Translator’s Shack

Yesterday Kilgray released version 4.0 of their translation environment memoQ. To download and test it, you can use this link (update: see below for new link). Here are some links and snippets containing some further information about the new version:

memoQ 4: Interview with István Lengyel on the Localization, Localisation blog.

The following are edited excerpts from the memoQ mailing list on Yahoo Groups. I’m sure the users who submitted them originally won’t mind if I publish them here:

• Brand new editor, with smaller inline tags display, view hidden spaces, drag & drop.
• The new editor fixes the scrolling issue existing on 64 bits Windows editions for 3.x
• Named undo list (like in Microsoft Word)
• Real-time spellchecking (errors underlined with red squiggle like in Word/Firefox/Thunderbird)
• Unified "Resource console" to manage all resources
• On top of TM/TB, autotranslatables, ignore lists, etc. (basically all project settings) are now also treated as resources
• All resources can be shared and/or imported/exported
• Easy multilingual project management thanks to a handful of new features (handoff export/import, new stats available, etc.)
• Handoff import/export relies on open standards for better interoperability
• Improved QA with less "noise" (false positives)
• Revamped interface – referred to as the Dashboard, new icons and more modern feel
• Resolve QA errors – different interface allowing you to hide warnings/errors
• External view similar to the one found Déjà Vu will not appear in 4.0 but will be ready in 2nd quarter of 2010
• Post-translation analysis feature, which  Kilgray considers this a major breakthrough
• If you bought the software between 1 Sept 2008 and 1 Feb 2009, you need to pay an upgrade fee to be eligible for memoQ 4. This relates both to freelancers and corporate users.

Regarding the Server version, it will be available in about two weeks. The developers are ironing out some details in the installer.

2009-02-05 UPDATE:

A new 4.0 build is now available at http://kilgray.com/memoq/memoQSetup.4.0.16.exe. In this build we have fixed about 30 issues, focusing on the more annoying problems you have been reporting since Monday. In particular, there are improvements in the following areas:
– Migration of legacy settings
– Pre-translation
– memoQ 3.6 an 4.0 in parallel
– Extra tags in DOC/RTF import
– Stability while working in the editor
– Joining and splitting
This version also has the AutoUpdate module enabled again, which means that memoQ will be able to update automatically from this build to the next one, 4.0.17, when that is out. Download and enjoy!

Kilgray yesterday announced version 3.6 beta of MemoQ. Although a beta, this is a minor version number change (from 3.5. to 3.6), so, unlike what happens with the numerous revision number changes  (e.g. 3.5.23 to 3.5.24) that Kilgray uses to solve bugs, this one contains some significant new features. Let’s take a look at the change log posted by the developers:

Our long-awaited DOCX filter.

This is definitely a very welcome change. MemoQ will now be able to handle Word 2007 files natively and, from what I heard, it does that very efficiently and fast. By the way, MemoQ has always been my top choice for handling complex Word files (performing consistently better than Trados TagEditor 2007).

A PDF filter built on the open-source Xpdf tool that allows you to extract plain text from PDF files for alignment and translation.

Like some users pointed out, this is probably a catch-up feature that allows MemoQ to be as buzzword-compliant as Trados Studio 2009. From what I’ve heard about Trados’ implementation of this filter, it’s definitely not a one-stop solution that will solve all the translator’s PDF problems. (Hint: charge extra when you have to translate PDF files. Half of the time, the client will miraculously find those editable source documents).

MemoQ can now be officially installed on 64-bit systems.

This is very important in view of the introduction of Windows 7 that will take place this Autumn.

A feature to auto-insert the best hit when you enter the next segment after Ctrl+Enter. Look under Translation / Automatic Lookup and Insertion.

This is the single feature I’m most happy to hear about. Until now, if you pretranslated a file and automatically inserted fuzzy matches,  MemoQ would not warn you if a better match was saved into the TM since your last pretranslation, so you could end up editing the older, lower-matching segment contained in the pretranslated file if you failed to notice the better match in the TM.

An option (by default, on) to show TB hits in their order of appearance in the source, not alphabetically. Double-click the orange icon above Translation results for settings.

Until now the term base matches were shown in alphabetical order. This makes more sense and it should indeed be turned on by default.

The Concordance window can now be left open as you continue to translate.

Another very welcome new feature for users who like to have more reference windows open. Until now the concordance window was a modal dialog that needed to be closed every time you needed to go back to editing mode.

You can now safely use local projects stored on a network drive (only one user at a time).

I was never affected by this problem since we use MemoQ server to connect to remote projects through the internet and we save all project files locally.

We reinstated our old friend, F4, for inserting the fragment assembled hit. The shortcut can be configured, of course.

This is a minor change. I’m sure some users felt very strongly about it and the developers decided to re-introduce this feature.

An improved terminology check in the QA module that will yield fewer false positives for missing terms.

I have not tested this feature. All I know is that previous versions of MemoQ’s QA module left a lot to be desired, so hopefully this will be a step in the right direction.

MemoQ : Message: MemoQ 3.6.2 [beta] announced.