Getting started in Wordfast - can anyone explain in baby-simple language?

On 2003-02-28 19:19, Ailish Maher wrote:

Well, I done it at last, got started with WordFast. Started a year ago but gave up rapid, this time I want to try and see it through!



I opened my text, followed WF instructions - without really knowing what I was doing - about creating a memory, but now I have a draft text, with Spanish and English all thrown in together, can\'t seem to clean it up...what\'s more, don\'t know how to go back and revise it...



I studied a bit of Trados and I seem to remeber that one had to go about setting up teh job differently from the way i did it, which was: I opened the text in Word.





Is there any way I can just abandon, recover my draft and do it manually?



I should have chosen a smaller job to get practise in....I think I have just wasted my time.



Can anybody help me resolve this, in as baby-simple language as possible?



Difficult to guide you if you don\'t know the basics, but here are some concepts that may ring a bell. You should nevertheless try to learen the basics for next time.



So far I understand, you finished to translate the document. When you finished the last segment, the session closed (no color box no more, right?)

If you want to review your document, you have to put the cursor at the begining of your document, an open a new session (by pressing alt+down). Your first segment will open with your translation.



Correct what you want and go to the next segment with Alt+Down, just like if you were translating the doc for the first time.



When you are satisfied with your translation, end session with Alt+End (if you review \'til the end, the session will end on it\'s own.)



Follow the clean up procedure as somebody else explained.



If that fails, you can clean up the text with a find and replace. Simply search for \"*\" (more/enable wildcards) with a hidden attribute (more/format/font, an option case called \"hidden\", click OK) and leave the \"replace\" field blank.



Click replace all. As all the source segments are in hidden text, they will be replaced by nothing, thus leaving your translation. I suggest you save your document under an other name before you do that.



I actually wrote a beginner\'s manual for wordfast, which you can find at www.wizardtranslations.com and by going to the wordfast pages. You may want to check it out and let me know if there are stuff you can\'t get working, so that I can improve the tutorial.

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