Do You Need Professional Translation Software?

So, you’ve reached a point where you’re ready to enter a new market and broaden your consumer base? This stage requires translating your content so that it’s easily understood by your chosen market, but do you settle for machine translation or consider using professional translation software? Whatever your circumstances, using a professional translation service can give you a much less complicated route to better quality translations.  

Do You Underestimate Professional Translation Software?

A common misconception about using professional translation software is that it can be a hassle for smaller projects. The attempt to simplify your workload by avoiding translation tools often creates more work like translating repetitive material and constant revisions to edit any inconsistencies. Using translation software would have ensured all necessary material was translated, proofread, and formatted correctly to maintain quality. It’s standard practice to consider using professional translation software for large projects, but it’s important not to underestimate the value and ease it brings to small ones.  

Four Reasons You Should Use Professional Translation Software

1. Frequent Content Updates

If you have a mature company with a lot of content or plan to release content updates continuously, you should consider using professional translation software. Professional services include a translation memory tool, which is a valuable asset for translating future content. It stores previously translated content to be suggested and used during future translation jobs. This feature reduces the time spent translating content and helps guarantee consistent, quality translations for all upcoming content. Saving time on future translations with professional translation software can help ensure your updated content is available to new markets much quicker than it would be if you were using manual or machine translation.  

2. Inability to Find Quality Translators

Vetting translators to ascertain their ability to provide high-quality translation can be time-consuming and difficult for some companies. Working with a professional localization management platform can give you access to a wide range of expert translators and eliminate this hassle. It can also connect you with translators that are subject matter experts in your field to give you the security that content will be translated to preserve your brand’s integrity across markets. You can feel assured that your translated content will retain the character of your original, increasing success in new markets.  

3. Trouble Managing Workflows

Any good localization strategy will include business, translation, and engineering aspects for a comprehensive approach to entering a new market. Each aspect requires a workflow to ensure all tasks are completed correctly, cost-effectively, and as quickly as possible. The tasks and workers included in these workflows can increase significantly as the project grows, making it more challenging to manage everything. Using professional translation software can provide you with a highly experienced partner to aid with managing workflows and tools for automating translation to eliminate the need for managing future assignments and integrations. Automated translation tools can give you the freedom to focus on other company concerns.  

4. File Incompatibility with Machine Translation

Machine translation services can generally only translate the most used file extensions, unlike a professional translation service, like Bureau Works, which can translate 22 different file extensions. Professional translation software also includes working with file engineers to protect your software’s code and make sure your translated content is integrated correctly without errors in translation, formatting, or any other possible content mishaps. Machine translators aren’t equipped to format content to be easily re-integrated. It provides plain-text translations to be edited out of context and reformatted.  

Simplify Your Translation Process

Partnering with a localization management platform can simplify the process of translating your content for both small and large projects. It also allows you to freely scale your company’s content and feel secure that it will be translated more quickly and efficiently than other practices like machine translation. Professional translation software should never be considered too complicated for any size translation job.