How to choose a translation memory tool

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When I started freelancing in 2002, buying a translation memory tool was a major rite of passage, and the tool you used was somewhat of a signifier of what “translation team” you were on. The solid, established translators making good money used Trados, those looking to spend less money or who didn’t want to learn to use Trados used Wordfast Classic, and the nerds used OmegaT (memoQ didn’t exist back then!). The TM tool landscape has changed a lot, with beginning freelancers wondering whether they need to buy a tool, and if so, which one, and with experienced freelancers wondering if they should stick with what they have, or migrate to something new

I’ve gotten a few questions on this topic lately, so I thought it was worth a look, with the caveat that I’m not (by any means!) a translation technology expert. 

The big picture 

Lots of people rush into the decision to buy a translation memory tool, and before you do that, I think it’s important to ask yourself a simple but really important question. Are you buying this tool because:

• A client that you want to work with is requiring you to use it (that’s what happened to me with Trados)
• You perceive that you’ll get more work, better-paying work, and/or more desirable work if you own the tool
• You want the tool for your own productivity or consistency reasons 

This is huge. Why are you buying this thing in the first place? And are you sure that your reason is valid? I have lots of mixed feelings about translation memory tools: the “chunked” aspect of how you work in them is kind of a curse/blessing. Personally I find that in Trados (my current main tool), I work about 10% faster even on documents that aren’t repetitive, and there’s much less chance of skipping a word or a phrase, but it’s also much harder to rework the text. You can split and combine segments, but I find it tedious, and it interrupts the flow of a text that needs to sound really good. At the same time, I really enjoy the automated glossary function; some of my international development clients have glossaries with thousands of terms, and honestly the PDF converter that comes with Trados is pretty good. 

A whole other aspect is that the market-leader tools have become either bloated or feature-rich, however you want to look at it, particularly with collaboration and project management tools. I never use these and I find them kind of aggravating, but they could be really appealing if you work on a translation team or outsource work to other people. 

Where do online tools come in 

As I said above, buying a translation memory tool used to be somewhat of a rite of passage, signifying that you had enough translation work to justify the price tag of one of the market leaders. If memory serves, I paid something like $250 for Wordfast Classic in about 2005, and close to $1,000 for Trados a few years later. The big-name tools are still pretty pricey: memoQ at 360 euros a year, Trados at $395 per year, and Wordfast Pro or Classic at $480 for an installed license. This is not to say that these tools are overpriced; if you land or retain even one client because you have them, they’re totally worth it. By this I just mean, they’re an investment! 

The new players on the scene are server-based tools that either you pay for, or a client provides you a login for. Here’s where I see a significant change in the market: I keep saying “rite of passage,” because, back in the day, I think that at least some clients used owning a translation memory tool as somewhat of a filter. LIke, if this translator has a license for the current version of a market-leader tool and knows how to use it, they’re probably a serious professional. 

That factor is less true now that a lot of tools have online versions that allow clients to buy server-based versions, which in turn allows agencies to use translators who aren’t willing or able to purchase a license for an installed translation memory tool. That’s not to say that online tools are overall a bad thing. I recently used Phrase (formerly Memsource) for a client and I liked it a lot. It’s definitely nice to be liberated from the IT management side of translation memory tools; if I never see the Trados error “Object not set to an instance of an object” again, I’ll be happy. And I think it’s true that online translation memory tools have removed (yet another) barrier to entry in the language professions, which has some downsides. 

My TM tool experience

When I first started translating, I didn’t even understand the difference between TM/translation memory, and MT/machine translation. The first time I used a translation memory tool, I wondered why it wasn’t doing the translation for me! After that significant false start, I’ve tried, owned, and enjoyed (for various reasons) three different translation memory tools:

• OmegaT, a free and open source translation memory tool. This is what I started with, because my husband is an IT guy and an open source software fan. To this day, I think that OmegaT’s matching algorithm is better than the matching algorithm in either Wordfast or Trados. OmegaT has a great support community and has been translated into about a million languages (because volunteers do the work). The major downside is compatibility: while the xliff standard theoretically allows you to exchange files with other programs, in practice, it’s not that easy, and many clients will simply say, you have to have X version of X tool, because we want to send you a package that’s specific for that tool. But there’s still a special place in my heart for OmegaT!
• Wordfast Classic, which is probably my favorite tool overall. It’s just so simple and functional. Wordfast Classic works within Microsoft Word. It’s not a standalone program, there’s no big thing to install or learn to use, you don’t have to process your files into a different format to work on them, and you can incorporate glossaries. For what it is, it’s fantastic. However, you can probably get a sense of the downside: it only works within Word. If you want to translate a PowerPoint or an Excel file, much less the more esoteric formats that the market-leader tools can handle, you’re out of luck.
• Trados Studio: I purchased Trados purely for business reasons; a client offered me and my friend and colleague Eve Bodeux a big, juicy project, and Eve convinced me that we should buy Trados, hire an in-person trainer to teach us how to use it, and accept the project. She was 100% correct; despite the fact that Trados is relatively expensive and not that easy to learn to use (I’m not a total techno-idiot, and the first time I looked at the Trados interface, I couldn’t even tell where you type the translation). I’ve used it ever since, and I think that the pluses and minuses of Trados are pretty obvious: it, Wordfast Pro and memoQ are the market leaders, they have tons of features, from letting you translate pretty much any file format, to glossaries, to QA, to project management and collaboration, but Trados can be a bit much when you just want to translate one simple Word file. If I were starting over, I think I’d pick memoQ for its reputation as being more user-friendly than Trados, but with 15 years of Trados experience, I’m planning to just stick with it. There’s honestly nothing I particularly love or hate about Trados, it’s just overloaded with features I never use. 

How to decide

I can’t tell you what translation memory tool to buy, because that depends on your specific situation, but hopefully I can help you ask the right questions. Above all, do not run out and buy an expensive tool just because you think clients may want it. Gather some data first! 

1. Ask yourself why you are buying this tool, using the questions in the “big picture” section above.
2. Assess whether you work for, or would like to work for, any clients who require a specific tool. 
3. Look at your technical requirements. Most notably, Wordfast Pro and OmegaT run natively on Windows, Mac, and Linux; obviously with online tools, your operating system doesn’t really matter, and to run Trados or memoQ on a Mac, you will probably have to run virtual machine software. 
4. Demo a few tools (they all have demo versions!) to get a sense of how they work. 
5. Ask other translators what tool they use, how they like it, and whether they use it for business/marketing reasons (i.e. “Because my largest client requires memoQ”) or because they actually like the tool (i.e. “I work mostly for direct clients who don’t care about translation memory, so I use OmegaT”). 
6. Think about how you will use the tool. Do you translate only Word files? Do you need to work on InDesign files? Are you going to localize software? Do you want something with an AI/MT plugin, or do you enjoy translating from scratch? 
7. Do you prefer an online tool, a one-time installed license, or a subscription? There are a lot of options out there, and a lot of different payment models. Wordfast Anywhere is $9.90 a month, memoQ is 360 euros a year, Phrase is $27 a month, OmegaT is free…there’s a huge range of what you pay and what you get. 
8. I would at least look at, in no particular order, OmegaT, Wordfast, memoQ, Trados, and Phrase. But you’ll meet people who are rabid fans of the less well-known tools as well: CafeTran, DejaVu, Swordfish, and more. Try them out! Particularly if your clients don’t care what tool you use, you may find a non-market-leader that you really like. 
9. Finally, once you choose a tool, unless you’re going with something free, look around for group buy programs and discounts. Most translators’ associations, and entities like ProZ.com, offer pretty sizable discounts on translation memory tools; definitely take advantage of these after you decide what to buy!

If you’re in the market for a translation memory tool, or wondering whether to stick with the one you have, I hope these tips are helpful! If there’s anything you want to add, just add a comment!

Corinne McKay (classes@trainingfortranslators.com) is the founder of Training for Translators, and has been a full-time freelancer since 2002. She holds a Master of Conference Interpreting from Glendon College, is an ATA-certified French to English translator, and is Colorado court-certified for French interpreting. If you enjoy her posts, consider joining the Training for Translators mailing list!