Introduction
It
is not a secret that many translators believe Trados
is too complex and unfriendly. This popular misconception
is supported by the bulkiness of Trados’s manuals:
FL5.5 was supplied with five manuals totaling 936
pages, and FL6.5 has six manuals totaling 1252 pages
- enough to scare off the most computer-savvy translator!
However, these manuals can't be short and simple
since they are comprehensive and cover all Trados
functions and settings, which are almost unlimited.
Objective
of the Article
My
five years of experience in using Trados FL 5.5
and 6.5 demonstrates that knowledge of several basic
functions of Trados FL is enough to use this software
for translation of 80% of your jobs, helping you
to:
- double your translation productivity;
- find and win more clients/jobs;
- make work less tiring;
- double your earnings;
- improve quality by increasing consistency and avoiding
omissions and eye mistakes.
Hopefully
this article will help you get rid of all prejudices
against Trados and begin using basic Trados FL functions
in two minutes. To do so, you only need to focus
on vitally important Trados features and skip all
the others.
Determining
the Most Important Trados Features
Let's
determine which Trados features are vitally important
for the translation process and which features can
be ignored at the first stage.
The
analysis given below is based on nine months of
my freelance work (from January 1, 2005 to September
15, 2005). During this period, I completed 220 translation
jobs (some of them contained up to 200 source files,
with a total word count of more than 500,000 source
words) for 40 customers (translation agencies and
end customers) from 14 countries. My language direction
was English to Russian.
According
to my records, the distribution of types of source
files was as follows:
| Types
of files |
Number
of jobs |
Percent |
| .doc
- |
165
|
75%Â
|
| .xls
- |
13
|
5.9% |
| .pdf
- |
12
|
5.4% |
| .ppt
- |
3
|
1.4% |
| .rtf,
.html, .xml and other files translated in
Tag Editor |
27
|
12.3% |
For
several reasons, I converted all .pdf and .xls source
files into .doc files and translated them in MS
Word. The following chart reflects my usage of MS
Word and Tag Editor:
The
following table shows how often I used various Trados
modules for translation (%):
| Trados
Workbench (TW) |
100%
|
| TW+MultitermÂ
|
17.7% |
| TW+T-Windows
for .xls, .ppt and others |
0%
|
| TW+TageditorÂ
|
12.3% |
| WinalignÂ
|
0.9%
|
The following chart shows how often I used Multiterm (project glossary):
This
data shows that you only need Trados Workbench and
MS Word to enjoy the benefits of Trados FL when
translating 80% of your jobs. This means you don’t
need to learn to use Multiterm, TagEditor and other
Trados modules at the first stage.
Installation
of Trados FL 6.5
1.
Download Trados 6.5 Freelance from http://www.translationzone.com/download.aspÂ
(110 MB).
2.
Install Trados 6.5 Freelance:
a. Double-click Setup.exe.
b. When asked, accept License Agreement.
c. When asked, do not install MS .NET Framework Package.
d. When asked, accept the End-User License Agreement.
e. When asked to select a license type, select "None
of the above" (demo version).
f. When asked, add source and target languages.
Screenshot 1
g. When asked to chose setup type, select Complete.
The
whole installation process will be completed within
one minute.
Getting
Started With Trados FL
You
are now all set to translate your first source file
with Trados 6.5 FL.
1.
Select Start > Programs > Trados 6.5 Freelance
> Translator's Workbench (TW).
2.
Create a new Translation Memory file (TM):
a. From the TW menu select File > New.
Screenshot 2
b. When asked, select source and target languages.
Screenshot 3
c. Name the new TM and save it in a folder.
d. Open your source .doc file and place it below
the TW window (see screenshot 4).
e. Place mouse pointer on the first sentence and
press Alt+Home.
This preparation process typically takes less than
one minute.
Type in your translation in the lower text box with
the yellow background (see the screenshot below).
Screenshot 4
Note:
if you already have a TM (e.g., received from your
client), you do not need to create a new one - just
open the existing TM (see screenshot 2). From the
TW menu select File > New > Select a TM file
> OK.
To
go to the next sentence, press Alt+Numerical+ (on
the right-hand side of the keyboard).
Repeat
the above process until the end of the source file
and press Alt+End.
Congratulations!
You
just completed translation of your first source
file with Trados 6.5 FL. Save the bilingual file
and close it.
To
delete source text from the bilingual file (this
process is referred to as the "clean-up"):
1.
From the TW menu select Tools > Clean-up.
2.
Add the file to be cleaned-up.
3.
Click the Clean-up button. Click the Close button.
Your
file now contains only your translation.
You
can study other useful Trados functions (buttons)
by selecting Trados from the MS Word menu bar.
From
now on, you will never translate the same sentence,
phrase or term more than once!
Conclusion
Hopefully this article will help you appreciate the
obvious benefits of TM software: segmentation of
source text, preservation of original formatting
and re-use of your old translations. Having enjoyed
these benefits, undoubtedly you will want to expand
your abilities and learn the other Trados modules
- first of all Multiterm and Tageditor.
My other articles on the use and benefits of Translation
Memory software are available at my website - www.erussiantranslations.com.
