| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Software for proofreading Thread poster: PhotographyCol
|
|---|
Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 12:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| A set up aid can be helpful | Mar 26, 2015 |
Tom in London wrote:
For the experienced translator who's very careful about turning out a perfect job every time, and who checks and checks, the last remaining anxiety is the fear of not spotting an inconsistency, a missing word, or some other silly mistake that has slipped through the net.
Of course, that type of anxiousness exists and has a place in translation, but it is always helpful to have consistency or error checkers that check objectively against a set of rules. Why? Because you might not use the same style for all clients. If I can set up automated style rules for client X (e.g. use single quotes inside double quotes) and a different one for client Y (e.g. use double quotes inside single quotes), then I can work on documents from both client X and client Y on the same day (in the same hour) without mixing up the styles accidentally. I'm not sure if PerfectIt can do that, but it would certainly be something worth paying for.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| A better option | Mar 26, 2015 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
....it would certainly be something worth paying for.
I think a better option (time permitting) would be for me to send my translation to somebody like yourself. For your fresh eyes, spotting any inconsistencies or boo-boos would be quick and easy. You could highlight them in the file I sent you, and return it to me.
And I could do the same for you.
I'm a great believer in the superiority of human skills over computers.
Does that make me a Luddite? (anxious look).
[Edited at 2015-03-26 10:48 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Tom in London wrote:
I think a better option (time permitting) would be for me to send my translation to somebody like yourself. For your fresh eyes, spotting any inconsistencies or boo-boos would be quick and easy. You could highlight them in the file I sent you, and return it to me.
That is true, but if you had five different clients with five different style requirements, then I would have to reread each style guide beforehand every time I proofread such a file for you, and I may (despite my best efforts) misremember something in one style guide as being from the other style guide, and/or neglect to implement something that is specific to that specific client.
This will not only add to the cost of the proofreading (if I have to re-memorise each style guide every time) but increase the risk of errors due to human failure. A computer, on the other hand, can load a style guide (if it is in machine readable format, which is what we're talking about) and implement it without any cross-pollination from the other style guides.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| OK so not you then | Mar 26, 2015 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Tom in London wrote:
I think a better option (time permitting) would be for me to send my translation to somebody like yourself. For your fresh eyes, spotting any inconsistencies or boo-boos would be quick and easy. You could highlight them in the file I sent you, and return it to me. That is true, but if you had five different clients with five different style requirements, then I would have to reread each style guide beforehand every time I proofread such a file for you, and I may (despite my best efforts) misremember something in one style guide as being from the other style guide, and/or neglect to implement something that is specific to that specific client. This will not only add to the cost of the proofreading (if I have to re-memorise each style guide every time) but increase the risk of errors due to human failure. A computer, on the other hand, can load a style guide (if it is in machine readable format, which is what we're talking about) and implement it without any cross-pollination from the other style guides.
OK so not you then. I understand. Though I refuse to work from style guides and on the one occasion where I was asked to do so, I turned down the job.
| | |
|
|
|
Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 11:22
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Samuel Murray wrote:
Can you customise the inconsistency search? In my language we have words that can have an "s" in it or not, depending on the author's preference, e.g. "landwyd x landswyd".
And can it pick up inconsistencies in hyphen usage? In my language, certain hyphens are optional and depend on the author's preference, e.g. "hoof- uitvoerende beampte x hoof uitvoerende beampte", and e.g. "menslikehulpbronne-afdeling x menslikehulpbronneafdeling".
And how about compounded versus non-compounded words? In my language, some words can be written as two words or one word, depending on the author's preference, e.g. "hieronder x "hier onder".
I think you've probably had all the answers above, but I'll address your queries specifically:
Most importantly, PerfectIt is designed for use with the various variants of the English language. It will work reasonably well for other languages, especially in conjunction with user-specified style guides, but it won't be as comprehensive.
It will automatically pick up all inconsistencies relating to single, compound and hyphenated words, whether or not they're actually in any dictionary. It isn't a spelling or grammar checker - it checks for inconsistencies within the text itself and against any selected style guide. It doesn't just go ahead and change anything - that would be a right pain. It first presents an at-a-glance list of your minority choice. You can click one button to change all to your majority choice; go through them one at a time; deselect some before doing a global change... Example: it finds "website" 15 times and "web-site" twice. It will first present the two hyphenated occurrences for probable changing. If you like you can toggle your preference to tell it you actually prefer the hyphenated form. The few words of context given for each entry are normally enough to show whether it's a valid exception, but you can display that section of text if necessary.
Words that have two totally legitimate spellings are, I believe (though I've not tested it), highlighted if they are a known problem. For instance, further/farther might well be flagged. Others (as in your "landwyd x landswyd" example) can be picked up by your own customisable list of terms, and variant differences are catered for in downloadable style guides.
If you have track changes set then it'll track them, though the tracks don't show up until you exit. If you're working as a proofreader, that's invaluable.
You can also select at any time which tests to run and which to skip. You might for instance wish to check for term consistency now, but leave the punctuation and capitalisation of lists and headings until a later stage. That's useful if you're starting off by checking part of a longer text that isn't 100% finalised.
Whether you're reviewing your own work or someone else's, using PerfectIt plus a spellchecker can vastly improve the quality of a long text in just a few minutes, leaving you to concentrate on those tricky "form vs from" errors that are very difficult for computers to spot, and those issues that really need our intellect. Otherwise, a tiny but damning error can be lost in a forest of inconsistencies.
HTH
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
This thread really is looking like a viral advertising campaign for one particular product. No others have been mentioned.
[Edited at 2015-03-26 21:49 GMT]
| | | | Michael Beijer
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:22
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
| Correctomatic! (new in TransTools) | Mar 29, 2015 |
Tom in London wrote:
This thread really is looking like a viral advertising campaign for one particular product. No others have been mentioned.
[Edited at 2015-03-26 21:49 GMT]
Very true. There are others though. My favourite, and one that is developing at an astronomical pace is called "TransTools" (http://www.translatortools.net/ ).
Stanislav just added yet another amazing feature to TransTools called "Correctomatic", which makes me think it will soon be able to do everything that PerfectIT can do, and more.
I hope he doesn't mind if I paste most of the latest Translator Tools Newsletter (#26 - March 29, 2015) here:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Correctomatic – new tool for correcting words and phrases
Correctomatic is a quality assurance tool designed to search documents for words/phrases defined in correction lists and correct them quickly and easily. Using Correctomatic, you can perform a number of things, including:
• Check your documents for consistency with a style guide. Most style guides provide correct spellings for some words, or preferential spellings for words that can be written in different ways. This can be a corporate style guide or a public style guide, e.g., the Economist style guide, Chicago Manual of Style, Guardian and Observer Style Guide, etc. For example, the words “adviser” and “advisor” are both correct, but Guardian and Observer Style Guide requires you to use “adviser”.
• Use a specific dialect of a language throughout a document. For example, you can use Correctomatic to “convert” a document from British English to American English, etc.
• Find potential errors that are not detectable with the spellchecker. Every language has words that are spelled similarly but have differences in meaning. For example, in British the words “dependent” (adjective) and “dependant” (noun) have different meaning, but you cannot rely on the spellchecker to help you. Typos like “manger” instead of “manager” or “it's” instead of “its” are sometimes difficult to detect, too.
• Find potential translation errors. In specific fields of knowledge, translators tend to make the same mistakes. There are also a lot of “false translator friends” in different language pairs.
When you open Correctomatic, you can choose any number of correction lists in order to check the current document. If the document contains any words/phrases from selected lists, you are presented with search results. For each result, you can use the replacement text suggested by the tool (which comes from a correction list), modify the replacement text, or simply uncheck the item if you don't want to perform the correction. If a certain word/phrase should be replaced when it appears in a specific meaning or context, you can attach a special note to its correction list entry and all search results coming from such an entry will contain a special notification to help you make a decision prior to correction. Finally, when you have reviewed all search results and checked the items you would like to correct, you click a button to correct the document.
You can define your own correction lists or use several built-in correction lists which include:
• [TransTools] British English - American English
This list contains over 1000 entries to help you “convert” documents written in British English to American English.
• [TransTools] American English - British English
Contains over 300 entries to help you “convert” documents written in American English to British English. This list does not contain entries for correction of -ize endings to -ise endings because some British English dictionaries treat -ize endings as normal (more information).
• [TransTools] Commonly confused English words
This correction list will detect English words that are most frequently confused with other words which have similar spelling (e.g., “manger” vs “manager”, “loose” vs “lose”, etc.). This list is compiled on the basis of several publicly available lists.
Correction lists can be edited inside Correctomatic or in Microsoft Excel (using a downloadable template).
Correctomatic is well-suited for languages with strong inflection: a correction list entry can be configured to match at the beginning of a word/phrase or anywhere in a word/phrase, and the custom matching mode allows the use of * and ? wildcards.
Correctomatic should be indispensable for translators and proofreaders alike.
Correctomatic is included in TransTools Professional Edition, but can be evaluated for 45 days free of charge. You can read about the tool in more detail here.
To test the updated tool, download and install the new version of TransTools."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| | | | | StyleWriter or Verifika? | Jun 5, 2015 |
Haven't had any experience with either, but I've seen them mentioned by other proofreaders.
Update: Tried StyleWriter, couldn't even load text without it crashing. Gave up and uninstalled it.
[Edited at 2015-06-06 14:33 GMT]
| | |
|
|
|
| | | Pages in topic: < [1 2] | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Software for proofreading | CafeTran Espresso | You've never met a CAT tool this clever!
Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer.
Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools.
Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free
Buy now! » |
| | Trados Business Manager Lite | Create customer quotes and invoices from within Trados Studio
Trados Business Manager Lite helps to simplify and speed up some of the daily tasks, such as invoicing and reporting, associated with running your freelance translation business.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
