The CAT tools market has been very interesting so far this year. We’ve had our major rivals release new versions of their tools – Kilgray released memoQ 2013 (May/June), and recently SDL introduced their Trados Studio 2014 (October). Typically, this would mean a year or so of silence, getting used to the new features, or waiting for service packs, updates, and other early stage fixes. Typically.
Kilgray decided to release yet a newer version of memoQ 2013. With the previous versions, we would call it a minor release, but now, with the new naming policy, it is called memoQ 2013 R2, and, to be honest, I wish they gave it a sexier name 🙂
Before I go on to describe the new features and changes introduced in R2, I will pause for a moment and write a few words about feelings. Why do I want to write about feelings rather than facts? I believe that this release has a lot to do with feelings – feelings of memoQ users.
Let’s imagine having worked with a piece of software for quite some time. You often experience situations in which you wish it could perform certain operations, or do things it can’t. Sometimes these are small things, which, from the user’s perspective, seem to be very easy to implement. On other occasions, you have a problem, and you wouldn’t even expect the program to be able to solve it, i.e. when your source files are a mess, your client has some strange workflow expectations, or other things of this sort, only loosely connected with the tool. Additionally, I also tend to miss features that could solve various cases I approach with support, and, although I don’t have a written list of such things, I’m sure I could come up with one very quickly.
And now imagine that you watch the preview of the new release of this software, and you get the impression that someone stole your imaginary list, and now, point by point, they present the improvements tailored to your request.
This is how I felt yesterday, and I think that many memoQ users felt the same way. And if it’s true, I believe that this is very important.
Ok, so now, after this lengthy introduction, let me give you an overview of what’s new in memoQ 2013 R2.
Kilgray’s goal with this release was the “simplification by hiding complexity”, which basically means that, although there are many new features, new or less experienced users shouldn’t feel overwhelmed.
The focus on the user experience is visible from the start. After installing memoQ, you can go through startup wizard (screen above) to set up some basic settings, such as:
- fonts and appearance – adjust font sizes, and display non-printable characters;
- preferred layout – horizontal or vertical;
- file locations;
- custom dictionaries import (if you’ve customized MS Word dictionaries, you can reuse them);
- Terminology and Machine Translation plugins; and
- Language Terminal account setup (I didn’t manage to get it running, so there might be some issues with LT and the wizard).
We are also encouraged to download the help file and use some video tutorials.
What else is there?
Let me list the new features for you. The order of this list is very subjective, I decided to put the options I find the most interesting first.
- Monolingual revision
memoQ 2013 R2 allows you to review the translated and exported documents in their original format in the target language (for instance in Word or Excel). After revision, you are still able to update your bilingual documents in memoQ. There is a new operation called “Import reviewed document”. After import, memoQ displays a tab with both the current and the reviewed versions and “aligns” the two. You can easily confirm the changes or change something if necessary. I’ve checked it, and it works quite ok.
I believe that many people will consider buying memoQ for this feature.
- Exporting edits as a change-tracked Word file
I have been waiting for this ever since memoQ introduced Version history. It means that now it is possible to:
- track changes in the source document versions;
- display changes between two versions of the translated document;
- revert to any of the previous versions of the translated document;
- (new) export changes between two versions as change-tracked in a Word file.
And it also works for other formats. I tested Excel files, and managed to export them into change-tracked .docx. I even tried to import this Word document back to memoQ as a reviewed document, but I went too far with this.
- Language recognition
This is my favorite one. memoQ does two things now: it can automatically recognize the source language of a file when you send it to memoQ directly from your hard drive, and it can also lock segments within an imported file if they include languages other than the source.
I’ve tested the second feature for two cases: when MS Word marked parts of the text in a different language, and when I forced MS Word to treat English text as Polish. And then, I also tested it in an Excel worksheet, just to make sure it’s not a Word-specific feature. I haven’t tested the mixed scenarios yet, i.e. when you have words in different languages in one segment.
My conclusion is as follows: memoQ can recognize and lock segments written in a language different from your source language. It does not rely on MS Word, but recognizes language independently. It worked for both Excel and Word files, but I assume it should work for all file types, as long as you manage to get them into a memoQ project.
This feature has one setting only – the minimum number of words in the segment to be taken into consideration (default is 3).
I love it. I can’t wait to use it in a real life project, when I get a file with many different languages and a client who wants only one of them translated.
These were my top three features, but there are more:
- PDF filter that retains formatting
I believe that this filter is very important for the marketing purposes. So far, memoQ could import text from PDF documents, and save the translated text into a .txt file. Now, it tries to restore the initial formatting of the source PDF. I say “tries” on purpose. No automatic conversion will give satisfactory results for PDF conversion. So why is it important? Studio does it, Wordfast PRO does it, now memoQ also does it. Simple as that.
- Spelling – MS Word real time spellcheck
memoQ handled two types of spelling mechanisms: Hunspell and MS Word. So far, only Hunspell enabled real time error recognition. Now, both can be used in the same way.
- Import/Export Comments
You can now import/export comments in MS Word files
- Some improvements for server projects include:
- Packages for server projects;
- FirstAccept and Groupsourcing for review;
- Customizable email notifications;
- Prevent delivery with QA errors;
- Prevent simultaneous translation and review.
I haven’t tested these features myself yet, but I will soon. What I saw looked promising. You are able to setup mixed scenarios for packages, like transfer files offline, but connect the client to server TMs. I believe that FirstAccept and Groupsourcing for review speak for themselves. Customizable notifications give you possibility to change default emails for all cases (see the screen below). Prevent simultaneous translation and review is a tricky one. So far you were able to distort the typical workflow and start revision before the translation was finished. Now, you can prevent the reviewer from making such an exception.
I like all of them as they add even more possibilities in online project configuration.
- Terminology improvements
- Terminology import – Excel, Multiterm XML, TBX
You can import directly from an Excel file, without having to save csv or other Unicode txt. Nice.
- Termbases ranking
When you use multiple termbases, you can order them and get results from the more important ones first.
- Project termbase exports in packages
Just like with project TMs, you can export project TBs in packages. Only relevant terms will be exported.
And there is even more:
- Storing roles in TM – this is useful in server projects. PM can decide whether the Reviewer should see the Translator’s changes made to TMs or the version before their work;
- Font Substitution – when after translation you get problems with fonts and the proper display of all the characters;
- TM search – additional application for searching your TMs outside memoQ;
- Double context in TM – I’m not sure yet what it means exactly, so I’d rather not guess now
There are also changes in qTerm, WebTrans and Content Connectors.
Please note that I only mentioned the new features added to memoQ 2013. That’s already plenty.
I guess that’s how you make users love your tool. Well done.
Łukasz Rejter
//all of the tests were performed in Windows 7 environment and Office 2013.
