Trados/WordFast compatibility
Thread poster: Daina Jauntirans
Daina Jauntirans
Daina Jauntirans  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:47
German to English
+ ...
Feb 18, 2003

Hello,



I recently started using WordFast with excellent results upon request by a customer (they actually have Trados, but most of their translators use WordFast). Now another customer has announced that they will be introducing Trados this year. I would prefer not to have to buy Workbench as well.



Would it be accurate for me to inform them that I can supply \"Trados-compatible memories\"? According to my research on the WordFast YahooGroup, the only pro
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Hello,



I recently started using WordFast with excellent results upon request by a customer (they actually have Trados, but most of their translators use WordFast). Now another customer has announced that they will be introducing Trados this year. I would prefer not to have to buy Workbench as well.



Would it be accurate for me to inform them that I can supply \"Trados-compatible memories\"? According to my research on the WordFast YahooGroup, the only problem might be working with Multiterm files in WordFast.



Any experience/info appreciated!

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Gerard de Noord
Gerard de Noord  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 07:47
Member (2003)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Trados/WordFast compatibility - do not lie Feb 18, 2003

Hi Daina,



Yesterday the general Wordfast group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wordfast/messages/) welcomed its 2003rd member. Very few agencies demand Wordfast and all those freelancers in that group who use it anyway can’t be wrong.



There are several reasons for translation agencies to prefer Trados to Wordfast but there are very few reasons f
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Hi Daina,



Yesterday the general Wordfast group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wordfast/messages/) welcomed its 2003rd member. Very few agencies demand Wordfast and all those freelancers in that group who use it anyway can’t be wrong.



There are several reasons for translation agencies to prefer Trados to Wordfast but there are very few reasons for freelancers to have the same preferences. Wordfast opens any Trados TM. Wordfast understands and uses Trados presegmented (pretranslated) documents. Translators who receive Trados presegmented files from an agency can translate the document with Wordfast (and its superior resources) and return a uncleaned file the agency can clean up in Trados.



Agencies have understood. They’re no longer sharing their TM’s. They want to send you their pretranslated/presegmented files and will ask a discount for (fuzzy) matches and repetitions. And they want you to return an uncleaned document. In that respect there’s no reason at all for a translator to buy Trados or any other CAT tool. Open a presegmented translation in Word and start translating the stuff on the right side of }0{



Wordfast empowers translators to work for Trados clients while using and adding to their own TM’s, dictionaries and glossaries. It gives the translator a clean Word interface to translate unsegmented and presegmented documents. Yves Champollion, the creator of Wordfast, has until now been able to hack any proprietary Trados format. Even MultiTerm glossaries can be opened with Wordfast. The latest versions of Wordfast even allow you to (re)create Trados TM’s, those TM’s nobody asked you to begin with.



So/But do not lie. Tell your clients you’re using Wordfast and nothing else. I do so since a year and haven’t had a single bad reaction. Remember that most clients do not want to share their TM’s, they want to pretranslate their documents with their TM’s to squeeze some discounts out of you and want to use your translations to squeeze you some more the next time. With all those agencies sending you presegmented documents and wanting uncleaned documents back, the whole TM sharing model has gone bankrupt before it even started.



Daina, tell your client to study the possibilities of becoming a Wordfast agency. Wordfast swallows TMX as well as Trados and almost anything else and all Wordfast files can be manipulated with any Windows/Office application. Wordfast even works on Mac and Linux. If your client still prefers to become a Trados agency tell them about the rest.



Kind regards,

Gerard de Noord

Happy Wordfast user since August 2001

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Daina Jauntirans
Daina Jauntirans  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:47
German to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Not sure about the workflow Feb 19, 2003

Thanks for your comments. I am not sure about the client\'s workflow because it is a direct customer, not an agency. I just want to be informed so that I can work out a livable arrangement for myself.

 
Sonja Tomaskovic (X)
Sonja Tomaskovic (X)  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 07:47
English to German
+ ...
Segmentation isn't absolutely the same Feb 19, 2003

Dear Daina,



I have been working with Wordfast ever since, and I am very happy with this tool. I downloaded Trados Demo version once, but removed it from my computer just recently because I simply do not use it.



I think that it is necessary to tell the client that you are using a tool that can do almost the same as Trados.

However, someone once raised the issue in a forum, that segmentation between Wordfast and Trados isn\'t the same.
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Dear Daina,



I have been working with Wordfast ever since, and I am very happy with this tool. I downloaded Trados Demo version once, but removed it from my computer just recently because I simply do not use it.



I think that it is necessary to tell the client that you are using a tool that can do almost the same as Trados.

However, someone once raised the issue in a forum, that segmentation between Wordfast and Trados isn\'t the same.



If a client provides you with pre-segmented files, this should not be a problem at all. I also think that the differences in segmentation between these two tools are only a minor problem. Nobody and nothing is perfect, and so is Trados.



Just recently I saw a posting on the Wordfast Yahoo group that explained how Wordfasters can open and work with MultiTerm.



I am very happy with this tool and can recommend it to anyone out there.



Kind regards,



Sonja
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sylver
sylver  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:47
English to French
Trados vs Wordfast Feb 20, 2003

[A]http://wizardtrans.free.fr/trados-wordfast.htm[/A]



I wrote this article to answer your very question, and I think you may be interested to have a look.



About segmentation differences, they exist, but so long as you don\'t leave an empty segment in wordfast, your client will have no problem using your files. If you need to leave an empty segment, type in 2 spaces and Trados will process it like a charm.





 
Daina Jauntirans
Daina Jauntirans  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:47
German to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks! Feb 20, 2003

Thanks, Sylver, I looked up your Web site and it looks very informative - I will definitely read through it so that I am prepared to negotiate.



PS Re: the above responses - just to make it clear, I had every intention of telling the customer that I would be using WordFast!


 


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