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Which are the most recommended CAT Tools?
Thread poster: Imran Haq
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:36
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
there's nothing wrong with being enthusiastic Oct 12, 2016

Vladimir Zakharov wrote:

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:

Max Luo wrote:

In my opinion, SmartCAT is the best choice for you. As opposed to Trados and MemoQ, SmartCAT is free, it is easy to use, it supports SDL's filese and it has it's own marketplace. It's not just a CAT tool, it is a platform, where clients from all over the world can choose between the 70k+ translators and find the most suitable one. So you not only have a chance to use an advanced CAT tool for free, you can also get a job from one of the SmartCAT client's. You can follow the link below and get an additional $5 bonus for signing up on my invitation:
http://snip.ly/pix9c


[Edited at 2016-10-11 05:50 GMT]


Michael
Max is our brand ambassador but not employee. Brand ambassadors are by definition people who enjoy the product to the point where they decide to advocate it in the public space. I see nothing wrong with it, do you?
-Vova, Head of Community.


Hi Vladimir,

No, there's nothing wrong with being enthusiastic, but it's always a good idea to identify yourself fully if you're promoting a tool. I myself have promoted several CAT tools in the past (first memoQ, then CafeTran, and then memoQ again, and currently Studio 2017 …), but always tried to make it clear what my status was at the time.

Michael


 
Noe Tessmann
Noe Tessmann  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:36
English to German
+ ...
Switching CAT tools? Oct 12, 2016



No, there's nothing wrong with being enthusiastic, but it's always a good idea to identify yourself fully if you're promoting a tool. I myself have promoted several CAT tools in the past (first memoQ, then CafeTran, and then memoQ again, and currently Studio 2017 …), but always tried to make it clear what my status was at the time.

Michael


Hi Michael,

knowing you as being someone who is ahead of the times. It would be interesting to have your arguments for the new Studio release. I am a little bit disappointed about the progress of MemoQ. They had some changes in the management team but MemoQ 2016 was never released. And the new features seem to be once again about QA.
Maybe it's time to switch. The upgrade wouldn't be too expensive since I still have a license of Trados 2007.

Kind regards

Noe


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 14:36
Member
English to Italian
Referral program Oct 12, 2016

Vladimir Zakharov wrote:

Max Luo wrote:

You can follow the link below and get an additional $5 bonus for signing up on my invitation


Max is our brand ambassador but not employee. Brand ambassadors are by definition people who enjoy the product to the point where they decide to advocate it in the public space. I see nothing wrong with it, do you?


Well, if you also have some sort of personal stake in it, then perhaps it's not simply about a selfless "enjoying the product to the point where they decide to advocate it in the public space", but more like being paid to advertise, which is quite different...

"You receive $5 to $50 on your bonus account for each activated user, and they do, too (read more: How much money do I receive for inviting a new user under SmartCAT Friends?)." - http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introducing-smartcat-friends-growth-focused-affiliate-zakharov


 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 16:36
English to Russian
It can Oct 12, 2016

Samuel Murray wrote:
For example, MemoQ can read Trados forward packages but can't generate the associated return package

Yes, it can. When I receive sdl packages I translate them with memoQ and send a return package to client. You don't even need to have Studio installed on the same computer. If you do it right (does not mean you need to fiddle with it) they will never know you used a different cat.

[Edited at 2016-10-12 15:29 GMT]


 
CafeTran Training (X)
CafeTran Training (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 14:36
Transparency Oct 12, 2016

Stepan Konev wrote:

Yes, it can. When I receive sdl packages I translate them with memoQ and send a return package to client. If you do it right (does not mean you need to fiddle with it) they will never know you used a different cat.


I'm not sure whether that's the way to go. Can you absolutely be certain that your client won't have any issues? Being open about the CAT tool used can save them a lot of time, when things go wrong.


 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 16:36
English to Russian
Not yet Oct 12, 2016

I think they would let me know if something went wrong. But they don't. Even my "old" 2013 version can do it. I doubt if they removed it from their latest version.

 
Pavel Tsvetkov
Pavel Tsvetkov  Identity Verified
Bulgaria
Local time: 15:36
Member (2008)
English to Bulgarian
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MODERATOR
Déjà vu X3 Jan 28, 2017

Déjà vu X3 is the lightest, quickest, most stable CAT tool out there. It often pioneers cutting edge technology, which is then implemented in less successful form by SDL and Kilgray. If my client has no preferences as to which tool should be used for the job, I work in Déjà vu. That said, the tool is still missing some important features – for example, matched terms are not marked in source. However, the feature will appear (hopefully in a usable variant) in the next build of Déjà vu X3,... See more
Déjà vu X3 is the lightest, quickest, most stable CAT tool out there. It often pioneers cutting edge technology, which is then implemented in less successful form by SDL and Kilgray. If my client has no preferences as to which tool should be used for the job, I work in Déjà vu. That said, the tool is still missing some important features – for example, matched terms are not marked in source. However, the feature will appear (hopefully in a usable variant) in the next build of Déjà vu X3, which is just around the corner. Also, their QA module is a mess in my opinion.

Déjà vu X3 has some notable advantages over Trados: easy term adding and editing from inside the editor, Lexicon, AutoWrite (a similar feature – AutoSuggest – was introduced by SDL several years ago, but initially did not work as intended). Also, customer support is quick and offered for free (not the case with SDL).

The disadvantages of Déjà vu are that it still remains what I call a boutique CAT tool: not very popular and not marketed or advertised in a smart way. They do not monitor this forum as they should and their coders and decision makers are hard headed and will not easily accept requests for implementation even from their loyal users – the professional translators. There is no way to propagate to confirmed segments, and Atril developers see no reasons why there should be one. So, if you edit a confirmed segment at the proofing stage (which then appears 3 more times down the file in confirmed segments) you will have to implement the 3 further edits from memory. Trados supposedly should do it automatically, but the feature does not work between files in the same project, so you are out of luck there as well.

Again, it is currently the best tool out there, all things considered, although MemoQ's fan base is expanding quickly (and for good reason) and Trados has taken huge steps to improve their software in the past 2-3 years – and it has paid off.

[Edited at 2017-01-28 08:18 GMT]
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MikeTrans
MikeTrans
Germany
Local time: 14:36
Italian to German
+ ...
I think there is a lot of room for feature improvements in DVX3 (also in response for Pavel) Jan 28, 2017

DVX3 is very convenient, but is it the best tool? No. And this is true for any CAT tool. Statements like "it's surley the best tool..." take us nowhere.
I have been working for long time with DVX2 and have taken a deeper look at DVX3.
What I like is the fast interface that allows you to select text like in MS-Word, and yes, this makes term selections and storage very fast. And the filtering capability of the tool is legendary, way ahead of Trados and others in my opinion.

... See more
DVX3 is very convenient, but is it the best tool? No. And this is true for any CAT tool. Statements like "it's surley the best tool..." take us nowhere.
I have been working for long time with DVX2 and have taken a deeper look at DVX3.
What I like is the fast interface that allows you to select text like in MS-Word, and yes, this makes term selections and storage very fast. And the filtering capability of the tool is legendary, way ahead of Trados and others in my opinion.

What I would like to see implemented (note that I don't say I don't like the tool because of that) is :

- Auto-Concordance
- Not a separate window for Concordance
- Subsegment lookup and proposed translation for subsegments
- A better file filter for bilingual imports of Excel or binlingual word documents (but maybe already in place in the current version?)

The 2 first points could easily be implemented but Atril doesn't seem to care that an additional window makes the search and insert process slower.
The Subsegment lookup is more difficult but could be implemented by taking advantage of the Deep Miner technology that Atril uses. Here it's important to note that showing subsegments without translation (like in MemoQ with its LCS feature) is only advantageous if it's faster than concordance, otherwise you lose time looking in a list.
The Segment Matching technology of DVX3 has big problems identifying whole source segments that are present in the memory within bigger sentences, and will therefore not produce a match, unless you set the fuzziness very low (no Reverse Subsegment Matches). This could be improved for more matches in your translation.

Overall, with DVX3 you can start a project very fast, and the menus are well designed, not a labyrinth of features but well-grouped, so the learning curve for translators is very good. This tool definitly plays in the big league, but I would like to see the forum more active, although I guess that the DVX Yahoo Group is more busy. A long time has passed since the last tool update / upgrade...

But what tool would I recommend?
A good long-time investment if your client database is reasonably high is Trados Studio for the completness of its features, the flexibility of its settings and the quality of its file type filters. It has a rather high learning curve and is on the expensive side (I would like to see a 5 year software support instead of 3), but don't let this fool your judgment, how useful a tool can be for your work is more important than its price.
If your translation work volume is smaller, then you should run the different CAT software in demo mode to see if they fit your needs and if they are convenient for you (this is rather subjectvie, 'convenient' would not be true for everyone). With the different tools like Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast, CafeTran Espresso, DVX3, Omega-T (free) you can work very well, but then some features will be missing and present in other tools. If you get more experience with CAT tools and the learning curve is less important than the CAT's features for you, then I definitly recommend CafeTran Espresso.
And then for last, what's most important is the quality of the file type filters for importing different types of documents. What documents do you usually translate? If you translate only Word documents, then I would recommend you the low-cost Wordfast Classic or the free Omega-T, for a large range of different document types, also bilingual documents in all sort of tables, Trados is best IMO. Also the question is: How long will these file type filters last in the future? Can you use the tool in 5-6 years to come? This is also an important criteria for buying a CAT tool.

Greetings,
Mike

[Edited at 2017-01-28 11:59 GMT]
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