It's fascinating to watch how times change. And while the way translation tools are competing with each other is truly not important in the larger view of things, it clearly has some relevance for us.

Remember the good old days in the late 1990s when the "flame wars" raged on the Lantra-L list between users of Trados and Déjà Vu? At some point Wordfast stepped in and swayed many Trados users in its direction. Later SDLX took on a promising price war with Trados (which lasted until SDL owned both products). Across made some inroads in Germany in the mid-naughts, but these days it's memoQ rising up to challenge Trados.

Have you noticed the only constant in all of this competitiveness? Yup, it's Trados, and like it or not, it's shown great staying power. In some cases the company managed this by simply ignoring the competition -- Déjà Vu and Wordfast were never any challenge in the much more important corporate market, and Across has yet to gain significance beyond certain markets. Sometimes they maintained their dominance by "merging" with products -- as in the case of SDLX or, later, Idiom WorldServer. And lately they've led by going head-to-head with competitors, as in the case of memoQ.

There's no doubt that the folks at Kilgray, the makers of memoQ, are pleased with this development since it validates their own "oomph" factor. But it benefits us, too, as users of any of these tools (faster release cycles, more new features), as well as SDL, the owners of Trados: It's not only more fun to sell when you're challenged, but it's also good to be pushed to find ever-better ways to come up with new features.

What's prompting all of this, you might ask? (I can almost guarantee SDL will actually ask me that when they get this newsletter. Looking forward to it, Daniel! ;-) Well, it's the marketing of the new version of Trados -- Trados Studio 2011 -- that most of you will not have been able to escape in the last few weeks. Marketing itself is expected, of course, but I doubt that there have been many marketing campaigns by SDL or Trados that have started quite so early for a product that will not be released for a couple of months -- shortly after the release of the new version of memoQ, which­ -- surprise, surprise --has the same "theme" as Trados's version: "Review" or "change management."

But, as I said, that's great for us, because most of us have been missing exactly those kinds of features from many of our tools. Ironically, it's been the newer web-based tools such as Wordbee, XTM, and Lionbridge's Workspace that have been able to run circles around the more traditional tools in regard to features like "Track Changes."

And, yes, this is exactly what you're going to find in the new version of Trados (I'll talk about the new version of memoQ in a later edition of this newsletter).

MS Word has done this for many years, and even heavy-handed applications like FrameMaker and Acrobat have long offered a feature that allows you to see what kinds of changes have been made to your text. However, translation tools are only now implementing the Track Changes feature directly into their feature set -- even though this would seem to be a no-brainer for a workflow in which often at least three or four people touch a document. But, hey, better late than never!

This will be the hands-down most exciting new feature in the new version of Trados Studio. The Track Changes appearance will be very much like Microsoft Word, with strikeout text for deleted parts and highlighted text for newly inserted text. Again, just as in Word, it is possible to show this in any kind of configuration (show only changes, show final text, etc.). In fact, the new version of Trados Studio has a lot of additional options to filter a project according to status that weren't there before.

Once changes are made to any segment, the segment will become unapproved and will be sent to the translation memory only after an approval by the original translator or project manager takes place. (If the original translation unit has already been sent to the translation memory, it will unfortunately not be automatically deleted.)

If one of the actors in the translation-editing-proofreading chain does not own a version of Trados Studio, it is now also possible to export the current project into a Microsoft Word file. This file will not only show all the changes in Word's Track Changes mode, but it will also allow for the use of the Track Changes feature within Microsoft Word and then re-import the file into the Trados project, where all the tracked changes that were made to the Word file are maintained.

Other new features in the new version of Trados Studio include the ability to process the traditional bilingual Microsoft Word files within the Trados Studio interface, including all the different quality assurance features that the interface offers.

And this brings us to another new item: the quality assurance features are now much more interactive, and a quality assurance check can be run very much like a traditional spellcheck, with a dialog box that offers suggestions and explanations from instance to instance of items that are flagged. The spellcheck itself has also been improved by (finally) allowing for real-time spellchecking with curly underlines and by using the MS Word spellcheck engine if so desired.

Other improvements include

• the typical enhancements to a variety of file filters, including InDesign, FrameMaker, and Java files;
• a new perfect-match-system, which essentially combines the concept of the old Trados 2007 that did not rely on the translation memory but on earlier translated files with the TM-based matching of Trados Studio 2009;
• real-time character counts of the target segments;
• a combined installer for Trados 2007 and Trados Studio 2011;
• the ability to "pseudo-translate," which allows you to test whether the functionality in a given language can be maintained in a translated file before you actually translate it; and
• a new and highly limited Express Edition, which is intended to (sniff!) replace the Idiom WorldServer Desktop Workbenchapplication (Trados enterprise customers can freely distribute the Express Edition among their translators).

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to actually test this new version yet, and all the information here is based on a presentation that Trados representatives gave me. However, one of the points they raised was that they have learned from previous mistakes of not adequately beta-testing new versions, and that this version will be released based on the feedback of a much larger and more intense beta group. Let's hope for the best.

To me the deal maker of this version is indeed the Track Changes feature, something I've heard requested as the most sorely needed feature in any of the translation environment tools available. Of course, we already know that memoQ will also have a Track Changes feature, and you don't need to be a clairvoyant to predict that other tools will quickly follow suit.  

Transit NXT Freelance Pro Summer Sale

STAR Servicios Lingüísticos is selling 30 copies of Transit NXT Freelance Pro for
449 Euro each (list price: 1195 Euro).
The offer is valid until the 30^th of August 2011 or until stock is cleared.

The sale is on now!! 30 to go and counting backwards!!! Get information or buy here. 

In the last newsletter I reported on the very unsatisfactory outcome of the EU tender to replace the old version of Trados as the main translation environment tool, and the equally unsatisfying EU response to my request for more information (see also Luigi Muzii's comprehensive post in response to my article).

So I wrote again, this time asking whether it is true -- as I had heard from a number of you -- that the intention of the EU was not to award a contract in the first place but to build something from scratch themselves.

Paula Álvarez, the EU representative in charge, responded with more detail this time:

As for your 'first-hand information', I find it really difficult to comment on rumours I do not know the origin or exact content of, but I can provide you with some information about procurement that could give you an accurate view of the proceedings. And I would like to add that you will hardly get more 'first-hand' than me, as I was the Chair of the Evaluation Committee.

There are actually some legal provisions we have to comply with [see Title V - Procurement in the Financial Regulation and its Implementing Rules].

And indeed, if we want to purchase something, we are obliged to follow certain procedures. If the value of the contract is above a certain threshold, we are obliged to launch a call for tenders, as it happened in our case. As you can deduce, if we do not have the intention of purchasing something (e.g. because we prefer an inhouse development), we do not need to launch a call for tenders at all.

As far as the European Commission is concerned, its general policy is not to develop inhouse applications where there is a suitable offer on the market. 'Market' should be understood here in a broader sense, including open-source solutions, or even hybrid solutions, e.g. purchasing services for customising an open-source solution. Internal developments are restricted to those cases where the market does not cater for a suitable solution to meet our needs. In this particular case, our declared intention was to buy a commercial product, and this is why we launched the call for tenders procedure.

The decision not to award the contract was taken after assessing the offers we received against the technical specifications of the call for tenders, and no other considerations were involved. Please find a copy of these technical specifications. However, as I said in a previous message, I cannot give you any information about why the individual tenders did not fulfill the quality criteria.

As for 'first-hand information that even before the tender was published the intent was to build an internal system from scratch', I can only guess: this rumor could stem from the specific needs of some institutions having to translate multilingual documents, i.e. documents with more than one source language, needs that, as far as I know, no software vendor has ever addressed. However, these institutions were participating in the call for tenders and it should therefore be assumed that, whatever their plans concerning a specific tool for certain types of documents, they were interested in and prepared to purchase the same general-purpose CAT tool as the rest.

I'm thankful that Paula took the time to respond in more detail.

Indeed, if you look at the technical specifications, the processing of multilingual documents mentioned in the last paragraph is not a "must-have" (marked as MH), whereas many others are. The failure to meet one of the "must-haves" resulted in an automatic disqualification. If you look through the must-haves in the document, you can see that it would be easy to fail just one and be therefore automatically thrown out (things like "easily understandable tags," "WYSIWYG preview of MS Word documents," "context-sensitive on-line help," and many others are easily missed).

So, again, here's the question that I would pose: Considering the importance of the decision -- at least for our industry -- of what TEnT the largest translation client in the world will use, might it not have been helpful to have a more interactive process that would have allowed further customization of some features in response to the tender?

It will be interesting to observe what happens next. But for now, the 4300 translators of the EU will continue to use Trados 2007.  

A couple of years ago, I mentioned a survey on the use of terminology by translators that was conducted by a PhD student at the University of Ottawa. Said student, Marta Gómez Palou, has just released the second part of her survey on integrated termbase design. I tend to not get particularly enthusiastic about surveys -- often they seem to be something between a waste of time and a collection of questions that seem really unnecessary at best, belittling at worst.

This survey is different. I just took it myself, and the questions Marta asks are designed to make you think hard (don't do it late in the evening like I did!). However, by simply processing information and answering the questions you'll already have learned quite a bit about what you might be doing right or what you could improve about your use of your terminology application within your translation environment tool. It will not take you more than 10 minutes, and I have a hard time imagining you complaining afterward about it being a waste of time. So go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/integratedtermbasesoptimization,learn about how to improve your terminology work, and help Marta in the process. Her stated goal is to create a "series of best practices to guide translators on how to best design and build their integrated termbases," so you might very well help our profession as a whole.

The University of Ottawa has done some very interesting research in a number of areas concerning tool usage among translators. Dr. Marshman, whom I recently met at a conference, has shared one of those studies with me and I will in turn share it with you within the next few newsletters.  

Join us on a journey to the new SDL Trados Studio 2011

SDL Trados Studio 2011 continues the journey of innovation started with the first release of Studio, advancing your translation experience and transforming the review process. Visit our website to find out more, play our Beat the Review Game or watch a video.

Take advantage of an exclusive 25% discount, receive SDL Trados Studio 2009 immediately and get a free upgrade to SDL Trados Studio 2011 when it releases. 

Visit www.sdl.com/promo/Internationalwriters   

I knew there were some "geeks" among you who would appreciate the Geek Code that I mentioned in the last newsletter. But little did I know that a certain über-geek, one Martin Wunderlich, would actually take the time to do some additional research. He unearthed a "useful" geek code decipherer as well as a generator tool.

Well done, Martin.

You see, I just don't have time for that kind of superfluous stuff. When I have a free moment, I use it to create very important Jeromobot videos like this one that I produced during last week's vacation in (freezing) northeastern Washington. 

Here are some MS Word shortcuts that are unforgettable in the truest Nat-King-Cole-kind of way. You have no idea they're coming -- in fact you don't even know they exist -- and boom here they are. Not to be forgotten.

F4. So cool! Just by pressing F4 Word will repeat what you've just done. No matter whether it's text you just typed, formatting you just applied, or whatever you did in your Word document, press F4 and the same thing will happen again -- wherever you set your cursor or whatever text you highlight. The only condition is that it needs to be the very next thing you do (no fancy shortcuts in-between!).

I knew you'd love it!

Or how about this one: If you want to copy and paste or cut and paste something within a Word document without placing it on the clipboard (where it would overwrite whatever else you might have there), try Shift+F2 to copy (you'll see the message Copy to where? in the status bar), select the insertion point, and press Enter. Bang!

If you want to move (cut) text instead, just use F2 (you'll see Move to where? in the status bar), select the new location, and press Enter.

And your clipboard? It will have exactly the same content it had before.

The last non-clipboard cutting trick is called the Spike (yes, clearly a name that was chosen in the early '90s, but it still works).

Select whatever you want to have moved (cut and pasted), press Ctrl-F3, and keep on doing this as often as you want. Once everything is collected, press Ctrl-Shift-F3. Bada Bing! It's all pasted into one long list. Clipboard? Pristine! 

With the introduction of new pricing for the premium edition of this newsletter at the beginning of this year, I also introduced "corporate" pricing, which refers to a subscription by folks in a company or organization who plan to share the newsletter with colleagues.

It's a laughable $150 a year for up to five users and $250 for more than five users. As I said: laughable. What makes it even better is that you also get a full 90 minutes of free tool consulting with me when you purchase one of these corporate options. This offer is valid for two months after the purchase.

For more information, I'll see you at http://www.internationalwriters.com/toolkit/. (And I look forward to consulting with you soon.) 

As a subscriber to the Premium version of this newsletter you have access to an archive of Premium newsletters going back to May 2008.

You can access the archive right here. This month the user name is toolkit and the password is blacklake.  

New user names and passwords will be announced in future newsletters.

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.

© 2011 International Writers' Group