Translation tools and versions thereof used for the comparison:

Trados: 6.5.5.438 - URL
Deja Vu: 7.0.266 - URL
Wordfast: 5.0z - URL
MetaTexis: 2.76 - URL


Editing Previous Segment

You have just closed a translation unit, you moved to the next one, and you realize that there is an error, what do you do?

Trados: You close current translation unit (Alt+End), you move up (Up+ arrow / Ctrl+arrow), you open the previous translation unit (Alt+Home), you make your edit, you close/save it and open the next one (Alt+Num +)

Wordfast: You press (Alt+Up arrow) to close current unit, move to the previous unit, open previous unit. You make your edit. You press (Alt+Down arrow) to save/close current unit, move and open next one. (Trados users are quite impessed by this!)

Deja Vu: You press (Up arrow / Ctrl+arrow) to move to the previous translation unit. You make your edit. You press (Ctrl+Down arrow) to save/"close" current unit and move to the next one.

MetaTexis: Very similar to Wordfast. You press (Alt+Up arrow) to close current unit, move to the previous unit, open previous unit. You make your edit. You press (Alt+Down arrow) to save/close current unit, move and open next one. The difference being that in case you have more than one fuzzy matches these are displayed on your text and you have to move to the fuzzy match of your choice, edit it, then press Shift+Alt+Enter to set the translation and then Alt+Down to move to next one; or you can simply press the shortcut Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Down which combines these two actions. If this shortcut is too much for you you can assign its function Select translation and open next TU to Alt+Down. To do this:

Go to the General options, select the Shortcuts tab, click button Default, then click OK. The command Select translation and open next TU should now have a shortcut. To change the shortcut, just double click the item in the shortcut list.

Concordance Search


Trados: You select the word or phrase you want to search in the concordance and you press (Alt+Up arrow). The results appear in a new window. In Options->Translation Memory options, Concordance tab, you can check the box Start concordance search if no segment match is found to start the concordance search automatically. If when using the concordance you realize you have to use a lot the (Alt+Tab) shortcut to move between your file and the concordance check the box "Move cursor into concordance dialog box after search" in the same tab.

It is not always easy to copy/paste words/phrase into your project as formatting will also be copied creating havoc in your segment (one solution for this is to use a macro to Paste Unformatted). When it comes to Greek some times you may have trouble with the fonts being corrupted and instead of Greek seeing extended ASCII gobleddygook.

The search for contexts will be done first in the regular translation memory. If no matches are found then it will be carried out in the reference (Read-only) translation memory. (You can add a reference translation memory Options->Translation Memory options, Concordance tab, click the Browse button next to the Reference (Read-only) translation memory field to select a reference translation memory .

Wordfast: The concordance search is called Context search in Wordfast. You select the word or phrase you want to search in the concordance and you press (Ctrl+Alt+C).
The search for contexts will be done first in the background translation memory (if applicable), then in the regular translation memory. The purpose of Context search is to find Translation Units (TUs) that contain a given word or a set of words. The search results appear in a new Word window. You can easily copy/paste words from search results into your normal text.

The search will bring results on words that begin like the searched-for item, case-insensitive. Searching for cat will bring TUs that contain cat, or catering or caterpillar, etc, but not bobcat or supercat.

Searching for *cat will bring TUs that contain words like bobcat or supercat etc.

The OR/AND operators can be used. Searching for cat+dog will bring TUs where either cat OR dog are found; searching for cat&dog will bring TUs where both cat AND dog are found.

Note that to open the dialog box that lets you specify such extended search options, you must start context search when no selection is made; if a selection is made (for example, one word is selected in the source segment), then Wordfast assumes that the selected word has to be searched and will directly search for it, without offering the extended search dialog box. This allows fast searches with minimal clicks or shortcuts.

The same rules apply for Reference searches as well.

If you check the Search contexts in all sibling translation memories option in Wordfast->Terminology->Other, the context search will be extended to other TMs present in the same folder as the currently active TM.
It is possible to cancel a Context search with the Escape key, or with the same shortcut that started the search (i.e., Ctrl+Alt+C).

Deja Vu: The concordance search is called Scan (Scanning the Translation Memories). You select the word or phrase you want to search in the and you press (Ctrl+S).

There is also the AutoSearch which can make Déjà Vu X Professional automatically scan (search) the translation memory for the current segment, and search the translation memories, terminology databases and the project lexicon for any portions of the sentence. Results appear in a pane of the same window. It is easy to copy/paste words/phrase into your project.

Another feature is Filter on selection. You select the word, right-click on it and use the Filter option, and it shows all the occurrences in the current file.

MetaTexis: Click on the menu command: MetaTexis | Translation memory (TM) | Display TM where selection is in source text (default shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+T). The segments containing the source text will be displayed. You can also search for a target text word Display TM where selection is in source text (default shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T) which is something quite beyond Trados. However, Trados provides highlighting of search term and an interesting similarity algorithm which MetaTexis lacks.

Another option is the search function (Alt+Shift+I).

Unlike the internal Microsoft Word search function, the MetaTexis search function does not go to the next place where the text searched for was found, but presents you with a list of all translation units where the text was found.
To search for a text in a document/project:
Click on the menu command: MetaTexis | Navigation | Search for text (Alt+Shift+I). A dialog box will be displayed, in which you have to click OK to see source text matches. You can click advanced to search the translation. The search word is highlighted in the bottom part of the search window which is split into two boxes with full view of source and target segment. The upper part, with single line view, does not provide highlighting. A drawback is the fact that a dialog box comes up instead of seeing the matches instantly.

TMs are separated in two classes:

• Main TM
• Secondary TMs

The difference is only in the way the databases are used by the program during the translation process. Secondary databases can only be searched while you translate, whereas main databases are the ones you "work with". It is notable that MetaTexis can search up to 256 different TMs (although I would not recommend it)!

Version "MetaTexis NET/Office" offers great flexibility regarding the database used as TMs. You can not only use local MetaTexis databases, but also the TRADOS Workbench.

Article originally published in translatum, CAT tools section of the forum. Check an updated version (if there is one).