Polish Translator’s Blog

USING A CAT TOOL WITHOUT SPENDING A PENNY OR A CENT  So, here I am again after four months. And I wouldn't be writing this, if one of my clients wasn't doing maintenance of their online translation system, preventing me from downloading files for offline work at the weekend. Nowadays, translators working with translation agencies are often asked what CAT tool they use and/or are even expected to use a CAT tool. A CAT tool, regardless of the vendor, is your translation environment. It converts the original to its internal format (more often than not it is a flavor of the xliff format), it helps you re-use your translations by saving them to a translation memory, and helps you be consistent with terminology, by offering the glossary or termbase functionality). When you are done translating, it converts your translation back to the original format. These are the most basic functions of a CAT tool. But what if you're just starting out as a freelancer and cannot af