If you have been working in the technical documentation field you may have probably heard of or worked with a software called MadCap Flare.MadCap Flare is a software that is used for creating documentation that you can easily organize and output through various formats such as Web Help, PDFs, Word documents, etc. MadCap Lingo is MadCap's translation help tool and it incorporates a technology known as translation memory which allows you to translate words from one language to another and starts to "memorize" which words mean what. These "memorized" terms are then stored within the translation memory database. Most translation help software works this way and use similar programming to keep track of the words that have been translated which saves time for the translators in the future. Although the first few translations are tedious and time consuming, the more you use the software, hopefully the majority of words that are consistently used within your documents will be "memorized" and save you the time it takes to translate them manually.
Lingo is the first translation help software that I have experimented with. I actually have only used the free trial version, which was somewhat difficult to work with because the program would sometimes freeze and not allow me to save the work I had just been doing.So if you do download the free trial, remember to save often to reap the benefits of the hours that you spend translating a document and experimenting with the software. One feature within this software that I found to be useful were the translation memory suggestions, which tell you just how close a phrase you are translating is to a similar phrase that you have already translated. This will allow you to save time if many of the phrases you translate are similar and can easily be rearranged and corrected so that they are accurately translated. Overall, if the MadCap Lingo software does not have the glitches that the free trial version does it may be a useful tool for translators looking to save some time within the translation process. MadCap Lingo supports many languages and retails for $599.
Pros of MadCap Lingo(free trial):
- Translation Memory provides similar phrases that have been previously translated and tells you to what percentage how close the suggested phrase is to the phrase that is being translated
- Documents are broken up into small blocks of text, usually one sentence at a time so translation can be more clear and accessible
- Once you have translated a full document manually, you are able to translate the next document in half the time it took to translate the first one, thus it saves time (because the Translation Memory database increases as you translate more phrases)
Cons of MadCap Lingo (free trial):
- Freezes and loses work you have done if you are not saving often
- Would shut down for no reason sometimes
- Starts out with a blank "Technical Dictionary"
- You have to manually translate word for word the first document you enter into the system
