Re: [Freecats-Dev] Re: TM migration / Wordfast integration

[Yves Champollion]

> From: "Henri Chorand" <address@hidden>
> Yves, I also have a few questions for you:

>Concerning a possible integration of Free CATS server within Wordfast, you
did not provide an "official" statement in the dev list.

my answer is yes - yes to having Wordfast compatible with the sort of server
you envision. It's a plus for WF, for your server, for all users.

>Do you have any opinion about my proposal (following Thierry's advice) to
base our bilingual working document format along the lines of TMX?

I think it's the correct thing to do. In any case, you would have to use
Unicode for sure, then you would have to encapsulate information (creation
date, creator, language codes, properties) using markers and in the end, if
you don't go the TMX way, you would re-invent it somehow anyway.

>Do you also happen to know something about various TMX "flavours" (eg.
RTF)?
> Are they related to the way styles are encoded? Do you consider a given
one
as a better choice?

from this point onwards, it's a tough discussion. First, decide if you
consider formatting information part of the translation, in which case you
must use inline codes (like the <b> and </b> markers in html, for bold). If
you use inline codes, you must opt for TMX level 2 and be ready for swollen
file sizes: a TMX with inline codes can be monstruous in size (much like a
Trados RTF export).

With Wordfast, I went for a very much lighter standard - a Wordfast TM is
typically 4 times smaller than a corresponding TMX level 1, or than a Trados
one. All necessary information is kept in an intrinsically explicit way,
without the need for mark-up (I use a columned structure where every column
carries a specific info, rather than using mark-up). One good point is you
open this with Excel or Word or Access or NotePad or OpenOffice and
immediately see the info (who created the TU, when, what languages etc).
Translators without computer knowledge can manipulate these TUs with
copy-paste etc.

I don't see drawbacks in this. Someone may point out that the WF format is
not extensible like TMX, although I did extend it between Wordfast version 2
and 3 by adding TU attributes, keeping both upward and downward
compatibility (it just meant adding more columns. WF1 and 2 ignore the extra
columns, WF3 uses them. No need for conversions).

Wordfast does NOT use inline codes (does not "remember" formats, like font
attributes). Been a lot of talk in our discussion group. Vast majority
agrees the loss is very minimal. (WF makes every effort to duplicate the
source segment's layout to the proposed match)

Have you decided on this issue? It's a capital one, once the choice is made,
it would be very difficult to change it.

Yves