Contributed (non-commercial) tools
Alair II contributed by Yoshio Hirose
Alair II is a Macintosh-based translation memory software tool, developed on the Mactinosh platform. Alair II offers most of the key features that freelance translators expect from Translation Memory software including fuzzy match, an alignment tool, user defined text parser, and memory import/export.
Alair II is shareware, making it one of the most affordable Translation Memory tools on the market. There is no "professional" nor "client" version. Neither is there a "dongle" nor "online key." All features (including import/export) are available to everyone who owns a copy.
CatsCradle contributed by Julian
CatsCradle is a web page editor designed specifically for language translators. On opening a web page, all text for translation is extracted to a table for you to translate alongside. When done, your translated text is automatically integrated back into the page. Features include:
- Instant preview of work in progress at the click of a button, any time
- No complex file processing, so web sites remain fully navigable throughout the translation process.
- Built-in glossary system can automatically suggest words and phrases as you type.
- File catalogue facility gives project word counts, and indicates the translation status of each page.
- Supports various character sets including Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese.
Crunch v0.43 contributed by Hans Sussenburger
Crunch (Completely Redundant Unnecessary Crappy Html), generates automatic html forms
from a MySQL (tm) database. Features:
1) script only (PHP, VBScript, JScript)
2) multi-language UI
3) language-independent drop-down lists
4) automatic support for uploaded attachments
5) includes a fully functional Bug database (in the jazzdb folder of the
zip) and a small demo terms lookup form.
File Watch and Tree Compare v1.1.4 contributed by Hans Sussenburger
File Watch periodically (every five minutes) checks specified directories and if they have changed (have been added, modified, deleted), it will bring up a small notifier window to telling you which files have changed. Tree Compare compares all files of an "old tree" with the files of a "new tree" and reports differences.
The Frankenstein Tool Suite (alpha release 0.8) contributed by Hans Sussenburger
Frankenstein is a simple, extensible, free translation memory tool, running against a SQL database. The Frankenstein Tool Suite consists of BigBadGlossary and the DataManager. BigBadGlossary is a glossary lookup tool for use with any editor, word processor, DTP package or any other program that allows copy and paste. DataManager is the tool you use to create glossaries for BigBadGlossary. Why Frankenstein? Because it is ugly, and because it is a monster. A freely downloadable SQL database (HSQL) is the standard package used by Frankenstein.
Glossy contributed by Foreignword
Glossy is a new translation memory and terminology management tool made for translators by translators. With Glossy you can create and mantain your own glossaries directly as you translate and have all terms found marked directly in your text. You can also exchange terms with colleagues or import external glossaries in just a couple of minutes. Glossy is also the perfect tool to translate Web pages (HTML, ASP, PHP, etc.) Glossy automatically identifies all translatable text including relevant meta-tags, image ALT attributes, relevant VALUE attributes, and others. Glossy also supports all languages installed on your PC (even double-byte languages such as Chinese, Japanese, etc.)
The Independence Day Tools contributed by Hans Sussenburger
The Independence Day Tools consist of jack and ExToRtf, and can be used to manipulate Trados (tm) 2.x translation memories. The tools
are building blocks that are run in sequence for extracting text from Trados translation memories, and converting it to Rich Text
while preserving the Trados markup (styles). Trados is not required, hence the name "Independence Day Tools".
Knowledge Server 1.0 contributed by Hans Sussenburger
Knowledge Server allows you to search text files and ODBC databases over the Internet. You can output complete documents or only matched records to the results window.
MSG Browser contributed by Les Miskow
MSG Browser is a public domain software, which helps
translators search Microsoft glossaries. Version 1.6 of
is now available. The alpha testing has been
completed. A couple of minor bugs have been detected
and fixed. The group of alpha testers, consisting of
translators using MSGB on everyday bases, suggested to
move version 1.6 Alpha to full 1.6.
PathCopy, XCopy, Command Prompt (for Win 95/98/NT4.0/2000) contributed by Hans Sussenburger
This is a handy set of copy utilities useful when copying large numbers of files.
Personal Glossary for MS Word contributed by Jacopo Della Croce di Dojola
Personal Glossary for MS Word is an MS Word add-in that allows you to create glossaries for as many language pairs as you like, and for any number of specific disciplines (technical, medical - scientific, business - legal, etc.). The application is basically a database with a user interface that is quite similar to Word's "Thesaurus".
Restorator contributed by Niels Thorwirth
Restorator is a versatile skin for any Windows program.
Use Restorator to change any Windows application.
Restorator grants full access to language-dependent
interface parts of a compiled application.
That means development can be independent of customization
and localisation. It's ShareWare.
Screenshot.dll contributed by Hans Sussenburger
Screenshot.dll can be hooked up with any Windows (tm) program and adds
instant screen capture to your application.
TextCount contributed by Erhard Strobel
TextCount is a counting program for translators and authors who charge according to the size of the texts they produce. TextCount not only handles the file formats for the most common DOS programs, but it also processes files produced by the best-known Windows word-processing programs. Supported file formats include ASCII/ANSI, Word for DOS, Word for Windows (up to Office 2000), Word Perfect for DOS (version 5.0 to 6.1), WordPerfect for Windows (version 5 to 7), Ami Pro (up to version 3.1), Write for Windows (up to version 3.11), Rich Text Format RTF (up to Version 1.5), and Hypertext Markup Language HTML
T4T-CMP contributed by Erich Brandenberger (ITLA)
T4T-CMP is a Word macro that does a much better job than Word's
built-in Compare Documents feature. It lets translators open two
similar source-language documents and finds matches. The matches are
displayed in color and can be optionally numbered. A
free version (selectable concatenation length) and a
commercial version (automatic variable concatentation length) are available.
T4T-DFO contributed by Erich Brandenberger (ITLA)
T4T-DFO is a Word macro that adds a window to the Word toolbar that
displays the format of the topmost document. Useful for people
who send documents from "US-Letter regions" to "A4 regions" or vice
versa. Free download.
T4T-DTN contributed by Erich Brandenberger (ITLA)
T4T-DTN converts dates, times, and numbers from any
Roman-alphabet language to any other. My Web site shows examples and an
animated GIF demo. Commercial. Free demo with limited functionality.
T4T-GLO contributed by Erich Brandenberger (ITLA)
T4T-GLO is a Word macro that swiftly and conveniently creates
tab-separated glossaries from a source-language and a target-language
text displayed side by side. The only controls needed are the
mouse to select (highlight) entries and the ESC key to transfer the
entries to an existing or a new glossary. Commercial. Free demo
with limited functionality.
T4T-MEN contributed by Erich Brandenberger (ITLA)
T4T-MEN is a Word macro that creates a new menu called "Glossary" in
the Word menu bar. It behaves like the Work menu except it
dispenses with the annoying path names and numbering. Instead, it
lists frequently used documents, such as glossaries, in alphabetical
order. Free, but available only on request by e-mail.
T4T-RPR contributed by Erich Brandenberger (ITLA)
T4T-RPR is a one-click macro that customizes the Summary tab of the Properties window in Word documents. It leaves your mark on your work.
T4T-S&R contributed by Erich Brandenberger (ITLA)
T4T-S&R is a glossary-driven multiple search & replace tool for translators unlike any other. It pretranslates your documents. Click here to see it in action.
Upload contributed by Hans Sussenburger
Upload is a free tool for uploading files from a client to a web server.
It's unique in that it uses CAB technology to deliver a program to your harddrive for
pre-processing of the upload file. In this example, it only zips the
selected file but you can basically make it do anything a program
can do :-) The benefit of Upload is that it can simplify your work processes greatly. A modified version could, for example, associate the upload to a project and check the file into a source control system without any user intervention. It requires Perl (available separately).
WordFisher contributed by Tibor Környei
Are you working most of the time on MS Word files of varied subjects?
Do you consider the big commercial translation memory programs like Trados to be oversized or overpriced for you?
Would you like to build and use your own translation memory without buying such a program?
WordFisher can help you do this and a lot more...
Read my article about WordFisher in Translation Journal.
WordFast and WordAlign contributed by Champollion
Wordfast is a Translation Memory engine available both for Mac (Ms-Office 98, 2001 & later) and Windows (Ms-Office 97, 2000 & later) systems. Besides classical translation memory services, Wordfast includes a real-time glossary & typography checker, ensuring quality & accuracy for both small and large/distributed projects.
WordAlign is a tool for producing Wordfast translation memories from existing translated documents. Through Wordfast's TMX export facility, translation memories produced by WordAlign can be used by most translation memory packages. WordAlign works from within Ms-Word, so that documents are aligned in their original formats.
