![]() It’s a business investment: will this tool help you land new clients, work more efficiently or produce better translations? Then buy it. ![]() As a recovering TM resister, I’m here to tell you that that’s misguided. Translators get very emotional about their attachment to, or hatred of, certain TM tools and the companies that make them. It’s important to look at a TM tool as a business investment, not an emotional decision. It’s a bit complicated to learn, it can generate some inscrutable error messages, and it’s a bit bloated for projects like a one-page Word document, but I’m not looking to switch tools. So I bought Trados, hired an individual trainer to help me learn to use it, and was up and running in less than a week. At that point, I realized that I had been resisting buying one of the market leaders simply for the sake of resisting (…they won’t get my money, I’ll patch it together on my own, etc. Then, about five years ago, along came a client who offered me a very large, ongoing project that required Trados Studio. I really liked it, and I had sort of vowed to never upgrade to one of the “big guys” because I perceived them as expensive and difficult to learn to use. For years and years, I used Wordfast Classic, which is light, easy to learn to use, and has good documentation and support. Longer answer: It’s a complicated question. If you’re buying the TM tool because your clients require it, or because you think it will be a marketing advantage, then buy the one that your clients (or desired potential clients) want.” ![]() ![]() Short answer: If the TM tool is just for your own use, test-drive a few or ask colleagues about their experiences, then pick the one you like best. They all seem confusing and expensive, and I don’t know where to start.” Comments: Wordfast Pro is my main CAT app which Have been literally using on a daily basis.A reader asks: “ How do I choose a translation memory tool? I feel like I need one, but I have no idea how to pick. It is the only one that natively runs on a Mac and that's the reason that I initially invested in it. App is compatible with Trados and most (if not all) file formats which are used in the translation industry. I have a ton of projects, all my TM and term bases and Wordfast manages all of that for me. Wordfast Pro has amazing customer service. They literally respond with ready-to-implement solutions within minutes. The user interface (As fast as colours are concerned) feels somewhat antiquated. Some options which apply to a file within a project are available from the project perspective only. Some other options (for example to export Trados return package) are available only upon the closure of a project which feels somewhat strange as all the other options are available from the main project window). The app offers a plethora of options (even local OCR) and I feel that new functions have been continuously added over time and that's why sometimes their location feels illogical.Ĭomments: A colleague of mine who has worked with other CAT tools described WF Pro as a pasta maker-you need to keep putting things in, let it churn, and then it spits other things out. It takes a while to learn which specific rules are important to WF, otherwise it will return errors and hold the project hostage. At different stages of the process, file naming conventions matter. At other stages, the location of the files matter. It takes a lot of trial and error in the beginning to work through these quirks, but like any CAT tool, the more time you put into learning it, the better off you'll be, as we have found these quirks to at least be consistent.
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