Getting good intentions off the ground

 

Michael Benis reviews "A Translator's Tool Box".

 

Once more onto the Net we surf

 

One of the many benefits of the Internet is the fact that it has enabled small companies to venture into publishing, since an "e-book" can be released for a fraction of the price of its printed equivalent. This is proving to be particularly helpful for fields like translation, bringing us the benefits of specialist advice that was previously only available at the occasional translators' association workshops. What's more, we can assimilate this information in our own time and at our own pace, without having to take a day or two off work and pay for food, travel and possibly accommodation, not to mention a few hundred pounds for the workshops themselves.

 

The latest arrival on the scene is the International Writers' Group e-book entitled "A Translator's Tool Box for the 21st Century" by Jost Zetzsche. Available to download over the Internet for $25 (currently £15.50), what you actually get from the site (http://www.internationalwriters.com/toolbox) is a 2.5 megabyte PDF file (modem users beware!) followed by an e-mail telling you the password you need to enter in order to open it. You then double-click on the file in whichever directory you downloaded it to, enter the password and away you go! You can either read the book on-screen or print out its 128 pages so that you can scribble notes all over them or peruse them in the bath without worrying about short-circuiting your laptop.

 

Hopefully the bath revived you. I could sense more than one pair of eyes glazing over as they read that technical information, so here's the good news immediately: First, that's about as technical as this review gets. Second, "Tool Box" (as I shall refer to it to keep things snappy) is not packed with impenetrable technical jargon and represents a good starting point for any aspiring or experienced translator who wants to know more about the software tools available to help us in our work. Many of us simply have no idea what these tools are or how we can conveniently find out about them, which increases the temptation to simply keep putting off the day when we get down to it. Take heart. It's not that long ago that we made our new year's resolutions, even if we have been starting to relax a little about actually keeping them. Now, thanks to Jost, we can at least tick one off the list.

 

But first a couple of caveats: Don't buy "Tool Box" expecting to gain a working knowledge of all the software covered. Indeed, several tools receive little more than a mention together with useful pointers for further reading. What you will gain is a much clearer idea of what tools are available out there and which ones might actually be worth considering for your own work - not to mention those which could help you get more work, or work more productively.

 

Snacking your way to software mastery

 

"Tool Box" in fact provides an admirably comprehensive overview, taking the reader through everything from their choice of operating system and word processor to tips on how to customise and maintain Windows; (yes, I'm afraid it's of little use to Mac users). It also provides information on browsers, text and HTML editors, utilities, desktop publishing programs and last, but not least, translation memory. Most readers are likely to gain something in particular from the information on how to tweak and maintain Windows and will find "Tool Box" helpful reading, but the rest of the book is more of a survey than a guide. You won't be happy if you're expecting to find each chapter a blow-by-blow manual on every tool that's ever been developed for anyone in the profession.

 

The problem is that the initial depth of practical advice provided on customising Windows, which is the e-books' strong point, also sets the reader up for disappointment later on, since subsequent chapters don't provide anything near the same level of information. The section on Windows goes into so much detail that I found myself quibbling over omissions (like the advisability of running Scandisk before defragmenting), or a lack of similar detail when it comes to, for example, Word. I kept having to remind myself that "Tool Box" has much more modest ambitions. Its alternative title is "A Computer Primer for Translators" and that's about right. It's just what you need if you've been promising yourself to find out more about what's available without really knowing where to start, hence the title of this article. It's a great place to get those good intentions off the ground. Unfortunately, it doesn't take things much further and, with a few exceptions, you'll need to undertake further research before making your choice of practically any of the tools considered. It's a bit of a taster, really. More of a Kellogg's Variety pack than a Christmas hamper.

 

Work in progress

 

Being an e-book, "Tool Box" has the advantage of being up-to-date and easily updatable. It is, for example, the only publication that gives you a glimpse of the very latest version of Déjà Vu, which hasn't even been released yet (though you can look forward to an imminent review in bulletin). At the same time, it is going through a process of continual improvement and, indeed, a new version was released half way through this review.

 

All this bodes well, because as much as "Tool Box" is a fine way for us to achieve our good intentions, it is itself something of a good intention that has not quite been fulfilled. It could certainly do with a bit more proofreading and most sections would benefit from expansion. A little more information on customising Windows, for example, wouldn't go amiss, while the work would unquestionably gain from greater focus and detail on the purpose and benefits of the different tools considered. A section on text retrieval tools such as dtSearch wouldn't do any harm either. The good news is that this is precisely what Jost intends to do and all but major updates will be provided free of charge.

 

So, should you get it? Unless you're a confident "power user", the answer is yes. For all its faults, it has no competition with the exception of Bert Esselink's excellent Guide to Software Localisation, which has a more specialised focus. For £15, "Tool Box" is worth it for the information on customising Windows alone. But if the updates take the rest of it up to the same standard, you'll very definitely have bagged yourself a bargain.

 

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Caption: "A Translator's Tool Box" is a 128 page illustrated e-book that provides a comprehensive overview of the software tools available for translators today.

First published in ITI Bulletin, 2000.