Do I really need Trados? It’s so expensive!
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Tools of the trade on
November 1, 2008 |
3 responses
This is my standard response to anyone who asks me about Computer-Assisted Translation tools:
No, you do not need a CAT tool. Yes, it will make everything faster. Way faster. No, it does not translate for you. Yes, I believe Trados (SDL Trados) is the best out there. No, you don’t need to spend so much money right now.
Why don’t you try one of the free CAT tools out there, just to get an impression? Here is a list of CAT tools, the free ones are on the very top. Try OmegaT, if even works with OpenOffice, which is also free!
Many of the proprietary solutions offer trial/demo versions, I recommend trying Wordfast, with a price of 250 Euro it is affordable and works in tagged documents.
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OK, I have tried Wordfast and I love it! I have Trados only at the office.
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about CATs. What makes Trados better than the others on the market? Thanks for your answer.
Hi Tanja and thank you for your question.
One of the biggest advantages of Trados is that it supports many formats. Even with an older version (I use Trados 2006), I can work without problems on Excel files or other tagged formats, such as html or xml.
The other advantage: Many of my clients and colleagues use Trados as well, so the sharing of translation memories is easy.
But (and this is a big but): Many other CAT tools out there will also work with the formats I mentioned and produce translation memories that can be shared with Trados users. At the end of the day, I prefer Trados because I am so used to it.