Technology: Embrace It or Get Left Behind

There’s a lot of resistance to machines in the translation industry and some of that resistance is for valid reasons. Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools were introduced to improve both quality and productivity. Translation agencies then began capitalizing on that by asking translators for discounts. Being asked for a discount doesn’t feel good. It might even […]

OCR Tools: Coping with PDF Files

As a medical translator, I work with a LOT of PDF files. I probably use my OCR tool up to 10 times per day and I’m fairly certain that at this point, I couldn’t work without it. However, it took some time before I figured out exactly how to get the most out of it […]

Dragon NaturallySpeaking: Twice the Product, Half the Effort

Dragon Naturally Speaking is gaining ground in the translation industry. I attended a session on Dragon given by Tom Fennell and Andrew Levine at the last ATA conference in October, which really made me realize how much I am under-utilizing the program. Then in December, Mario Chávez reviewed Dragon in the ATA Chronicle from the perspective of medical translation and handling PDF documents. After recently editing a few documents obviously done with dictation software, I started pondering how this tool fits into a translator’s workflow and how it is best used to increase productivity while avoiding the pitfalls.

Automation: The Key to Translation Speed

Translating faster isn’t about rushing. It’s about saving time on everything else. As translators we perform so many time-consuming tasks without realizing it that it is all too easy to wonder where your day went. Here are some tricks I use to help automate what I can so I can spend my time translating.