Frame's File Comparison Feature

[Reng, Dr. Winfried]

Hi,

> What you're considering is (or should be) neither necessary 
> nor desirable. Your translation vendor should be using a 
> translation memory (and you should request a copy of it, 
> since you've paid for it, so that you're not locked into this 
> vendor because it's holding your translation memory hostage). 
> 
> When you send an updated set of files for a book that's 
> already been translated once, the unchanged paragraphs will 
> match the translation memory. Only the portions that are new 
> or changed need to be translated. 
> 
> If your vendor isn't using translation memory, find a new 
> one. If it is using translation memory, there's no point in 
> you trying to dissect files and reassemble them -- you'd gain 
> nothing and risk all kinds of problems. 

Of course almost all translation agencies use a translation memory
system nowadays.

If the vendor uses a translation memory system, such a system can 
easily check the number of non-translated segments (a segment is a
translation unit) and segments which can be pretranslated or 
translated with the help of fuzzy-matches.
However, the vendor will still charge for pretranslated segments.
The reason is that often the terminology must be changed with
new text. Or references to a previous segment will not be correct
any longer, because e.g. you inserted another segment. The reference
may still be correct in English but not in a foreign language.
The costs per pretranslated segment depend on your vendor, mostly
around 25 % of non-translated segments.

Best regards

Winfried