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    Friday, October 2, 2009

    Fighting with SDL Passolo and SDL Trados Studio 2009

    Blogging out of frustation is normally an experience that should be avoided and I normally prefer to concentrate on positive feedback, but... Please prove me wrong and I'll acknowledge my error and ignorance! (Feel free to contact me).


    Foreword:
    Trados is still an essential tool for any agency performing tasks that go beyond simple Word translation. I have not seen yet any set of tools work for such an ample diversity of software applications: FrameMaker, Indesign, etc....




    Coincidence:

    9PM: I just arrived home and my mobile phone rings. It's an ex-colleage of mine who runs a small sized translation business.

    - Are you using SDL 2009 in any of your clients offices, ¿should I upgrade?


    My first impression was that I had a camera on my shoulder: how else could it happen that after 10 hours trying to figure out what wasn't working properly with a recently upgraded license of SDL2009 so translators could work on a project, I receive such a call.


    I told him my "yesterday 9PM" truth. - Listen, I just had a very bad experience with it and I'm not going to be objective. Can I sleep on it tonight and try to be a little less subjective with my response tomorrow?


    Background (11 hours earlier):
    We had to translate resource strings with Passolo. It has worked in the past, so wasn´t supposed to be a big deal...You are supposed to get your prepared bundles into Passolo, connect the TM and Multiterm to Passolo through the Addin, et voilá.. all should work like a charm.



    The problems:

    1st issue: The Passolo edition coming with SLD 2009 is an incomplete edition, same for the one that comes with SDL 2007. The funny thing is that even the Translators free edition has basic functions like (Edit/Find) enabled and the one installed with a close to €3000Euro SDL 2007 license doesn't (The message: "The Function "Find..." is only supported by the SDL Passolo Professional or Team Edition.", not true, since it works on their own FREE Translator's editions.)











    OK, we must be doing something wrong. I've seen this work. It was not yesterday, but I was sure Passolo worked and I had a good experience with it.



    2nd issue: Let's link the TM and the Multiterm to Passolo. Surprise! It seems to work, but when we try to translate the strings, try to Find Concordance, the TM connection changes its state and is "deactivated".



    3rd issue: Can we check if Multiterm can be linked? I simply didn't manage to make it work. I could simply mean I was ignorant on how to do it, but Passolo seemed not to let us get the Multiterm link option work.
    (Just in case: yes, I did link the Multiterm through Trados Workbench first)


    Oh!! But it works with Passolo 2007!
















    Solution:
    Why don´t we forget about all these new versions and just take the ones that seem to work fully: Passolo Freelance Edition and we take an old Trados 7.1 which is the version the translators will have anyway (it's not going to be easy to make translators upgrade!).

    And it works....By taking the older Addin for older Trados versions, all works like a charm:- TM is linked- Multiterm is linked- Passolo works

    My thoughts:

    What is going on? Am I simply not capable of making the new versions work? Maybe these are too complicated for me and I should finally get one of these expensive SDL courses? My filling so far with the combination of Passolo Essential and SDL 2009 is that the software provider is trying to make us pay much more than we should for a product that comes with "essential versions".



    BUT: I liked the new interface! I liked the fact that I would not need to use the tedious S-tagger anymore! I liked the integration of many features that were sold to us with the new upgrade! But again, when we need to do something that goes a little further than the simple doc translation...something goes wrong.



    Please, prove me wrong. Please tell me I don´t know what I'm talking about. Because if I'm right, I find it very unfair that people downloading Free editions and getting working Trados versions through simple google searches with no need to touch their wallet are managing to make this work and those who pay a high fee are rewarded with a 10hour nightmare "training course".



    I'm afraid I won't have a final answer for my friend yet. For the moment I can say that the purchase of SDL Trados Studio 2009 Professional (2995€) + SDL Passolo 2009 (1840€) is quite an investment.


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