Cat Tools when source documents are pictures or physical papers. Thread poster: Damian Rosero
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Hello Everyone.
I'm just getting started with Cat tools, and I was wondering, if in what ways you guys use your Cat Tool, when you receive the source document in a picture or as a piece of paper. I know that ideally the source document has to be a digital document so you can upload it to your cat tool, but sometimes especially with people who are not familiar with technology, or digitalizing documents, they just hand you the source document or send you a picture and expect you to d... See more Hello Everyone.
I'm just getting started with Cat tools, and I was wondering, if in what ways you guys use your Cat Tool, when you receive the source document in a picture or as a piece of paper. I know that ideally the source document has to be a digital document so you can upload it to your cat tool, but sometimes especially with people who are not familiar with technology, or digitalizing documents, they just hand you the source document or send you a picture and expect you to deliver. In that scenerio, if you are a freelancer, you cannot tell clients to go away, and come back with a digital version of the document, so what do you guys do in this kind of cases, do you type down the whole document and then upload it to your cat tool? Is there a way you use the cat tool without a source document in order to store your translations? Any insight on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you everyone in advance. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marjolein Snippe 
Netherlands
Local time: 21:40
Member (2012)
English to Dutch
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| you need the source text | Mar 16, 2019 |
Hi Damian,
For a CAT tool to be of any use at all, you need a digital version of the source text. There is just no way around it. The whole idea is that you can look up previous translations of the same or similar text, to use it in your current translation. Therefore, it may be easier to work without a CAT tool if you only have a piece of paper.
Alternatively, it can be worthwhile to obtain a high quality scan and convert this to digital text using OCR (optical charact... See more Hi Damian,
For a CAT tool to be of any use at all, you need a digital version of the source text. There is just no way around it. The whole idea is that you can look up previous translations of the same or similar text, to use it in your current translation. Therefore, it may be easier to work without a CAT tool if you only have a piece of paper.
Alternatively, it can be worthwhile to obtain a high quality scan and convert this to digital text using OCR (optical character recognition). There are several websites and (free or paid) programs that can help you convert a "flat" image such as a scan into text; the quality will depend on the quality of your scan and on the quality of the program. I tend to use this if I can't obtain a digital copy of the source text and do want to store my translation in my CAT tool, for example because I expect to receive similar texts in the future.
Good luck! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Yoana Ivanova
Estonia
Local time: 22:40
English to Bulgarian
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| I'd rather forego the CAT tool | Mar 16, 2019 |
Since I mostly deal with documents and at least half the time those end up being scanned PDFs, I find that trying to turn this into something a CAT tool can deal with is a waste of my time.
Trados has an in-built OCR and I've tried that a few times, but end up having to do it manually in Word every single time.
I've tried online convertors and FineReader as well, but you will always end up having to fix whatever the OCR spits out.
I just do all the necess... See more Since I mostly deal with documents and at least half the time those end up being scanned PDFs, I find that trying to turn this into something a CAT tool can deal with is a waste of my time.
Trados has an in-built OCR and I've tried that a few times, but end up having to do it manually in Word every single time.
I've tried online convertors and FineReader as well, but you will always end up having to fix whatever the OCR spits out.
I just do all the necessary formatting in Word first (tables, columns, headers, whatever) and then start translating.
Later you can take the time to make a terminology glossary or deal with fixing the converted document, if you really need to have everything stored. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Damian Rosero
Ecuador
Local time: 14:40
Spanish to English
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TOPIC STARTER | very insightful answers | Mar 16, 2019 |
Thank you very much Yoana and Marjolein for your very insightful and useful answers.
Just one more questions, Yoana wrote about doing a terminology glossary, is that something you can do in the CAT tool directly without actually going through doing a translation or are you referring to something else?
Thanks again.
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DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
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| The best tool: "Charge more!"™ | Mar 16, 2019 |
While it's not difficult to photo a paper via any 8+MP camera, tackling with formatting, err tags, and broken lines does take extra time and efforts, so it should be paid fairly.
Just mention the extra services pricing beforehand, avoiding hassle and preventing the issue)
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I have seen some suggestions in wordbee with OCR, but that shows one more time that we struggle not to translate better we struggle to work with tools.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 21:40
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Damian Rosero wrote:
What do you guys do in this kind of cases, do you type down the whole document and then upload it to your CAT tool?
Yes, you have to type it or hire a typist to type it for you. Typists are fast, cheap and accurate.
Is there a way you use the cat tool without a source document in order to store your translations?
Not really, no.
| | | | Yoana Ivanova
Estonia
Local time: 22:40
English to Bulgarian
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Damian Rosero wrote:
Just one more questions, Yoana wrote about doing a terminology glossary, is that something you can do in the CAT tool directly without actually going through doing a translation or are you referring to something else?
Thanks again.
You could make a glossary in Excel for example, to use with some specific documents.
Or you could make your own termbase, the process is different with different CAT tools, so it depends on what you're using.
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Adam Warren
France
Local time: 21:40
Member (2005)
French to English
| OCR tool + Quick-input glossary tool | Mar 16, 2019 |
1. Nuance Power PDF: I haven't found anything better, even though the output WP document needs editing.
2. AIT Anylexic, published by a brave, likeable Ukrainean team.
I hope I'm not breaching ProZ etiquette, but I prefer citing chapter and verse. I also hope I'm not duplicating someone else's contributions.
HTH.
| | | | B D Finch
France
Local time: 21:40
French to English
+ ...
You haven't said how long the document is or whether it contains specialist terminology. I wouldn't bother with a CAT tool for a short document without, or without much, specialist terminology. I certainly wouldn't go to the trouble and expense of typing the document out or getting it typed out.
Yes you can ask the client whether they have the document in digital format. A few years ago I nearly ruined my eyesight working from a really poor quality PDF because the outsourcer insist... See more You haven't said how long the document is or whether it contains specialist terminology. I wouldn't bother with a CAT tool for a short document without, or without much, specialist terminology. I certainly wouldn't go to the trouble and expense of typing the document out or getting it typed out.
Yes you can ask the client whether they have the document in digital format. A few years ago I nearly ruined my eyesight working from a really poor quality PDF because the outsourcer insisted that the original Word file was not available. Because of problems with the outsourcer, I ended up working directly for the client and discovered that the Word file had been available all the time. If you don't ask you don't get, the worst they can say is "no". If you have the resources to produce a good quality scan and OCR it, that is worth doing for longer document and you should charge for your time. I find that OCR tools have improved so much that they are really worth having. I charge for doing OCR by the quarter hour, but for a large translation that takes less than fifteen minutes to OCR, I would waive the charge. ▲ Collapse
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