OpenExchange Apps for TM Management

I organized all my OpenExchange apps (and some other utilities) neatly the other day in the Welcome view of Studio using the Menu Maker app (see Figure 1 below). While doing so, I realized that I don’t actually remember what some of them do, so I thought I would organize them in my mind as well (which is a much more difficult task). Anyhow, I collected all the TM management-related apps into a table and drew a diagram that would show me at a glance what they do and how they are related to each other. I found that very helpful for myself so I thought to share it here as well…

Figure 1. SDL OpenExchange apps and other programs organized in the Welcome screen of Trados Studio 2014 using the Menu Maker app.

Figure 2. TM management-related apps and their main conversion functions. For details, see the table below.

Here are some additional details about the apps mentioned in the above diagram:

App name	Conversion function	Notes
SDLTMExport	SDLTM > TMX
SDL Translation Memory Management Utility	SDLTM > TMW	Reverses language pairsRemoves duplicates
SDLTmConvert	SDLTM > SDXLIFF / XML / TMX / CSV / monolingual source and target text files	Includes filtering options Allows splitting output into several files Allows hiding and setting  user and system info Allows manipulation of tagged content Free limited version, unlimited paid version (35 euros)
SDLXliff2Tmx	SDLXLIFF > TMX / tab delimited TXT	Includes filtering options Allows removal of formatting tags
SDLTmReverseLangs	SDLTM <> SDLTM	Reverses languages
TM Merge	Merges SDLTMs into one SDLTM	Also creates additional language pairs from the available languages in the input TMs Cost: 48 euros

In addition to the TM conversion apps listed above, there are also several other TM management-related apps. I couldn’t come up with a pretty diagram for them, so I just list them here (all are free unless otherwise indicated):

TM Optimizer	Optimizes Trados Workbench TMs for use with Trados Studio by removing excessive formatting tags from the TM thus increasing the TM leverage. Cost: £50-100.
SDLTmFindVars	Identifies potential variables (untranslated text) in translation memories and allows the user to add them as variables to a Studio TM.
SDLTM Repair	Fixes specific errors in damaged Studio TMs.
Variables Manager for SDL Trados Studio	Allows fast editing, copying, importing and exporting variable lists in Studio TMs.
TMX Anonymizer	Anonymizes TMX files by resetting the Creation User and Change User name fields.

These tables and graphs help me to keep track of the various apps and their functions. It’s good to know what kind of apps are available because you never know when you might need them.

FIT XIX World Congress in San Francisco in August 2011

How about coming to San Francisco in August? Looks like a great opportunity to meet translators and other language professionals around the world, hear some great presentations (such as Trados Studio: To Migrate or Not to Migrate), and see San Francisco. You can save some money by registering by June 30^th (extended deadline). This is what the official promo says:

The FIT XIX World Congress, being held in San Francisco, California,  August 1-4, 2011, allows your members to join their fellow translators and interpreters to discuss topical issues effecting language  professionals today. With its unique focus on international and  intercultural translation and interpreting, this event provides an opportunity for language professionals to share, learn, and connect  with colleagues from all over the world. The FIT XIX World Congress offers:

• Over 100 educational sessions in a variety of categories with unusual diversity and depth.
• Speakers from all corners of the globe including China, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and so many  more.
• Special events and activities allowing opportunities to network, mingle, and socialize in a city as culturally diverse as this event’s attendees.
• Continuing Education Points: ATA-Certified Translators can earn one  point for each hour attended, up to a maximum of 10 points.

Other good reasons to come to San Francisco can be found on the Insider Tips blog by NCTA.

A Survey on Upgrading to Trados Studio 2009

I have a brief (3 questions) survey about upgrading to Trados Studio.  I will use the results as part of my ATA Conference presentation “Trados Studio – To Migrate or Not To Migrate“. The presentation is on October 27th, so please respond before that. Thank you.

Click here to take the survey

ATA Conference Presentation: Trados Studio — To Migrate or Not To Migrate

I will give a Trados presentation “Trados Studio — To Migrate or Not To  Migrate” at the next ATA Annual Conference in Denver on 10/28/2010 (11:30-12:30pm).

Presentation summary:

The completely redesigned Trados Studio 2009 with its incomplete backwards compatibility has posed a difficult dilemma for many translators as to whether or not to upgrade. Among all the marketing hype and emotionally charged user (and non-user) opinions, it can be difficult to see the real pros and cons. This presentation will give an objective look at the new features (pros) and the problems with work-flow compatibility (cons),  and will review situations where these compatibility-related problems can or cannot be solved. The provided information will be useful for current Studio-users and for those who are wondering whether they should upgrade or not.

Hopefully, I’ll see some of you there!

P.S. I haven’t posted anything for a while because I’m on vacation. More postings will follow in late August. Stay tuned…

SP2 “Coming Soon”?

You might have noticed this in the recent SDL promo email about the Discover Studio video clips. Unfortunately, the message does not say anything more about how soon is soon. Hopefully, very soon… and hopefully the lack of audience does not mean that there’s still a long wait before the show starts.

Where are the manuals?

It wasn’t that many years ago when we actually got printed manuals with Trados. After that it was just PDF files. Now, there’s only one manual, the “SDL Trados Studio Migration Guide“. You can also download an Installation Guide from the “My Downloads” area.  Other than that, there’s the online Help which is somewhat thin for many topics. In addition, its search function doesn’t appear to be the best.  To be better able to search the Help files, I combined all of them into one PDF file. That way I can use the full search function of Adobe Acrobat. The downside of this is that I’m only using those files that were installed into my computer. When using the Help feature, you can actually choose to access either your local files or the most up-to-date files on the SDL server.  Amy Bryant had a good suggestion on the ATA Language Technology list recently to search the help files by Googling

site:producthelp.sdl.com “YOUR SEARCH EXPRESSION”

That will take you to the help files on the SDL server and you are able to use Google’s better searching capabilities, though this doesn’t seem to work well every time either.

Early experiences…

After using the beta version of Studio and seeing the Trados Studio Roadshow in San Jose in Spring 2009, I got really excited about the upcoming version of Trados. It seemed to offer several very useful new features. However, when I finally got a chance to start using the actual release version for real translation work in August 2009 (after my summer vacation), I soon noticed that it is still very slow and prone to frequent crashing, as was the pre-release version. At that point I decided to wait for the first Service Pack as well as for Windows 7 (and a new computer). When I came back from the ATA Conference in early November, my new Windows 7 computer was waiting for me. I installed Studio and started using it for my translation projects. Happy to report that during the past three weeks, it has crashed only once, and works very fast. However, there are still several kinks that the software engineers need to iron out and plenty of room for improvement… but it also has several very cool new features. And those are the issues I will be concentrating/reporting on next.