The ins and outs of AutoSuggest

001The AutoSuggest feature in Studio has been around since the launch of Studio 2009 and based on the questions I see from time to time I think it’s a feature that could use a little explanation on what it’s all about.  In simple terms it’s a mechanism for prompting you as you type with suggested target text that is based on the source text of the document you are translating.  So sometimes it might be a translation of some or all of the text in the source segment, and sometimes it might be providing an easy way to replicate the source text into the target.  This is done by you entering a character via the keyboard and then Studio suggests suitable text that can be applied with a single keystroke.  In terms of productivity this is a great feature and given how many other translation tools have copied this in one form or another I think it’s clear it really works too!
AutoSuggest comes from a number of different sources, some out of the box with every version of the product, and some requiring a specific license.  The ability to create resources for AutoSuggest is also controlled by license for some things, but not for all.  When you purchase Studio, any version at all, you have the ability to use the AutoSuggest resources out of the box from three places: Continue reading “The ins and outs of AutoSuggest”

The future is bright… it's not Java!

001I’ve been talking about this image for around a year in various presentations where we talked about the plans for Studio 2014. As of today to be able to finally present it as a fait accompli feels good… in fact it feels wonderful!  Whilst this is a good headline it’s not everything you get with SP2 and there are some other things in here well worth a mention.  I’m not going to cover them all but I will pick out the headliners that I’m pretty sure people have been asking for.  But let’s start with terminology because after nearly 8-years of reading about Java problems, and that’s just my time with SDL and the Trados based software, this is a historical moment worth relishing.  Quite a nice 30-yr birthday present for Trados too!
Continue reading “The future is bright… it's not Java!”

Glossary to TM… been there, done that…

#01So now let’s flip the process on its head!
I’m not sure how often the need arises to create a Translation Memory from a Termbase but I can tell you that the article I wrote previously called “Creating a TM from a Termbase, or Glossary, in SDL Trados Studio” is the most popular article I have ever written… closely followed by an article on why wordcounts differ between tools called “So how many words do you think it is?“.  It’s an unfair competition because the latter was written some 4-months afterwards so needs more time to catch up… but there is no denying that the process of converting a Glossary to a Translation Memory is something people are interested in.
Continue reading “Glossary to TM… been there, done that…”

Making the most of your resources… and some free extras

Updated 15 January 2015 : Only 10,000 TUs are required for the generation of an AutoSuggest dictionary with Studio 2014.
I’ve been talking to a Freelance Translator in Canada over the last few weeks who purchased Studio 2011.  She has a great set of resources from many years of translating, all split up in different sublanguages to cater for en(US), en(GB) and fr(FR), fr(CA) variations.  What she didn’t have was consolidated Translation Memories so she could maximise her leverage from all of these variations, or Autosuggest dictionaries, or termbases and didn’t use the AutoText lists.
Continue reading “Making the most of your resources… and some free extras”