Re-Posting from the Xbench Forum

I'm re-posting this directly as it appeared on the Xbench forum, as it may be of interest for all those who use Studio and the Xbench Studio plug-in:

With SDL Trados Studio 2017 Cumulative Update 9 (CU9) the Xbench Edit Segment (Ctrl+E) feature may stop working (it does not open the Studio document).
To be able to use the Edit Segment functionality after you updated your Trados Studio 2017 to CU9, just download and install the latest Xbench plugin for Studio (build 13)

Belt and Suspenders

Some of us may have a tendency to panic, when faced with some unexpected computer error (and such incidents generally occur when little help is available, or very close to deadlines, or both), but there are steps we can take to defend ourselves from the worst effects of such mishaps.

On Sunday, my partner's computer froze: suddenly neither keyboard nor mouse responded. We tried disconnecting and reconnecting keyboard and mouse, but without result. The last thing left to try was a hard reboot. We did that, and, after restarting in safe mode and then again in normal mode, the computer seemed to be working right: all programs responded as expected.

Until, that is, my partner tried to launch Studio 2017 to continue a project she was working on. At that point the Studio splash screen briefly appeared, only to be followed by an ominous error message: "Not found".

We clicked on the Knowledge Base Community link, but to little avail: no useful help there for this particular error message, so we opened a ticket with SDL's support. Of course, since it was Sunday, the earliest we could expect to hear from support was the following day... and my partner's deadline was rapidly approaching, so we needed to find another way to continue work on her project.

We had two options: either copy the project's files and memories to her backup computer (a laptop), where we still had a copy of an earlier version of Studio, or work on the project with a different translation tool.

We chose the latter option. Getting the sdxliff file to continue work was a simple question of copying it from the SDL 2017 "Projects" folder to a different working folder, but since we couldn't launch Studio, we had to use a different tool to export the most up to date copy of the translation memory: we used Xbench to load the TM and then export it in TMX format. It was then a simple matter of creating a new project in memoQ, add to it the partially translated sdxliff file, create a new memory, and import into it the TMX file we had created in Xbench.

My partner was then able to continue her translation.

The next day, Monday, we received instructions from SDL support. We were told first to try re-installing the program; when that didn't solve the problem, we tried renaming the "projects" XML file, and then various other SDL files and folders. Nothing seemed to work, and the SDL support technician was stumped. She said she'd need to escalate the issue to a more experienced engineer, but since the second-level engineers work out of the UK office, that would have to wait until the following day.

On Tuesday, we were again on a support call, this time with the second-level engineers. They suggested various other remedies, finally succeeding in restoring Studio 2017 to life -- the culprit turned out to be an obscure Windows file (BTW: kudos to SDL's tech support -- it's well worth the money we pay for it, and they are generally patient, thorough, and professional).

In the meantime, my partner had been able to complete the translation of the project in memoQ, and she then proceeded to finalize it in the newly-repaired Studio. So, a happy ending to our short tale of technical issues.

But it got me thinking that such happy endings don't just happen: they require preparation and planning:

• If we had relied on a single computer, and a single CAT tool, my partner would have been unable to continue working until SDL support had solved the problem;
• If we had not installed Xbench, we would have been unable to export the data from Studio's memory;
• If we had not paid for SDL support, our only recourse would probably have been to take the computer to a repair shop, or perhaps ask for advice in the various online forums available, and hope for the best;
• In this case, there was no damage to the files or to the computer's hard drive, but if such damage had occurred, we would have been prepared also: we regularly back up our files both to external hard drives linked to our home network, and to online storage.

Technical problems happen, but if you plan for them, you can minimize the damage they cause.

Quick Tip: How to put the search boxes side by side in Xbench

Recently I had to explain to a colleague how to move the search boxes in Xbench so that they appear side by side instead of one over the other, as they do by default.

I had arranged mine side by side quite some time ago, but couldn't remember how it is done, nor could I find it easily in Xbench documentation. Finally, I had to ask ApSIC for help.

How to do it, is very simple: just grab the division between the options pane and the Search pane, and move it upward.

New version of my Xbench presentation now available for viewing and download

I've just uploaded the new version of my Xbench presentation, now updated with all the changes I made to it for the workshop I gave at the 5th CTA Conference, earlier this month. You can view a copy of the presentation as an online presentation by going to the Xbench page of this blog, or you can download a zipped copy of the presentation, from the same page.

Xbench currently offered at a 60% discount

Xbench, an excellent translation QA and terminology management tool, is currently on offer at a 60% discount (only Euro 39/year, instead of the regular 99/year). The special price offer will last until June 5.

You can find a through presentation of what Xbench is and how it can help you with terminology management and translation QA in the presentation you can see in another page of this same blog.

Some additional answers about Xbench

At the ATA Conference in Chicago I gave a presentation on how to use Xbench for terminology management and translation QA (you can see and download the presentation from the Xbench tab in this blog).

I believe that the presentation was well received, and that most people found the program very useful, but I was stumped by a few questions. I've now inquired with the Xbench developers at ApSIC, and they have provided the missing information:

Q. Is Xbench compatible with languages that use non-Roman alphabets (e.g., languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet)?
A. Yes, Xbench 3.0 uses Unicode, and is therefore compatible with other alphabets.

Q. Is Xbench compatible with double-byte languages?
A. Xbench's compatibility with double-byte languages is quite good (Japan is ApSIC's largest customer base after Spain, and Korea is quite big as well, China is the country with most active users and downloads), but there are some caveats. Xbench does not have heuristics in place to identify words within a DBCS strings, so some features that rely on whole words identification do not work well (for example if Chinese is the source language in a key terms check).

Q. Is Xbench compatible with bi-directional languages?
A. With Xbench 3.0 build 1266 (the current build as of now), compatibility is still poor, but ApSIC is actively working to improve bi-directional compatibility.

Q. What are the size limits for files loaded in Xbench?
A. For the 32-bit version, there is a limit of 2GB per file (and a maximum for all files loaded of 2 or 4 GB). For the 64-bit version the limit is the available memory and available swap disk. ApSIC recommends installing the 64-bit version if you have a 64-bit Windows. The 64-bit version used to have a limitation of 2GB per file (however, with an unlimited number of files), but now that limitation has been lifted, and files in excess of 2GB should work.

Please note that all these answers refer to version 3.0 of Xbench (the commercial version of the program).

Xbench world cup promotion

I’ve just heard that ApSIC has a very interesting promotion for Xbench: until the kick off of the quarterfinals, you can get the chance of winning an eight-year subscription to Xbench for the price of a single year:

The World Cup games have shown to be a lot more equal than anticipated. Most games have required extra time and tiny details (and often a ton of luck) have decided who passes to next round.
But if you already saw clearly who is going to win, here is a great deal for you: Buy one subscription year, make your guess of the World Cup winner, and if you are right, you get eight subscription years instead of one.
This deal is valid for both new customers and also existing customers who wish to renew their subscription ahead of time to benefit from this deal.
To place your order, simply go to http://www.xbench.net/index.php/store/order-xbench
After your order is processed, you will receive an email to ask you for your World Cup winner.
And hurry up, this promotion ends on Friday July 4, at 6pm CET, with the France-Germany kick-off!

Xbench is a great tool even without any promotion – and with this you could get a great deal on its price.
Personally, I think they could have made things even more interesting by taking into account realistic odds of winning.
For example, they could have said that if you choose Brazil to win, you get three years free when you pay for one (provided Brazil wins), but that if you choose instead Costa Rica (and it wins the World Cup, against all odds), you would get Xbench free forever after you pay for one year… Since I’m not in charge of the promotion, however, it’s eight year no matter which team you prefer (so long as that team wins the World Cup).
To help you select your team for the competition, this is the first of the two goals Uruguay scored to beat Brazil in the 1950 decisive match.

So, remember: even the overwhelming favorite is not always the winner.

Xbench plug-in for SDL Trados Studio 2014

After a successful beta test, ApSIC announced today the official release of the ApSIC Xbench Plugin for SDL Trados Studio 2014.

This plugin integrates the two programs, and allows translators to: 

•  QA Studio projects with Xbench just with one click from the Studio ribbon.
•  Instantly edit any issues found by Xbench right in Studio, with all Studio project settings in place.

It also makes it even easier the use of Xbench's powerful search to look into the translation memories (and other resources) you have loaded in your project.  A very useful feature, considering the deficiencies of SDL's own concordance search.

The plugin for Studio is a free add-on and requires ApSIC Xbench 3.0 build 1186 or later and SDL Trados Studio 2014 SP1 or later.

You can watch a 5-minute video featuring this cool integration at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daWkATVCkvg

To download the latest buids of ApSIC Xbench 3.0 and the plugin, visit http://www.xbench.net/index.php/download

Remember: the plug-in is only available for Xbench 3.0 - another excellent reason for upgrading to the new version of the program.

I submitted my presentation proposal for ATA55

I have just submitted my presentation proposal for the 55th ATA Conference. If the ATA accepts my proposal, I'll give an advanced-level presentation on Xbench for Translation Management and Translation QA.

...and since Corinne McKay had the idea for a badge, and French/Hungarian>English translator Carolyn Yohn created one and made it available, I'll also proudly display it

Xbench 3.0: 50% discount until January 10th

Currently Xbench 3.0 is offered at a 50% discount (until January 10th). You can order it from Xbench.net.
This is an especially enticing offer for all users of SDL Studio 2014: Xbench is soon going to launch a Studio Add-in that permits, among other things, to launch a QA session of a Studio project from within Studio.
The Add-in also lets the users directly access the segments to correct (i.e., when selecting “Edit Source”, Xbench will open the translation in Studio and jump directly to the segment that needs editing).
The Add-in is currently available as a public beta from the download page of the Xbench website.

Special offer for Xbench

Until November 29, ApSIC is offering Xbench, its super-useful terminology and QA tool, at a 50% discount.

While the 2.9 version of Xbench is still free, I highly recommend upgrading to the professional version (3.0): it supports more file types and offers useful additional QA tests.

Above all, by paying for the pro version you help ApSIC actively support and further develop one of the very best utilities for translators.

You can purchase Xbench at www.xbench.net. For more information on how Xbench can be useful for translators, see my presentation (now slightly out of date).

A quick Xbench trick

When using Xbench as a terminology reference tool, in many translation applications you can select the test you want to look up by highlighting it, then using the Ctrl+Alt+Ins hotkey to invoke Xbench and send that text to Xbench's source search box (or Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to send that text to the target search box).

In certain applications, however  (for example in SDLX), these hotkeys do not work: if you highlight some text and press Ctrl+Alt+Ins Xbench appears, but in the search box you get the last content of your clipboard, instead of the text you had highlighted.

The workaround is to highlight the text to search, use Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard, and only then use the Ctrl+Alt+Ins (or Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) hotkeys.

Remember that most hotkeys can be changed in Xbench: if you do not want to use Ctrl+Alt+Ins and Ctrl+Alt+Backspace - for example because they are already used by another application - you can change them in the Settings window (Tools -> Settings -> Layout & Hotkeys).

For more information about Xbench and how it can help your translations, a good place to start is my presentation, which you can download from the Xbench tab above.

Xbench adds support for SDL Trados Studio memories

If you have not updated to version 3 of Xbench, now there is yet another reason to do so: the most recent build of the tool (build 1136) adds support for SDL Trados Studio memories (.sdltm files), so, if you were accustomed to convert them to TMX format just to be able to search for terms in them using Xbench, you no longer need to do so. You can download Xbench from Xbench.net. If you download version 3, make sure to choose the correct version for your operating system: there are both a 32-bit and a 64-bit editions of the tool.

Xbench freeware version (2.9) is still available, and still useful, but ApSIC is clearly adding value to the new commercial version of their terminology management and translation QA tool.

If you need an introduction to Xbench, you can download one from this blog (click here): the intorduction is now a bit out of date, as I had written it for the previous version of the tool, but still touches most important functions.

Xbench 3.0 – Making good on my promise

Well before ApSIC announced the pro version of Xbench – when the program was still just freeware – I said (and wrote) several times that I would be ready to pay for the program whenever ApSIC decided to turn it into a commercial product.

I've just made good on my promise by pre-paying for two subscriptions to Xbench.

If you are interested in Xbench, and want to obtain it at a steep discount, tomorrow is the last day you can get it at the special € 19 early pre-release rate.

After January 10, you'll still be able pre-pay the subscription at a (decreasing) discount:

• €19/year until January 10
• €39/year until January 17
• €59/year until January 24
• €79/year until BETA officially ends
• €99/year after the official release of the program.

So, if you find Xbench useful (I find it indispensable) it's a good idea to prepay for it while it is offered at a reduced price. To download Xbench, and to pre-pay the subscriptions, go to www.Xbench.net.

Xbench 3.0 – Now in public beta with some major new features

ApSIC have announced today the public beta of Xbench, their terminology management and translation QA program.

I’ll write a review of the new version of Xbench after working with it for a while, but there are some major improvements that should please many translators:

• Full unicode support
• Separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions
• Support of MemoQ 6 XLIFF files
• Support of Wordfast 3.1 Pro
• Integration of the spell checkers in the program itself (you no longer need to download and install the dictionaries separately). 

The QA functions are also improved, with two new tests that will certainly interest those of us who often translate software: checks for CamelCase and for ALL UPPERCASE string mismatches.

Unlike most other beta programs, Xbench 3.0 comes with good documentation: an excellent help system and a new 70-page manual.

You can read about all the new and improved features in ApSIC's blog, but if you want an introduction to Xbench, see my old presentation: it is no longer up to date, now that 3.0 is out, but should give you a good idea about what this program can do to help your translations.

A big change is that version 3.0, when it is finally released, will be available through a paid subscription; those who pre-order before the end of the beta period will enjoy a discount  (up to 80% if you subscribe by December 27, less so if you wait). Version 2.9, however, will remain free and will still be available for download. I believe that charging for the program will be good for the translation community: the program's priorities will no longer depend on ApSIC's internal use only, so they should match even more closely the needs of other translators.

To download the public beta you can go to xbench.net (if you are in a hurry, the link for the download is here). If you want to pre-order a subscription to take advantage of the discounts (and I strongly recommend you do so), the link is here.

Update

There was some confusion about the pricing scheme for Xbench licenses - ApSIC have now clarified things in a new post on their own blog.

An update on the Microsoft Glossaries

I've written previously about the Microsoft Glossaries, and how the freely downloadable set of glossaries was  superseded by the Microsoft Language Portal.

The glossaries are still available for download (as "UI translations"), but only to paying MSDN or Microsoft TechNet subscribers.

Some Microsoft technology, however, is available for download from the Microsoft Language Portal: you can download, in TBX format, the Microsoft Terminology Collection in various languages. The number of terms included for each language differs due to the varying levels of localization (for Italian there are 18,520 terms) - it is however, a useful set of terms for anybody working on the translation of software files (at least, for Windows).

You can use the tbx files directly with such a tool as Xbench, or you can import them in most terminology tools.

Another useful thing to download from the Microsoft Language Portal is the style guides for the languages you work with - the one style guide not available for download is the English Style Guide (sold by O'Reilly as the Microsoft Manual of Style).

New landing page for Xbench training

I’ve changed the tab for my Xbench presentation, to convert it into a landing page. In the process, the web address for the page has changed, so if you had linked to it to access my presentation, the link no longer works.
To access the presentation you can either go to the tab here on top (now renamed “Xbench Training”), or go directly to http://aboutranslation.blogspot.com/p/xbench-training.html.

Blogging 101 and Xbench presentations now updated

I’ve just updated the Blogging and Xbench presentations available for download: they are now up to date as presented at the 52nd ATA Conference. You can download them from the tabs here above.

52nd ATA Conference: 3rd (and final) day

This was the third day of the conference, and I was a bit nervous, as I had two different presentations to give, one in the morning, and the other in the afternoon.
The first presentation I attended was How to Read a Prospectus, presented by Francesca Marchei and Barbara Arrighetti: another excellent presentation from the Italian Language Division – technical, but very useful for English into Italian and Italian into English financial translators. The two presenters focused mainly on certain terminological niceties about different types of investment funds, and on changes to Italian law aimed at providing investors with information in an easier to understand format… that, however, may throw unexpected hurdles in the translator’s path.
The second presentation I attended in the morning was Out, Damned Theory, by Mark Freehill. I’ll have more to say about this frustrating presentation later. Its aim, seemingly, was to show how no theory is necessary in teaching or learning translation, or in translating. This, of course, is itself a theory of translation of sorts. (And it did include the “ten commandments of translation”: Freehill condemns theory, but has no problem with prescribing what should or should not be done.) But, as I said, I’ll criticize this presentation later.
After Freehill’s presentation, it was time for Corinne’s and my presentation on blogging for translators. I believe the presentation went well; we had a good audience, and I think they found our material interesting. As soon as I’m back in Denver, I’ll post here the most up-to-date version of our presentation (meanwhile, you can still download the old one). I’ll also add an open post to answer any question from people who did not have time to ask them at the end of the presentation.
After the lunch break, it was time for my second presentation of the day: a detailed introduction to Xbench. Again, there was a good audience, and the presentation went well. It was only marred by a flaky microphone: the people in the room probably heard me well enough, but I’m afraid the session’s recording was not of good quality.
The last session of the day was Corinne McKay’s, Judy Jenner’s and Chris Durban’s Smart Business Panel – good advice for all translators, but especially for those who feel insecure marketing their services.
A good presentation, all in all. Nina and I will remain in Boston for a couple of days more, to sightsee and visit at least some of this city’s many attractions.

New version of Xbench released

ApSIC has released today a new version (2.9) of Xbench.
As usual with Xbench, the slight increase in the version number does not mean slight improvements to the tool: the new version now directly supports SDL Studio 2009 bilingual files, PO (gettext) files, the use of multiple personal checklists during QA, and several other very useful improvement to a great free tool.
The new features are well documented in the updated help file; you can read a fuller list of the improved or new features in ApSIC’s blog.
Only downside… I’ll now have to update my Xbench presentation .