CAT is a term for computer-assisted translation. It is a software that constantly stores (when active) pairs of translated and original texts in its translation memory (TM). When a translator translates a document, the software suggests all the previously translated texts of his TM.
CAT is a term that is not used for machine translation, which is a different thing. CAT software generally works hand in hand with editors such as MS Word or Openoffice.org; compares the text stored in TM with that of the document and gives suggestions to the translator.
Currently there are many commercial CAT tools on the market such as Trados, minimalist Wordfast or Metatexis. Wordfast, for example, is not standalone software and requires MS Word (it works like a macro).
Anaphraseus: CAT with OpenOffice.org
Anaphraseus as an extension for OpenOffice.org is installed directly from the OOo menu: Tools | Extension Manager, where you just click on the Get more extensions here … text. On the OOo extensions website, which appears in your default browser after clicking the text above, you will find Anaphraseus.
You will get a file with an OXT extension (some previous versions used a Zip format). After downloading it, click the Add button in the OOo Extension Manager window and browse for the OXT file on your PC. When done, read the license and scroll down to accept it. After clicking the OK button, Anaphraseus will be permanently moved to your OOo Extension Manager.
Anaphraseus does not depend on the platform but on OOo. It works in OpenOffice, it doesn’t matter if you work with Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OS / 2 or even OpenBSD. This nice CAT extension is compatible with OpenOffice.org 2.1 and higher; StarOffice 8, Update 5 or higher, and will give you the following possibilities:
* Recognition of deadline
* Blurred search
* Export / Import Unicode UTF-16 TMX
* Plain text and Unicode UTF-16TM
* User glossary
After installation, you must restart OpenOffice.org for the changes to take effect. You will then see a new panel with the Anaphraseus icons appearing in the OOo environment.
To carry out your first translation, create (or import) your 1) Translation Memory; 2) open a document with the source language you want; and 3) start translating it by clicking the Alt + Down button in the Anaphraseus icon panel.
Translation memory
The first step is to create (or possibly import) your TM. To do this, click on the Anaphraseus Settings icon, select New and then enter the relevant TMX codes, which you will need for cases where you decide to export your TM later (see the Little Glossary at the bottom). You will need a separate TM for each language combination, for example, if you translate from German to Polish, this combination, that is, this TM is not good for translation from Polish to German.
The software allows you to work with many translation memories. You can use them for any translation job; for example, bible-italian2eng.txt (Italian to English) or bible-eng2italian.txt (English to Italian) will be your TMs for Bible translation projects (both Wordfast and Anaphraseus use the TXT format in their TMs).
A small CAT glossary
TMX
In computer-assisted translation, the Translation Memory Exchange (TMX) (XML) format is used because translators often need to migrate (export / import) their translation memories to a variety of CAT tools they use. It is the right of the translator to choose any CAT software and in case a group of translators work on a project, they can share their TMs. Many CAT tools use their own (proprietary) translation memory formats and TMX helps translators and translation agencies to easily share their TMs. For example, you export your TM from a proprietary CAT application format (like Trados, etc.) to TMX format and then import this TMX format to Anaphraseus (or any other CAT tool).
TMX is a type of database with multiple codes that identify languages (CS-01 for Czech language, EN-US for American English, etc.).
Unicode
If Anaphraseus asks you if you want to use Unicode, you should know that CAT software may have trouble displaying words with diacritics like those used in Eastern European languages. By the term “show” I mean that once the source and destination sentences reach the TM, Anaphraseus will compare the source sentence in the document with that of your TM and show you the destination sentence if it meets certain criteria . With Unicode font it will correctly display all fonts. If you don’t work with Western-type languages, it’s always a good idea to use Unicode.
Clean up
The term “clean up the document” in CAT terminology means that you delete the original text (source) of the document, which remains there for editing purposes. Both the source and destination segments are delimited with colored markers such as {0> and you cannot remove them from the document (of course you can, but only by “cleaning the document”). Authors of CAT tools know that translators must compare the original text with the translated text even after the translation is finished. Besides the fact that Anaphraseus (and many other CAT tools) save sentence pairs in its TM, you will also have these pairs embedded in the document until you clean it up.
If the document has not yet been cleaned up, you can always click the Down Arrow button on the Anaphraseus toolbar, compare the source (original) text with the translated text, and continue editing. When you’re done, choose CLEAN. The software will ask you if you want to update your translation memory. All color markers and original phrases will disappear from the document and you will only see your final work (the text you translated).
conclusion
Anaphraseus does not have all the functions of commercial applications (such as Pandora’s box, etc.), but not all translators need comprehensive solutions every hour and every day. OpenOffice.org has thus become not only a complex and very useful tool for translators, but also a small star on the road to freedom.