will jump into this future opening of providing MT post-editing training. At this point, it'll be up to conferences like the ones mentioned above or LSPs that work on MT projects to train their translators. But there's no doubt that at some point there will be a more formalized training.

One area in which training will play an important role in further honing skills of translators is in enhancing the quality of the existing machine translation. This is especially relevant with rules-based machine translation engines or, for that matter, any MT system that can more or less directly handle input (as an example: with Asia Online, a statistically based machine translation engine, the changes won't be visible immediately, but they'll be visible after a weekly scheduled update). There is an interesting article on this by Dillinger that outlines some of the areas of rules-based MT post-editing beyond "correcting" MT errors.

And if you are just not interested in an opportunity like that? You are firmly aligned with the vast majority of professional translators. Some might be swayed at some point; many won't; but you know what? There'll be plenty of work for both groups.

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