Marcello Napolitano

ATA Certified Italian-English Translator

Technical translation and testing services for the IT industry

Software Reviews

On this page you will find a list of software that we use for our localization and translation activity. This includes specialized software for translation and localization as well as operating systems and other application software.

CAT (Computer-Aided Translation) software

Trados Translation Solution

One of the most common Translation Memory programs. It has filters that can handle a fairly large variety of file types but the most common are Windows resource files (filtered using a macro in Word) and FrameMaker files (mostly manuals and documentation). In both cases you work using an RTF file and convert back at the end. The program suite includes a program that handles HTML files (web sites and HTML based documentation and help files) and other tagged file formats.

I am not too happy about this program, and part of it has not been updated in the last few versions. But it is very common and I have found workarounds to all the problems I have had with the program. There is a very good mailing list on eGroups that is not affiliated with Trados that includes among its members many expert users of the program that are always willing to share their knowledge and experience.

Star Transit

Catalyst

Additional software used in translation and localization

Visual Studio

Adobe FrameMaker

Adobe Acrobat (including Access plug-in)

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe PageMaker

Multiple web browsers, Netscape 4.7 and 6.0, Internet Explorer 5.5

Jasc Paint Shop Pro

TextPad

WS_FTP Pro

WinZip

Microsoft Office (98 and 2000 versions) including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access (2000 only)

McAfee VirusScan

Macromedia Dreamweaver (Ultradev version)

Backup Exec (tape backup software used with USB tape unit)

Lotus SmartSuite (including Freelance Graphics)

Adobe Type Manager (includes most common fonts used in DTP)

Operating systems

All versions of Microsoft Windows in English and Italian (MSDN subscription)