Using Lingo as a CAT Tool

You can use Lingo as a CAT (computer-assisted translation) tool. Features such as translation memory (TM), machine translation (MT), termbases, and more are available when using Lingo in this way.

  1. Start Projects You can create a new Lingo project or open an existing one. See Starting Projects.
  2. (Optional) Create/Import Translation Memory You can create a TM database for the project so that you can reuse previous translations. Creating a TM database can be done when you go through the process for creating a Lingo project, or it can be done separately. You can also import a TMX file into a TM database in case you have previous translation work that you want to use in the new TM. See Translation Memory, Creating a Translation Memory Database, and Importing TMX Files.
  3. Open List of Files to be Translated You can quickly open a list of all files in the project that need to be translated. For source files such as Flare projects—which contain many unique types of files—this helps take the guessing out of localization work. All files requiring translation are displayed in the File List window pane. See Viewing Files Requiring Translation.
  4. Open and Translate Files There are several types of files that you can open and translate. Lingo's Translation Editor lets you work in Translation (or grid) mode, with the source content in one column and the target language in the next column. For some types of files—such as Flare topics, snippets, and template pages; Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word documents; DITA files; HTML files; and XML files—you can also switch to Live Preview mode, which lets you view content in its intended context. A suggestions area at the bottom of the Translation Editor lets you quickly select and insert matching translations from your TM database. See Translating Files.
  5. (Optional) Use Machine Translation In addition to using previous translations from a TM, you can also use MT to generate suggestions from a translation service like Google Cloud Translation, Microsoft Translator, MyMemory, or DeepL. You can use these suggestions to fill in gaps when pre-translating a project and you do not have a previous translation available. You can also use the MT to provide suggestions for an entire project, and then select translations that are appropriate and add them to your existing TM. See Machine Translation.
  1. (Optional) Run QA Reports Lingo offers several quality assurance (QA) reports to help you spot discrepancies in a translated project. These reports can be useful because they can help find errors that you might not have otherwise noticed, such as formatting inaccuracies, repeated segments, or termbase errors. By running a QA report, you can locate errors and correct them early in the translation process, preventing unnecessary rework later. You may want to run these reports before returning the project to the content developer. See Running Quality Assurance Reports.

  2. Export Translated Projects When all of the content in a project or file is translated, you can export the work to the application, file, or location. For example, if a Flare project was translated, you can export your work out to a new Flare project; if a Word document was translated, you can export your work out to a new Word document. This translated project or file can then be opened, and output can be created from it. See Exporting Translated Projects.

    Note If you have translated files for a Flare project, you also have the option of placing your Lingo project where the Flare author can access it. The author can then link directly to the Lingo project. This way, you do not need to export the Lingo project back out to a new Flare project. However, in order to use this process, the author must also have Lingo 11 installed on his or her computer in order to correctly build the multilingual output.