File comparisons in TRADOS with translation memory (localization issue)

Subject: File comparisons in TRADOS with translation memory (localization issue)
From: Lois Patterson <skycerulean -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 14:08:55 -0800 (PST)


As I understand the situation, the translation vendor
that my employer has contracted says that it cannot
properly compare the content of an HTML file (like in
a help file) with the content in a Framemaker file.
That is, the HTML tags in the HTML file will prevent
TRADOS from finding 100% matches, even if the content
of the sentences in the two files are precisely the
same. Is this correct?

For simplicity, compare these situations (although
I've obscured the real HTML tags so as not to mess up
anyone's mail reader):

The Creation dialog box is used to create XYZ widgets.
(formatted in Framemaker with Creation italicized and
XYZ bolded)
This is the sentence in the vendor's translation
memory. It is compared with the following sentence.

The [I]Creation[/I] dialog box is used to create
[B]XYZ[/B] widgets.

(In practice, we use CSS for the bold and italic, but
that is likely irrelevant.) According to the vendor,
the second sentence will only be a fuzzy match to the
first one, thus costing more to translate. The extra
cost over the entire documentation set will be
considerable. Does anyone have any tips?


Lois Patterson


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