Adrian Komiński 

On this we can agree!

Unknown said:

Needless to say Word preview worked beautifully in Trados 2011 with Office 2007... (couldn't help it, Paul)

But the problem here is not Studio, it's Word.  Once Microsoft moved to their click to run installer they stopped providing the required components that are needed to be able to deliver an embedded preview.  So we have had to try and find other ways to make this work.

Unknown said:

EDIT: tried doing the embedded preview, and Trados actually gave me an error, so... yeah, should've posted this in the old thread. But then, I don't even need the embedded preview at all.

Today I run the click to run version and can actually achieve all three variants of the preview without the problems you descibe so would be inclined to look at external influences first.  These would be things like you security software and available permissions to be able to run both applications smoothly.  Try disabling your security software temporaily, and any backup software you might be running and see if this helps.   If it does add things back in until you find the cause of your issue.

My sole security software is the wretched Windows 10 itself and its built-in security features. I'd gladly disable Windows 10 forever - and switch to Mac - had the different translation software I use been compatible with the latter.

So, which Office SHOULD we buy, then?

Besides, the thing sometimes works fine, and sometimes doesn't, due to which I'm not sure if I can buy your explanation! At this very moment I'm in the process of translating a file that keeps crashing on me every 5th segment or so, and then re-opening. Sometimes it won't even re-open, displaying some lame error (file couldn't be opened, or something) - and then opening again obediently when I re-launch the preview manually.

This doesn't ALWAYS happen with every file, but it does so quite often, with different documents. I don't work with any "special" formats or anything. Just regular .docs / .docxs.

Hi Adrian,

Please don't misunderstand me. I think Studio is a good tool. And worth the money I spend on it. I am just trying to be realistic.

Studio's user base is far smaller than, say, Microsoft Office. So we have to expect a higher price. And Studio has more competition than programs like Microsoft Office, so we have to expect a lot of marketing hype.

For example, what about LookAhead? Every time I see it mentioned in the forums, Paul is still recommending that people turn it off. It is a feature that looks good in the marketing material and helps to sell the product, but SDL's initial try at the coding didn't quite work.

So, what should SDL do? Immediately fix it?

I am just speculating, but I imagine it gets treated like everything else. It probably goes through "triage" and gets assigned a priority, but since it is not a core part of the product, it will get handled after important work on Studio's core functions -- assuming that SDL's limited resources ever allow it to move beyond the core work, and SDL doesn't spend too much time developing new bells and whistles to market.

In the meantime, while we wait for a functional version of LookAhead, it is still being marketed.

New users come in with high expectations based on all of the features that are available. I know my expectations were high at first.

But even though my expectations are lower now and I stay as close as I can to the "out of the box" settings so I won't be blindsided by mysterious bugs that cripple Studio, I still think it is a valuable tool and worth what I pay for it.

I am happy that the basic functions of Studio are slowly improving instead of slowly falling apart at the seams.

And Paul is doing an amazing job of providing support for Studio and acting as a "punching bag" for upset users letting off steam (not a pleasant task at times, I'm sure). He is a priceless part of the product package.

That doesn't mean I am happy about everything. I complain when I find problems and hope they are added to a list somewhere. But after I have complained, it is out of my hands.

Paul and everyone else on the Studio team want to keep their jobs, so they will do what they think is right to survive in a competitive market, not what I want them to do.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services

Hi 

Unknown said:

Perhaps you could test a similar file and send it to me. Then we could compare lag times.

Good idea... I used this one - http://prawnpdf.org/manual.pdf - converted to a DOCX in Studio and then translated without any clean up first.  The file is around 107 pages, 15k words and a PDF conversion so probably fairly similar.  I put my experience here:

Ok Paul, good to know. We all know complaining does tend to make things go faster in business, though. At least here in Middle Europe. I'll watch your vid in past time, thanks for that.

Thank you Paul,

I downloaded the Prawn pdf file and converted to Word using Studio as you did. Your video was excellent and I did everything you did and had the same experience as yours -- except that the embedded preview threw an error telling me to check my Office installation. (That might be because I have installed Office 2019.) But luckily the Microsoft Word preview did work.

There is, however, one additional thing I would like you to try.

Looking back at my previous post, I now see that my description was very unclear.

When I said there was a long lag before a change made to the file showed up in the preview, I should have said that when I confirmed a segment there was a long lag before the change (i.e. the new target segment) was displayed in the preview. Sorry for the confusion.

As I mentioned above, the Microsoft Word preview did work, and when I confirmed a segment in the Prawn file, I once again noted a long lag, in this case 15 seconds, before the new target segment was displayed in the preview.

Hopefully your Studio will be faster.

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
ASAP Language Services

Hi  

Unknown said:

When I said there was a long lag before a change made to the file showed up in the preview, I should have said that when I confirmed a segment there was a long lag before the change (i.e. the new target segment) was displayed in the preview. Sorry for the confusion.

No problem... I can confirm this problem.  Refreshing the segment with the translation in files like this is indeed problematic and very laggy.  This is soomething the developer I discussed this with also confirmed and the solution he's been working on will address this problem.  I can't say when it will be available, can only say it's in hand and eventually we'll have an improved solution for this kind of issue.

Unknown said:

Hopefully your Studio will be faster.

Unfortunately it isn't!  I don't have the Studio on speed you might think I do :-)

Regards

Paul

Thank you Paul,

I am looking forward to the new solution :-)

I was worried that it might not be technically possible to speed things up ...

Best regards,

Bruce Campbell

ASAP Language Services

Paul, so what are your symptoms exactly when it comes to the imperfect preview? I have previously mentioned a number of issues (not merely lag). Do you experience any of them too? (crashing and restarting, etc)

As mentioned by Bruce, in your video you didn't confirm any segments, which is a pity! Did Marketing at SDL not allow it?

On a serious note, though: I'm SO counting on that dev eventually fixing the problem! And I hope it's not just one dev but a whole army of geeks working tirelessly night and day on providing us with the (properly working) functions we paid top dollar for. By the way: you can even get the DPI dev off his post and reassign him to the Preview team - I don't care about the microbuttons anymore! Now that I fixed my input lag issue, working in Studio became actually enjoyable, like in the good old times. Only the preview thing is a huge black spot on this image of a happy translator. Sure you can search everything in PDFs, but that's not what I bought Trados for. I could have stuck with my MemoQ on a free ELM licence.

Enough of complaining, though.

PS. Just got a marketing bullshit mail from SDL on seminars about valuating translation jobs. Not that I'm being a besserwisser, but you could probably reassign the guys behind this too.

Paul, so what are your symptoms exactly when it comes to the imperfect preview? I have previously mentioned a number of issues (not merely lag). Do you experience any of them too? (crashing and restarting, etc)

As mentioned by Bruce, in your video you didn't confirm any segments, which is a pity! Did Marketing at SDL not allow it?

On a serious note, though: I'm SO counting on that dev eventually fixing the problem! And I hope it's not just one dev but a whole army of geeks working tirelessly night and day on providing us with the (properly working) functions we paid top dollar for. By the way: you can even get the DPI dev off his post and reassign him to the Preview team - I don't care about the microbuttons anymore! Now that I fixed my input lag issue, working in Studio became actually enjoyable, like in the good old times. Only the preview thing is a huge black spot on this image of a happy translator. Sure you can search everything in PDFs, but that's not what I bought Trados for. I could have stuck with my MemoQ on a free ELM licence.

Enough of complaining, though.

PS. Just got a marketing bullshit mail from SDL on seminars about valuating translation jobs. Not that I'm being a besserwisser, but you could probably reassign the guys behind this too.