Is Passolo the most useless and stupid tool ever?
Thread poster: Thomas Johansson
Thomas Johansson
Thomas Johansson  Identity Verified
Peru
Local time: 20:42
English to Swedish
+ ...
Aug 27, 2013

I'm working with it right now and I'm experiencing this as one of the most annoying and cumbersome tools I've ever used for translation. It is probably at least doubling my normal processing time and repeatedly giving me this urge to throw my computer in the wall or something.

A few examples of a few annoying things that simply shouldn't exist in a seriously developed CAT tool in 2013:

- In a segment, if I select a word or phrase and press Ctrl+C to copy it, the segment
... See more
I'm working with it right now and I'm experiencing this as one of the most annoying and cumbersome tools I've ever used for translation. It is probably at least doubling my normal processing time and repeatedly giving me this urge to throw my computer in the wall or something.

A few examples of a few annoying things that simply shouldn't exist in a seriously developed CAT tool in 2013:

- In a segment, if I select a word or phrase and press Ctrl+C to copy it, the segment is closed and what I've typed so far is simply lost.

- If I try to select a word pressing Ctrl+Shift+Right, the same thing happens.

- There appears to be no shortcut for simply confirming a segment and skip to the next that needs translation or attention.

- If I work in a document that has already been extensively translated, the only somewhat efficient way to work appears to be to (i) define a filter (defined over the relevant segments to be translated) and then (ii) press Ctrl+R. This will bring up a list limited to the segments defined in the filter. Since the list is limited to those segments, the translator will not able to see them in context while translating.

- If I want to check how a certain term is translated elsewhere in the document, there appears to be no simple way for doing this other than using the Find feature. Using the Find feature will close the current segment and bring me to a completely different segment. Then somehow I need to find the segment I was translating again...

- There appears to be no way for either (i) quickly adding a term to a glossary or (ii) selecting a term and searching for it in a glossary.

I hope I've misunderstood a few things here but, so far, these are some of my impressions.
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Heinrich Pesch
Heinrich Pesch  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 03:42
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
Use only for most simple tasks Aug 27, 2013

Fortunately the only client who sent me passolo-jobs now sends Word-documents instead. So I haven't used it this year anymore. Stupid tool if there ever was one.

 
Joakim Braun
Joakim Braun  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 02:42
German to Swedish
+ ...
But Aug 27, 2013

It's made by the developer of Trados, so why are you surprised?

 
Natalia Mackevich
Natalia Mackevich  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
English to Russian
+ ...
Passolo is an excellent tool for proofreaders! Aug 27, 2013

Half of my projects involve editing and proofreading, and I love it when my regular customers send me Passolo files! I admit that the experience can be quite different for new projects when you start from scratch, but for me it's The Tool.

 
Thomas Johansson
Thomas Johansson  Identity Verified
Peru
Local time: 20:42
English to Swedish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Is it possible to change the font size? Aug 27, 2013

Natalia Mackevich wrote:

Half of my projects involve editing and proofreading, and I love it when my regular customers send me Passolo files! I admit that the experience can be quite different for new projects when you start from scratch, but for me it's The Tool.


Thank you for the comment, Natalia. Actually, related to this, I was looking for a way to increase the font size of the target segments, in order to facilitate the proofreading, but couldn't find a way to do this. Do you know if there is a way to do this?


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 22:42
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
I used it (again) yesterday, and it is indeed stupid Aug 27, 2013

Last time I had used it was v2009, and it was bad, yet still better than the current v2011.

The only useful tip I have for you is that Ctrl+DnArrow accepts the present segment, and moves down to the next one.

Is Passolo a CAT tool?

I don't think so. When it finds a 100% full match, it will tell you that there are X more instances of that very exact phrase, and ask if you want to translate them all. OK, it will do it if you answer yes, however you will have
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Last time I had used it was v2009, and it was bad, yet still better than the current v2011.

The only useful tip I have for you is that Ctrl+DnArrow accepts the present segment, and moves down to the next one.

Is Passolo a CAT tool?

I don't think so. When it finds a 100% full match, it will tell you that there are X more instances of that very exact phrase, and ask if you want to translate them all. OK, it will do it if you answer yes, however you will have to Ctrl+Dn through them.

What are fuzzy matches?
For Passolo:
1. This is something
and
2. This is something
... are a 0% match.

Spell checking... The free download doesn't include any dictionary, however it will let you plug one you have. It did not accept *.dic files from MS Word, nor Acrobat, only the one from Mozilla, however it didn't work.

People use Passolo mostly to translate software strings, so I hope that the full version has some specific feature to make that easier. All 3-4 jobs with Passolo I had so far were software strings... which tend to have many repeated words.

So I used a "dumb" spell checker, and told it to "Ignore all" after seeing a correctly spelled word once. In the beginning, it stopped at every word, however as it "learned" more and more, it became progressively faster.

Bottom line is that Passolo is better than pencil and paper to create a bilingual file, but not much more than that.
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Natalia Mackevich
Natalia Mackevich  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
English to Russian
+ ...
To increase the font size, Aug 28, 2013

select Tools --> Options --> Translation window --> Font zoom.
I prefer 120%, but it can vary on different screens.


 
Uwe Philipps
Uwe Philipps
Germany
Local time: 02:42
Not too bad... Aug 31, 2013

Hi Thomas,

Passolo is not too bad... It has a completely different background and history as Trados. So some things just work in another way.

- In a segment, if I select a word or phrase and press Ctrl+C to copy it, the segment is closed and what I've typed so far is simply lost.

- If I try to select a word pressing Ctrl+Shift+Right, the same thing happens.


It seems you're working directly in the list. This is just for quick translations or changes. Normally you should work in the translation window. There the keys work as expected.


- There appears to be no shortcut for simply confirming a segment and skip to the next that needs translation or attention.

There's no "confirmed" state in Passolo. If you edit a text it's set to "translated and for review". To validate it, you can press Ctrl+T

- If I work in a document that has already been extensively translated, the only somewhat efficient way to work appears to be to (i) define a filter (defined over the relevant segments to be translated) and then (ii) press Ctrl+R. This will bring up a list limited to the segments defined in the filter. Since the list is limited to those segments, the translator will not able to see them in context while translating.

You can switch to "Translation Assistant (Ctrl+F5)". Then Ctrl-Up or Ctrl-Down move to the next untranslated string. Ctrl+R switches to or from resource display, e.g. to show the dialog layout when translating software.

- If I want to check how a certain term is translated elsewhere in the document, there appears to be no simple way for doing this other than using the Find feature. Using the Find feature will close the current segment and bring me to a completely different segment. Then somehow I need to find the segment I was translating again...


Use Fuzzy-Search (Ctrl+F8) to find existing translations. Check the options, to make sure, that "Current Project" is selected as translation provider.

- There appears to be no way for either (i) quickly adding a term to a glossary or (ii) selecting a term and searching for it in a glossary.

Use "Store Translation (Ctrl+F10)" and select a glossary as target. And again, Ctrl+F8 also searches Glossaries if set in translation options.

Maybe this helps you a little bit with your first steps with Passolo.
Uwe


Erik Wallace
 
Thomas Johansson
Thomas Johansson  Identity Verified
Peru
Local time: 20:42
English to Swedish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you for the clarifications, Uwe Aug 31, 2013

Uwe Philipps wrote:

- In a segment, if I select a word or phrase and press Ctrl+C to copy it, the segment is closed and what I've typed so far is simply lost.

- If I try to select a word pressing Ctrl+Shift+Right, the same thing happens.


It seems you're working directly in the list. This is just for quick translations or changes. Normally you should work in the translation window. There the keys work as expected.



Thank you, Uwe, for clarifying a few things. I've just now opened the program again to check your instructions.

Pressing Ctrl+F5 works fine - after that Ctrl-Up and Ctrl-Down works fine to jump to the preceding/next untranslated string, (However, when doing so, it appears the program resets what I've typed so far in the current segment, so I need to make sure to confirm each segment - or set it as "translated and for review" in Passolo terminology - before jumping to the next segment.)

Also, using Ctrl+F8 appears to work fine for finding terms, using the display in the bottom left corner. (Though I need to make sure to select the Translation tab underneath the display and for some reason the program switches to the Messages tab each time I make a search so I need to keep switching back manually to the Translation tab each time, which is kind of annoying. But at least there is a way to search the current translation without leaving the segment one is currently translating.)

In any event, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Shift+Right still won't work. How do I get to the Translation Window you mention? The window I get in my program is one saying All Strings at the top and having 6 columns (Number, ID, State, English, Swedish and Comment). Is that the Translation Window?
Here, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Shift+Right won't work in a segment, at least not on my computer,

Thomas


 
2GT
2GT  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 02:42
English to Italian
+ ...
Properties Sep 1, 2013

Thomas Johansson:The window I get in my program is one saying All Strings at the top and having 6 columns (Number, ID, State, English, Swedish and Comment). Is that the Translation Window?


The window you are looking for is Edit > Properties.

As for shourcut keys, you can customize them going to View > Toolbars and Docking Windows > Customize > Keyboard.

Bye!
Gianni


 
Uwe Philipps
Uwe Philipps
Germany
Local time: 02:42
. Sep 1, 2013

Hi Thomas,


if you see the Message Page after pressing Ctrl+F8 there's certainly an error message sent when doing fuzzy search. If this is from a translation provider you're not using, you can deselect this provider in the Fuzzy Matching options.

The translation window is normally in the bottom right corner. It has larger input fields and some helper buttons. The caption is "Properties", because it is shows different content depending of the object currently selec
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Hi Thomas,


if you see the Message Page after pressing Ctrl+F8 there's certainly an error message sent when doing fuzzy search. If this is from a translation provider you're not using, you can deselect this provider in the Fuzzy Matching options.

The translation window is normally in the bottom right corner. It has larger input fields and some helper buttons. The caption is "Properties", because it is shows different content depending of the object currently selected. When a translation string is selected, it has 4 pages: Text, More, Info, History.

As 2G Trad writes, you can open it with a menu command. Or you just double-click a string in the string list (the one with "All strings").


Uwe
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Araceli Arola
Araceli Arola  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 02:42
Member (2015)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Much time has past, but.... May 8, 2016

Here we are again with Passolo....

It is driving me literally mad. The client is asking me to check "the tasks" (window) for too long segments but there is no way I can move the "too long segments" check element into de Task window (so I can finally select them as done).

Have I explained myself?

I really hate it. As the former translator said, it is doubling-tripling my translation time.

I think I will remove it from my CV...
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Here we are again with Passolo....

It is driving me literally mad. The client is asking me to check "the tasks" (window) for too long segments but there is no way I can move the "too long segments" check element into de Task window (so I can finally select them as done).

Have I explained myself?

I really hate it. As the former translator said, it is doubling-tripling my translation time.

I think I will remove it from my CV

Any help will be much appreciated.


(Passolo 2015 freelance version) -maybe tha't the problem?
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Is Passolo the most useless and stupid tool ever?






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