Computer terminology uses the term CAT for Computer Aided Translation. It is a software tool that saves pairs of original and translated text into its Translation Memory (TM). When you translate, the software will suggest to you all texts of your past translations from its TM.

CAT software/tools are not machine translation (automatic translation of a text). They rather represent an independent field of tools that help translators expedite their work.

CAT software continuously compares the text stored in TM with the document's text and gives suggestions on the basis of definable criteria - it looks for similar (fuzzy) or accurate (exact) matches in TM. The translator can define the fuzziness threshold.

Today, there are robust commercial CAT solutions on the market such as Trados, minimalist Wordfast or Metatexis - unfortunately, they are all commercial. Trados is a standalone tool; Wordfast or Metatexis cannot be used alone - they require MS Word, because they work as a macro in it. If you use Linux, Wordfast and Metatexis work perfectly in MS Word in Wine (environment used for running Windows applications in Unix) or CrossOver Office (commercial Wine).

Anaphraseus

A widespread historical employability of MS Word is the reason why most translators use it. However, there is a very good CAT solution for OpenOffice.org too - Anaphraseus, which is an OOo extension compatible with Wordfast.

CAT terminology is everywhere the same, so a good way before you start working with CAT software is to read some help documents. You may also download a manual for Wordfast or any other CAT tool.

Anaphraseus: CAT With OpenOffice.org

Anaphraseus as an extension for OpenOffice.org installs directly from the OOo's menu: Tools | Extension Manager, where you just click on the Add button. In OpenOffice.org 3.0 you click on the blue text "Get more extensions here...", which is at the bottom of the Extension Manager window. After you click on the blue text, your default browser will open up with the OOo extensions URL address where you must search for Anaphraseus - just type it as a keyword into the search textbox and then download it.

You will get a file with an OXT extension (some older versions used a Zip format); then click on the Add button in the OOo Extension Manager window and find the OXT file on your PC. When done, read the license and scroll down to accept it. After you click on the Accept button Anaphraseus will permanently move to your OOo Extension Manager.

Anaphraseus is not platform dependent but OOo dependent. It works in OpenOffice, no matter if you work in 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 it will give you the following possibilities:

    * Term Recognition

    * Fuzzy Search

    * Unicode UTF-16 TMX Export/Import

    * Plain text and Unicode UTF-16 TM

    * User Glossary

    * Russian localization available at Sourceforge.net

After the installation you need to 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 make your first translation, create (or import) your 1) Translation Memory; 2) open a document with your desired source language; and 3) start translating it by clicking on the Alt+Down button on the Anaphraseus icon panel.

Translation Memory

The first step is to create (or possibly to import) your TM. To do this, click on the Anaphraseus Setup icon, select New, and then enter pertinent TMX codes, which you will need for cases you decide to export your TM later (see Few CAT terms at the bottom). You will need a separate TM for every language combination - for example, if you translate from Czech to Hungarian, this combination - that is, this TM is not good for translation from Hungarian to Czech.

The software allows you to work with many Translation Memories, which you can use for specific languages or jobs; for example, bible-czech2eng.txt (from Czech to English) or bible-eng2czech.txt (from English to Czech) will be your TM's for biblical translation projects (both Wordfast and Anaphraseus use TXT format in their TM's).

Some CAT Terms

TMX

In Computer Aided Translation you use the Translation Memory eXchange (TMX) format (XML) because translators often need to migrate (export/import) their TM's to a variety of CAT tools they use. It is a translator's right to choose any CAT software and in case a group of translators works on a project, they can thus share their TM's. Many CAT tools use their own (proprietary) Translation Memory formats and TMX helps translators and translating agencies share their TM's easily. For example, you export your TM from a proprietary CAT application's format (Trados, etc.) to the TMX format and then you import this TMX format to Anaphraseus (or to any other CAT tool). TMX is a type of database with various codes that identify languages (CS-01 for the Czech language, EN-US for US English, etc.).

Unicode

If Anaphraseus asks you whether you want to use Unicode, you need to know that CAT software may have problems to display words with diacritical marks such as those used in East-European languages. By the term "displaying" I mean that once the source and target sentences get to TM, Anaphraseus will compare the source sentence in the document with the one in its TM and will show you the target sentence if it meets certain criteria. With the Unicode font it will display correctly all the fonts. If you do not work with Western-type languages, it is always a good idea to use Unicode.

Cleaning Up

The term "clean up the document" in CAT terminology means that you remove the original (source) text from the document, which keeps staying there for editing purposes. Both source and target segments are delimited with color markers such as {0> and you may not delete from the document (of course, you can, but only by "cleaning up the document"). Authors of CAT tools know that translators need to compare the original text with the translated one even after the translation is finished. In addition to the fact that Anaphraseus (and many other CAT tools) saves pairs of sentences in its TM you will also have these pairs embedded in the document until you clean it.

If the document is not yet cleaned, you may always click on the Arrow Down button on the Anaphraseus toolbar, compare the source (original) text with the translated one, and continue editing it. When you are finished, choose CLEAN UP. The software will ask you if you want to update your Translation Memory. All color markers and source sentences 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 star on your way to freedom.

The author's website at www.freebsd.nfo.sk