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Free tools for translators and project managers. Part 1: ApSIC Xbench Print
(4 votes, average 5.00 out of 5)
Written by Marco Cevoli   
Sunday, 19 October 2008 19:00

Translators can use ApSIC Xbench to conduct a thorough quality check on bilingual texts. Moreover, it provides a clear and structured view of the terminology of any translation project.

T

his is the first in a series of articles that provide an overview on various free tools that may be useful for translators, editors and project managers. In line with our company mission, we wish to share with our fellow language professionals software and instruments that may help them improve productivity or solve specific problems.

The focus of this article is ApSIC Xbench. This software offers a variety of Quality Assurance features and it allows users to search for a term through different glossaries or translation memories. The software is currently in beta test. However, we did not come across any error while using it. ApSIC Xbench was developed by ApSIC, a Spanish translation agency. It can be directly downloaded from their website: http://www.apsic.com .

ApSIC Xbench has two main functions:
  • Organizing glossaries or bilingual texts and searching through them;
  • implementing Quality Assurance on bilingual texts.
ApSIC Xbench allows you to select various bilingual files or glossaries, link them to a specific project and then search terms across them. The program supports most of the common input formats:
  • Tab-delimited text files
  • TMX, Trados TXT and Wordfast TXT memories
  • Exported Multiterm glossaries (version 5 and XML)
  • Wordfast glossaries
  • Bilingual .ttx (TagEditor), .rtf e .doc files
  • SDLX .itd files (if SDLX is installed)
  • Exported IBM TranslationManager dictionaries
  • STAR Transit projects
  • Microsoft Glossaries (.csv files)
  • XLIFF and TBX files and Mac OSX glossaries
The workflow is relatively easy. You start by creating a group of memories or glossaries you want to use for a project. You can then assign a different priority to each file. The priority level of the files will be visualized in the search window. Users can see at any time the priority level they have given to their reference documents and identify the most dependable. Users can define as "Ongoing Translation" one or more files they are working on and conduct automatic quality checks on them. We will tell you more about quality checks shortly.

The text search can be directly launched from any Windows application by selecting the text and typing the desired key combination. The ApSIC Xbench window opens up and you can scroll, filter and select the results. You can also open an external editor to modify your terms. For instance, you can use Notepad++ to modify a TXT memory (see this article for more information on Notepad++). The search function does not fully support RegEx syntax (see this article for more information on regular expressions). However, the "PowerSearch" function is very effective and it should address the needs of most users.
ApSIC Xbench

Quality Assurance , QA or quality check - whatever we are used to name this operation - can only be implemented on files that have been predefined as «Ongoing Translation».Even if the options available are not at the level of those of SDL Trados QA Checker or Yamagata Europe's QA Distiller, they are quite comprehensive. You can check for untranslated segments, segments that have the same target text but a different source text and tag or numerical errors. Finally, you can verify that the terms have been translated consistently with the higher-priority glossaries (so-called "key-terms"). Checklists deserve a special mention. ApSIC Xbench users can create customized lists of criteria for running simultaneous searches for errors. The lists can be either personal, or project-based. They typically contain "forbidden" terms, or terms that should not be translated (for instance, a client may ask not to translate the English term "CEO"), or errors that typically elude the spellcheck (for example, the preposition "de" in a translation from Spanish into Italian). You can also add any previous search to the checklist. ApSIC Xbench performance is comparable to that of other systems that cost several thousand euros.A project checklist is created for each single project. Personal checklists are external files that can be used with different projects. You can create several personal checklists, but you can only use one at a time with any given project.

The program interface is based on Microsoft's standards and, on the whole, is clear and user-friendly. The online help content is quite comprehensive and provides detailed explanations for all the options in each window. Therefore, most users can start using the program right away.

To conclude, ApSIC Xbench offers an excellent quality/price ratio. Its performance is comparable to that of software that cost thousand of euros. Because it supports several formats and it is independent from the translation environment used, it can run within any CAT suite. This is a remarkable advantage compared to other software such as SDL Trados QA Checker, that only works within TagEditor. We can't but recommend ApSIC Xbench to all our fellow language professionals!

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