CAT is a term for computer assisted translation. It is software that constantly (when active) stores pairs of translated and original texts in its Translation Memory (TM). When a translator translates a document, the software suggests all previously translated texts from your TM.

CAT is a term that is not used for machine translation, which is something else. CAT software often works hand in hand with editors like MS Word or Openoffice.org; compares the text stored in TM with that of the document and gives suggestions to the translator.

There are many commercial CAT tools on the market today like Trados, Minimalist Wordfast or Metatexis. Wordfast, for example, is not standalone software and requires MS Word (it works as a macro in it).

Anaphraseus: CAT with OpenOffice.org

Anaphraseus as an extension for OpenOffice.org is installed directly from the OOo menu: Tools | Extension Manager, where you simply click the Get more extensions here… text. On the OOo extensions website, which appears in your default browser after clicking on the text above, you will find Anaphraseus.

You will get a file with an OXT extension (some earlier versions used a Zip format). After downloading it, click the Add button in the OOo Extension Manager window and browse for the OXT file on your PC. When you’re done, read the license and scroll down to accept it. After clicking the OK button, Anaphraseus will be permanently moved to your OOo Extensions Manager.

Anaphraseus does not depend on the platform but on OOo. It runs on OpenOffice, regardless of whether you’re running Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2, or even OpenBSD. This nice CAT extension is compatible with OpenOffice.org 2.1 and higher; StarOffice 8, Update 5 or higher, and it will give you the following possibilities:

* Term Recognition

* fuzzy search

* Unicode UTF-16 TMX Export/Import

* Plain text and Unicode UTF-16TM

* User glossary

After installation, you must restart OpenOffice.org for the changes to take effect. You will then see a new panel with the Anaphraseus icons that appear in the OOo environment.

To make your first translation, create (or import) your 1) Translation memory; 2) open a document with the desired source language; and 3) start translating it by clicking the Alt+Down button on the Anaphraseus icon panel.

Translation memory

The first step is to create (or possibly import) your TM. To do this, click the Anaphraseus Settings icon, select New, and then enter the relevant TMX codes, which you’ll need for cases where you decide to export your TM later (see the Little Glossary at the bottom). You will need a separate TM for each language pair; For example, if you translate from German to Polish, this combination, that is, this TM is not good for Polish to German translation.

The software allows you to work with many translation memories. You can use them for any translation job; for example, bible-italian2eng.txt (Italian to English) or bible-eng2italian.txt (English to Italian) will be your TMs for Bible translation projects (both Wordfast and Anaphraseus use the TXT format in their TMs).

A little CAT glossary

TMX

In computer-assisted translation, use the Translation Memory Exchange (TMX) format (XML) because translators often need to migrate (export/import) their TMs to a variety of CAT tools they use. It is a translator’s right to choose any CAT software and in case a group of translators work on a project, they can share their TMs. Many CAT tools use their own (proprietary) translation memory formats and TMX helps translators and translation agencies easily share their TMs. For example, you export your TM from the format of a proprietary CAT application (like Trados, etc.) to the TMX format and then import this TMX format into Anaphraseus (or any other CAT tool).

TMX is a type of database with various codes identifying languages ​​(CS-01 for Czech language, EN-US for American English, etc.).

unicode

If Anaphraseus asks if you want to use Unicode, you should know that the CAT software may have trouble displaying words with diacritics like those used in Eastern European languages. By “show” I mean that once the source and target sentences arrive in the TM, Anaphraseus will compare the source sentence in the document to the one in your TM and show you the target sentence if it meets certain criteria. With Unicode font it will correctly display all fonts. If you don’t work with Western-type languages, it’s always a good idea to use Unicode.

Wipe

The term “clean the document” in CAT terminology means that it removes the original (source) text of the document, which remains there for editing purposes. Both source and destination segments are delimited with colored markers like {0> and you can’t remove them from the document (of course you can, but only by “cleaning the document”). CAT tool authors know that translators need to compare the source text with the translated text even after the translation has finished. Besides the fact that Anaphraseus (and many other CAT tools) save sentence pairs in your TM, you will also have these pairs embedded in the document until you clean it up.

If the document hasn’t been cleaned up yet, you can always click the Down Arrow button on the Anaphraseus toolbar, compare the source (original) text with the translated one, and continue editing. When you’re done, choose CLEAN. The software will ask if you want to update your translation memory. All colored markers and source sentences will be removed from the document and you will only see your final work (the text you translated).

Conclution

Anaphraseus does not have all the features of commercial applications (such as Pandora’s box, etc.), but not all translators need comprehensive solutions every hour and every day. OpenOffice.org has thus become not only a complex and very useful tool for translators, but also a small star on its path to freedom.