How should I organise my projects in Wordfast Pro version 5? Thread poster: Comunican
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Comunican
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:46
Spanish to English
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Hi all
As long as I've been using Wordfast Pro, I've had only three projects - one for each of my language pairs. I archive each document once I've finished translating it, saved it back as a Word file and sent to the client.
I've now been told that such large projects are not the best way of organising files in Wordfast Pro and that it is better to set up a Wf Pro project "for each project".
The problem is: most of my client projects are relatively small and involve only one ... See more Hi all
As long as I've been using Wordfast Pro, I've had only three projects - one for each of my language pairs. I archive each document once I've finished translating it, saved it back as a Word file and sent to the client.
I've now been told that such large projects are not the best way of organising files in Wordfast Pro and that it is better to set up a Wf Pro project "for each project".
The problem is: most of my client projects are relatively small and involve only one or two files at a time (I rarely get extensive multi-file projects). So, if I follow this advice, I will be constantly creating projects (which is tedious - unless I'm missing some easy way to do it!).
What advice do others have about organising files and projects, please?
And on a related point: how large do you allow your TMs and Glossaries to get? Is it OK to have one large TM and one large Glossary for each language pair? Or should I be splitting them down? Actually, with my busiest language pair, I now have four TMs, with the first three going back years, and used as read-only - in the unlikely event that I get a load of matches to make my translation day
Would be interested in others' opinions please?
Thanks!
[Edited at 2020-11-25 23:07 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 01:46
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Which version? | Nov 26, 2020 |
Comunican wrote:
As long as I've been using Wordfast Pro, I've had only three projects...
Since WFP3 and WFP5 organise files in utterly different ways, it is really important for the answer to this question to know which version of Wordfast Pro you have.
| | | | Comunican
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:46
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Samuel Murray wrote:
Since WFP3 and WFP5 organise files in utterly different ways, it is really important for the answer to this question to know which version of Wordfast Pro you have.
Hi, and sorry, I should have stated that I am using Wordfast Pro version 5 and am on the latest version 5.19.0.
Thanks
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 01:46
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Comunican wrote:
The problem is: most of my client projects are relatively small and involve only one or two files at a time (I rarely get extensive multi-file projects). So, if I follow this advice, I will be constantly creating projects (which is tedious - unless I'm missing some easy way to do it!).
I use WFP5 mostly for GLP packages, so in my case all client projects are individual CAT tool projects, and I must tell you, I dislike it. WFP5's project folder structure is insanely complex and WFP5's project template capabilities are very limited, so having individual CAT tool projects for individual client projects is a recipe for irritation.
In fact, the cumbersomeness of WFP5 folder structure is what makes me think twice about using it when I need to decide whether to translate a loose file in Trados, WFP5 or MemoQ.
Did the people who gave you the advice explain to you why they believe that it is better to use separate CAT tool projects for each client project (or did they explain what's wrong with recycling CAT tool projects, as you have been doing)?
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Comunican
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:46
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Maybe will set a new project once a month... | Nov 26, 2020 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
I use WFP5 mostly for GLP packages, so in my case all client projects are individual CAT tool projects, and I must tell you, I dislike it. WFP5's project folder structure is insanely complex and WFP5's project template capabilities are very limited, so having individual CAT tool projects for individual client projects is a recipe for irritation.
In fact, the cumbersomeness of WFP5 folder structure is what makes me think twice about using it when I need to decide whether to translate a loose file in Trados, WFP5 or MemoQ.
Did the people who gave you the advice explain to you why they believe that it is better to use separate CAT tool projects for each client project (or did they explain what's wrong with recycling CAT tool projects, as you have been doing)?
Hi Samuel, and thanks as always for your interest and help with Wf Pro matters... I agree the file structure is very complex and I really can't be bothered to set up a separate project (which is a right pain because you have to specify all the TMs and the glossaries you want to use etc.
The person who recommended separating them out by project works at Wordfast, but he wasn't very specific other than to say "statistics and progress (by which he means calculation of percent complete) can be inaccurate in projects of that size, especially if you keep adding files to them".
Based on what you've said, I think I will start creating new projects every month for each of my language pairs. It seems like a reasonable compromise?
Cheers
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 01:46
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Comunican wrote:
The person who recommended separating them out by project works at Wordfast, but he wasn't very specific other than to say "statistics and progress (by which he means calculation of percent complete) can be inaccurate in projects of that size, especially if you keep adding files to them".
Are statistics and progress indicators important to you?
As far as I know, you can analyze a file even if it is not part of a project.
As for progress indicators... well, what I do is to export the source text to a separate DOC file, and remove duplicate lines (you can do that in Excel, I think, but I use an AutoIt script). Then, at various times during the translation, I simply open that file and delete all rows above the point where I'm currently at, and do a word count. It's a manual method but I don't wonder *every minute* how much progress I have made so far, so it's good enough for me.
| | | | Comunican
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:46
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | I'm not that technical I'm afraid! | Nov 26, 2020 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Are statistics and progress indicators important to you?
As far as I know, you can analyze a file even if it is not part of a project.
As for progress indicators... well, what I do is to export the source text to a separate DOC file, and remove duplicate lines (you can do that in Excel, I think, but I use an AutoIt script). Then, at various times during the translation, I simply open that file and delete all rows above the point where I'm currently at, and do a word count. It's a manual method but I don't wonder *every minute* how much progress I have made so far, so it's good enough for me.
You're obviously farrrrr more technical than me!
The stats and progress indicators are not massively important to me, but I had reported a bug whereby even though I had completed a project (and happily sent it off to the client), Wf Pro 5 was still saying only 86% complete. It was when I sent the project files to Wordfast that they advised keeping them smaller...
I take their point about projects not getting overly large and have already taken to turning active (read-write) TMs into a series of read-only TMs as a way of not overloading the system.
So, I think maybe just setting up a new project every now and then should solve the problem. That's what I've just been doing, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.
Thanks again!
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