The disappointment of Trados Studio... any alternatives? Thread poster: Marion Lambert-Nuding
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I purchased SDL Studio 2017, well, 6 years ago, and I've probably only been used a small proportion of its capabailities : TMs, Termbases, a couple of plug-ins... The main reason I bit the bullet was to be able to accept projects from agencies who will only work with Studio packages.
My software needs upgrading (well, replacing, since they stopped supporting upgrades of 2017 last october *rolled eyes*). So I dutifully downloaded the trial version of Studio 2022, fought off a few bu... See more I purchased SDL Studio 2017, well, 6 years ago, and I've probably only been used a small proportion of its capabailities : TMs, Termbases, a couple of plug-ins... The main reason I bit the bullet was to be able to accept projects from agencies who will only work with Studio packages.
My software needs upgrading (well, replacing, since they stopped supporting upgrades of 2017 last october *rolled eyes*). So I dutifully downloaded the trial version of Studio 2022, fought off a few bugs, just about managed to open one existing project, but it keeps crashing and I've already spent 2 hours reading knowledge base posts to try and make it work. I'm reluctant to hand over my hard-earned cash for the privilege of spending long hours reading boring pages on technical bugs and how to fix them.
At least Adobe, in its almost-monopoly of the design software market, offers products that work and decent technical support... What has Trados ever done to be in such a strong, exclusive position ?
There must be a better way.....!?
Do any of the other TMs out there work with Trados packages/TM/termbases and do a better job?
Alternatively, does the licensed version work better than the trial...? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 16:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Is your questions specifically related to machine translation or is it about Trados in general?
| | | | Michael Davies
Denmark
Local time: 16:25
Member (2009)
Danish to English
+ ...
| Trados Studio 2022 | Jul 5, 2023 |
I have been a user of Trados Studio for many years now and have bit-by-bit learned to make use of quite a few of its functions. I have also - when required - used other CAT's and have not, so far, encountered another CAT that I would rather use.
When that is said and done, I have also learned (the hard way) that when Trados launches a newer version, it is wise to keep the previous version since the newest version (the last few generations) invariably has bugs - some of them serious,... See more I have been a user of Trados Studio for many years now and have bit-by-bit learned to make use of quite a few of its functions. I have also - when required - used other CAT's and have not, so far, encountered another CAT that I would rather use.
When that is said and done, I have also learned (the hard way) that when Trados launches a newer version, it is wise to keep the previous version since the newest version (the last few generations) invariably has bugs - some of them serious, causing the software to lock up (requiring a restart) or just crash. The first update (software release) package, it usually becomes much more stable (but not necessarily 100% stable in all situations).
Unfortunately, it seems to be more or less impossible for Trados to launch 100% reliable software upon first release - and it is not an easy task to do so since it has to work on many different computers. I choose, therefore, to stick with Trados, accept its shortcomings (as well as its many very good functionalities) and revert to the previous version when, on occasion, there are problems.
Hope my comments are useful. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Not MT (Machine Translation), but TM (Translation Memories) | Jul 5, 2023 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Is your questions specifically related to machine translation or is it about Trados in general?
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| It looks like you mean CAT tool, not TM | Jul 5, 2023 |
Unless you mean, 'Do any of the other CAT tools out there work with Trados packages/TM/termbases and do a better job?' I don't know what you mean.
Many CAT tools, some free, some paid, can handle Trados packages, sdlxliff, sdltm and more. Which one you prefer is a matter of taste.
memoQ is one of the paid ones and has met my needs since 2015. I have the annual support and upgrade subscription, which costs 124 euros a year. That way, I always have the newest versi... See more Unless you mean, 'Do any of the other CAT tools out there work with Trados packages/TM/termbases and do a better job?' I don't know what you mean.
Many CAT tools, some free, some paid, can handle Trados packages, sdlxliff, sdltm and more. Which one you prefer is a matter of taste.
memoQ is one of the paid ones and has met my needs since 2015. I have the annual support and upgrade subscription, which costs 124 euros a year. That way, I always have the newest version and full support, which works well.
As many of my clients use the memoQ server, it is also highly relevant to have the full software rather than use a web UI for these tasks.
Although there are still many things that could be improved, memoQ doesn't have Studio's inherent 'crash, freeze, block and lock' features. A colleague of mine who uses Studio regularly informs me of such recurrent Trados problems. While I'm translating, they are solving Trados software problems. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 17:25
English to Russian
| Hardware upgrade? | Jul 5, 2023 |
Does your computer meet the minimum Trados requirements? When I expanded my memory from 8GB to 16GB, Trados worked much better since then.
If you really want to assess how "non-friendly" Trados is, try Across, XTM or Translation Workspace XLIFF Editor. You will change your mind soon.
Seriously: try memoQ. They have a trial version too. And it can handle Trados packages.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:25
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Stepan Konev wrote:
If you really want to assess how "non-friendly" Trados is, try Across, XTM or Translation Workspace XLIFF Editor. You will change your mind soon.
And Transit NXT. Found that far worse than Trados.
Dan
| | | | | There are many alternatives | Jul 5, 2023 |
Ever since XLIFF became an industry standard for CAT tools, compatibility and interoperability between different tools became much less of a problem. Sure enough, Trados has its own flavour of XLIFF, and so has MemoQ, and probably some other tools too, but I have yet to see a client refuse to accept a translation completed in a different tool. There may be some finicky ones, but these are few. One thing you may need to know, however, is how to open .SDLPPX packages manually: these are just regul... See more Ever since XLIFF became an industry standard for CAT tools, compatibility and interoperability between different tools became much less of a problem. Sure enough, Trados has its own flavour of XLIFF, and so has MemoQ, and probably some other tools too, but I have yet to see a client refuse to accept a translation completed in a different tool. There may be some finicky ones, but these are few. One thing you may need to know, however, is how to open .SDLPPX packages manually: these are just regular ZIP files with .SDLXLIFF and other files inside. ▲ Collapse
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| Packages unpacked | Jul 5, 2023 |
Anton Konashenok wrote:
One thing you may need to know, however, is how to open .SDLPPX packages manually: these are just regular ZIP files with .SDLXLIFF and other files inside.
memoQ does that automatically. You just click on it or import it from within the software, and the sdlxliffs, sdltms and sdltbs are automatically imported and set up in the memoQ project. To deliver, just use the export function to create and sdlrpx to send to the client. It couldn't be easier.
I don't know how other CAT tools handle it.
| | | | | One thing about mQ | Jul 5, 2023 |
I used to work with .sdlxliff documents in mQ because I liked it better, but one thing that bugged me was that a document that looked clean in Trados would show tons of tags in mQ, and unless you got them all correct in the target segments, the program would scream error. An extra piece of work that can be quite annoying for a person like me (with my subpar attention to details, and especially when the source text is long and full of formulas, e. g.). So, I'd rather either upload the source docu... See more I used to work with .sdlxliff documents in mQ because I liked it better, but one thing that bugged me was that a document that looked clean in Trados would show tons of tags in mQ, and unless you got them all correct in the target segments, the program would scream error. An extra piece of work that can be quite annoying for a person like me (with my subpar attention to details, and especially when the source text is long and full of formulas, e. g.). So, I'd rather either upload the source document directly to mQ or stick to Trados throughout ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Update regularly and shut down your computer completely at least once a day | Jul 5, 2023 |
My employer at the time made me try a couple of CAT tools more than 20 years ago, and finally settled for Trados. I hated them all at first, but finally I could see some advantages. have tried several other CATs since then, but always come back to Trados.
MemoQ was interesting some years ago, but I did not find the glossary function as smart, and did not transfer all my glossaries from Trados. I know others find it suits them better, so perhaps you could give it a try.
I heard... See more My employer at the time made me try a couple of CAT tools more than 20 years ago, and finally settled for Trados. I hated them all at first, but finally I could see some advantages. have tried several other CATs since then, but always come back to Trados.
MemoQ was interesting some years ago, but I did not find the glossary function as smart, and did not transfer all my glossaries from Trados. I know others find it suits them better, so perhaps you could give it a try.
I heard somewhere - maybe at a Trados Road Show? - that it is a good idea to shut down your computer completely at least once a day. This cleans out caches or whatever - I don´t entirely understand the technicalities, but if any bugs are starting to develop, they are rebooted, and have to start from the beginning every time instead of building up to a crash.
This certainly works if I have a large project and need to run a QA with client settings that pick up a lot of false errors. Instead of taking several seconds to move to the next segment, Trados reacts almost immediately - before I lose concentration and get frustrated 
I shut down every night, and often for a break in the middle of the day, and have very little trouble with Trados.
I often wait a month or so before installing the latest version of Studio, but I update regularly. On the occasion when I did skip a version - there were bugs! However, the service engineer re-installed Studio for me, and solved the problem.
If you can find someone who is familiar with Studio to guide you through at least the basic steps, it is well worth spending the time on getting it right first time.
Trados takes time to learn, but it is well worth the effort in my opinion. ▲ Collapse
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Christine Andersen wrote:
I heard somewhere - maybe at a Trados Road Show? - that it is a good idea to shut down your computer completely at least once a day. This cleans out caches or whatever - I don´t entirely understand the technicalities, but if any bugs are starting to develop, they are rebooted, and have to start from the beginning every time instead of building up to a crash.
Makes sense if one runs into a particular problem (such as a messy application that never cleans up after itself, wasting memory or other resources), but unless one has a specific problem, there really isn't any need to. An operating system doesn't need to go to sleep once a day like a human. If there is an issue, maybe it's enough just to restart the messy application from time to time. I just leave my laptop on sleep overnight and only restart Windows if there is a specific need such as updates. It never caused me any problems (but I don't use Trados, and my RAM is not in danger of being exhausted any time soon).
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| CafeTran Espresso | Jul 6, 2023 |
Marionlam wrote:
Do any of the other TMs out there work with Trados packages/TM/termbases and do a better job?
It's a matter of personal preferences, but I like to translate all Trados packages with CafeTran Espresso (one-time payment of 200 euros or 80 euros/year).
Don't let the ugly Dashboard put you off (you can personalize it): the software is really good!
CafeTran Espresso on a Mac (but it works on Windows too):
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Thank you all for your useful comments.
So, I tried downloading MemoQ (which isn't much cheaper than Studio), and soon realised that in addition to having to convert most of my existing Trados projects, it comes with its own challenges and perhaps I was better off with a devil I know. As many of you have said above, Trados isn't perfect, but it's the best we've got...
Thanks again for taking the time to put me back on the straight and narrow.
Have a great... See more Thank you all for your useful comments.
So, I tried downloading MemoQ (which isn't much cheaper than Studio), and soon realised that in addition to having to convert most of my existing Trados projects, it comes with its own challenges and perhaps I was better off with a devil I know. As many of you have said above, Trados isn't perfect, but it's the best we've got...
Thanks again for taking the time to put me back on the straight and narrow.
Have a great weekend!
M ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Not the best... | Jul 8, 2023 |
Marionlam wrote:
... and perhaps I was better off with a devil I know. As many of you have said above, Trados isn't perfect, but it's the best we've got...
... devil on the market: there's still Deja Vu and it's still supported, as I am informed by the DV section of the proz forums. It swallows only small portions of your computer's resources and it can process all kind of xlf based files, with the easiest terminology handling function I know.
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