A tool for terminology and QAA tool for terminology and QAApSIC XbenchApSIC Xbench
presentspresents......
by Riccardo Schiaffino
ATA 52nd Annual ConferenceBoston, October 26-29 2011
Presentation - © Riccardo Schiaffino, 2011Xbench - © ApSIC, 2000-2011
ApSIC Xbench: a tool for terminology and QA 2
Table of contentsTable of contents
• Introduction - 3 • Terminology and search - 6• Supported file formats - 7• Powerful searches - 8• Keyboard shortcuts - 14• Easy editing - 16• Saving projects - 21• Project settings - 22• Convert between formats - 25
• Quality assurance - 27• QA features: Instructions - 36• QA features: Add-ins - 37• Settings - 38• Documentation - 41• Future developments - 43• Additional tools - 45• Where to download this presentation
- 49• The End - 50
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IntroductionIntroduction
• What is Xbench?Xbench is a Windows software tool for terminology management and translation QA, developed by ApSIC, a Spanish translation and localization company.
• Xbench terminology functions permit to search and organize your glossaries, translation memories and bilingual files for specific projects.
• Xbench also offers excellent QA functions to help improve and control the quality of your translations.
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IntroductionIntroduction
• All that at an unbeatable price: the program is freeware (it is, however, proprietary and closed source).
• Xbench can be downloaded from ApSIC's Web site: http://www.ApSIC.com/en/downloads.aspx
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Terminology and searchTerminology and search
Xbench can search glossaries, translation memories and bilingual files in multiple formats.
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• Wordfast Memory • Wordfast Glossary• Wordfast Pro TXML• DejaVu X/Idiom File • DejaVu X/Idiom Memory• Logoport RTF File • IBM TM/OpenTM2 Dictionary • IBM TM/OpenTM2 Folder • IBM TM/OpenTM2 Exported
Folder• IBM TM/OpenTM2 Exported
Memory• Mac OS X Glossary• Microsoft Glossary• Remote Xbench Server
Supported file formatsSupported file formats• Tab-delimited Text File• XLIFF File• TMX Memory • TBX/MARTIF Glossary• Trados Exported Memory • Trados Exported Multiterm 5
Glossary • Trados Multiterm XML Glossary • Trados TagEditor File• Trados Word File (works also for
bilingual .docx files)• Trados Studio 2009 or 2011 File• SDLX File• SDLX Memory • STAR Transit 2.6/XV Directory
Tree• PO File
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Powerful searchesPowerful searches
You can use Xbench to search your glossaries and other resources using simple searches, but the program also offers very powerful search functions (using the Power Search, Regular Expression, and MS Word Wildcard search functions).
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Powerful searchesPowerful searches
• Simple search
• Power searchWith the “Power search” function you can, among other things, search for segments that contain a certain word in the source, and that do not contain a specific word in the target: that is, you can tell Xbench “display all segments where the source contains the word ‘agreement’ but the target does not contain the word ‘contratto’”.
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Powerful searchesPowerful searches
• MS Word wildcard searchYou can find a couple of detailed articles on the uses of MS Word wildcard searches on my blog About Translation:
• http://aboutranslation.blogspot.com/2005/05/how-to-use-wildcard-and-format.html
• http://aboutranslation.blogspot.com/2006/05/another-useful-wildcard-search.html
• Regular expression search
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Powerful searchesPowerful searches
You can also search Google and other Internet sites directly from within Xbench.
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Keyboard shortcutsKeyboard shortcuts
• The program remains in the background and is minimized to the Windows tray until specifically shut down - this means it is always just a click away.
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Keyboard shortcutsKeyboard shortcuts
• Xbench can be called from most applications via simple (and configurable) keyboard shortcuts.
• For example, if Xbench is active, when you highlight a word in MS Word then press Ctrl+Alt+Ins, Xbench will automatically search for that word and display the results.
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Easy editingEasy editing
You can edit on the fly your glossaries or the bilingual files you are working on, to update or correct them.
• Xbench allows you to use your preferred text editor (for example, Notepad++) to edit text files.
• Most text editors can be configured so as to open files for edit from Xbench already at the appropriate line.
• To open bilingual translation files in most of the supported formats, Xbench uses the appropriate tools. So, bilingual *.doc files are opened in MS Word, *.itd files in SDLX, *.ttx files in Tag Editor, and *.sdlxliff files in Studio 2009 or 2011.
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Saving projectsSaving projects
You can save each project with the set of glossaries and other resource you specify.
• This way, the next time you work on a similar assignment, you can use the same Xbench project, with the same set of files and settings.
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Project settingsProject settings
You can assign high, medium and low priority to glossaries and other resources, and also order them within each priority level, so that the most relevant answers are displayed first.
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Convert between formatsConvert between formats
Through the Export Items function, you can also save all or part of a project either as a tab-separated text file (a suitable format for glossaries), or to TMX translation memory format (a flexible format supported by most CAT tools).
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Quality AssuranceQuality Assurance
In addition to terminology search, you can use Xbench to check the quality of your translation projects.
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Quality AssuranceQuality Assurance
Several types of QA checks
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Quality AssuranceQuality AssuranceBasic
• Untranslated segments
• Inconsistency–in source–in target
• Target same as source
Content• Tag mismatch• Numeric
mismatch• Double blank
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Quality AssuranceQuality Assurance Linguistic
• Key Term mismatch– Key term example:
terms defined in quotes in legal documents
– It is important that key term lists be of limited length, to avoid too many false positives
• Project checklist• Personal checklist
Spellcheck• In various languages• Requires download
of (free) additional dictionaries http://www.ApSIC.com/en/downloads.aspx
QA reports in HTML, Excel, tab-delimited text or XML format
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QA features: InstructionsQA features: Instructions• You can write your instructions for the
project directly within Xbench.• Useful when working on team projects...
or even solo, when you write reminders for yourself.
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QA features: Add-insQA features: Add-ins
Xbench now also includes an interface for programming add-ins to the QA features, to add specific kinds of QA tests that are not offered by the base program.
• The spell-check add-in has been developed this way.
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SettingsSettings
In addition to the settings available for each project, Xbench settings can be customized in various ways, for example, to use a specific text editor or select specific engines to perform Internet searches.
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DocumentationDocumentation
Unlike most other freeware programs, Xbench help system offers complete and well written documentation of the program. Whenever some feature is added or changed, the help system is updated.
• The help system is particularly useful to explain how best to use the more sophisticated search options, such as the "power search".
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DocumentationDocumentation
• On computers that are running Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2, you may be unable to open help files (*.hlp) that require the Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program.
• If your computer does not display the help file, you can find more information on how to solve this issue and you can download the necessary program from the following address: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607
• In addition to English, the documentation has been translated into German, Italian and Polish. The translated help files can be downloaded from the ApSIC Web site: http://www.ApSIC.com/en/downloads.aspx
Displaying help in Windows Vista or Windows 7
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Future developmentsFuture developments
• ApSIC is currently working on version 3
• Regarding other CAT Tools, the roadmap is mostly driven by ApSIC's internal needs, so when ApSIC is involved with a new CAT tool in projects of sizeable volume, they tend to add support for it in ApSIC Xbench quickly.
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Future developmentsFuture developments
• That means that every single CAT tool or popular format is somehow under the radar, but ApSIC only adds support for the format when they feel they have enough files to test it internally and full access to the tool to make sure they are able to support it when users submit bug reports (so as to avoid the scenario where ApSIC cannot reproduce the user's issue because they happen to lack a license for a specific external tool).
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Additional toolsAdditional tools
• CSVedit is a tool for creating bilingual glossaries in tab-delimited format. It is freeware and offers several useful functions. You can download it from:
http://csved.sjfrancke.nl/index.html
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Additional toolsAdditional tools
• If you need a simple tool for creating bilingual glossaries, TablePro is a small and inexpensive database program (shareware). You can download a trial copy from Softpedia: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Finances-Business/Table-Pro.shtml
Unfortunately, at the moment it looks like TablePro is no longer in development, but the copies available online for download are fully functional.
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Additional toolsAdditional tools
• Another small database program that could be used for creating bilingual glossaries is dBworx, available both as freeware and as a cheap “professional” version.
http://www.plworx-software.com/index.html#iddbworx
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Additional toolsAdditional tools
• As a text editor, I mostly use Notepad++: a good open-source program with many advanced features. If you decide to use Notepad++, the command line parameters
$Filename -n$Line allow Xbench to open a text file at the appropriate line. You can download Notepad++ from the following site: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
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Where to download this Where to download this presentationpresentation
• You can find the most updated version of this presentation on my blog, About Translation. (http://aboutranslation.blogspot.com)