Chapter 1. About OmegaT - introduction
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# Chapter 1. About OmegaT - introduction

## 1. OmegaT highlights

OmegaT is a free multi platform Computer Aided Translation tool, with the following highlights:

- Translation memory: OmegaT stores your translations in a translation memory file. At the same time, it can use memories files from previous translations for reference. Translation memories can be very useful in a translation where there are numerous repetitions or reasonably similar segments of text. OmegaT uses translation memories to store your previous translations and then suggest likely translations for the text you are currently working on.

  These translation memories can be very useful when a document that has already been translated needs to be updated. Unchanged sentences are automatically translated, while updated sentences are shown with the translation of the most similar, older sentence. Modifications to the original document are thus handled with greater ease. If you are supplied with previously created translation memories , for example by your translation agency or your client, OmegaT is able to use these as reference memories.

  OmegaT uses the standard tmx file format to store and access translation memories, which guarantees that you can exchange your translation material with other CAT applications supporting this file format.

- Terminology management: Terminology management is important for translation consistency. OmegaT uses glossaries containing translations of single words or small phrases: a simplified bilingual dictionary for a specific domain. For your reference, OmegaT displays the translation of any words that happen to be present in the segment that currently has focus.

- Translation process: Imagine having to translate something; from a single file to a folder containing subfolders each with a number of files in a variety of formats. When you let OmegaT know the files that you need to translate, it looks for the files it understands based on file filtering rules, recognizes the textual parts within them, splits up the text groups according to the segmentation rules, and displays the segments one by one so that you can proceed with the translation. OmegaT stores your translations and proposes possible translations from similar segments in previous memory files. When you are ready to view the final product, you can export the translated files, open them in the appropriate application and view the translation in the final format...

## 2. Summary of chapters

This documentation is intended both as a tutorial and as a reference guide. Here is a short summary of the chapters and their contents.

- Instant start guide: this chapter is intended as an Instant Start Guide for beginners and “tyre kickers”, showing the complete procedure from opening a new translation project through to completing the translation.

- Installing and running OmegaT: this chapter is useful when you first begin using OmegaT. It contains the specific instructions on how to install OmegaT and run it on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. For advanced users, the chapter describes the command line mode and its possibilities.

- The user interface,Main Menu and Keyboard Shortcuts: these two chapters are likely to be heavily consulted, since they explain the user interface of OmegaT and the functions available via the main menu and the keyboard shortcuts.

- Project properties, OmegaT Files and Directories: a project in the context of OmegaT is the piece of work that OmegaT as a CAT tool is able to handle. This chapter describes the project properties, such as the source and target languages. The second of these chapters describes the various subfolders and files in a translation project and their role as well as other user and application files associated with OmegaT.

- Editing field behavior: a short chapter describing how to set up the editing behavior of the segment being translated.

- Working with plain text and Working with formatted text: these two chapters explain certain important points concerning texts to be translated, such as the encoding set (in the case of plain text files) and tag handling (in the case of formatted text).

- Translation memories: explains the role of the various subdirectories containing translation memories, and provides information on other important aspects relating to translation memories.

- Segmentation:translation memory tools work with textual units called segments. In OmegaT, segments can be based on paragraphs or on segmentation rules. Paragraph segmentation is less frequently used, but can be useful in cases of so-called "creative" texts. The rule-based segmentation is usually synonymous with sentence-based segmentation. A number of rule sets are provided while additional rules can be defined by the user, as described in this chapter.

- Searches and Regular expressions: Searches in OmegaT can be as simple as "list segments with the word 'kangaroo' ". They can also be complex, allowing for instance to search for segments with two or more consecutive spaces. In this case the regular expression ^s^s+ would be used to find and list the offending segments. Regular expressions are also used extensively in the segmentation rules.

- Dictionaries, Glossaries, Machine translation , Spellchecker, LanguageTool: OmegaT supports an extensive use of dictionaries and glossaries. If an Internet connection is available, various MT services such as Google Translate and Microsoft Translator can be used from within OmegaT. If spell checking is activated, spelling mistakes and typos are recognized and can be corrected during translation. The openSource LanguageTool can be used to correct common grammatical and stylistic mistakes.

- Miscellanea: deals with other issues of interest, such as how to avoid losing data.

- Appendices contain the following information

  - OmegaT on the web: information regarding on-line OmegaT resources

  - Languages: the ISO list of languages and language codes is provided

  - Keyboard shortcuts in the editor: the list of shortcuts used in the editor

  - Shortcuts customization: shortcuts can be customized to your personal preferences

  - Introduction into Tokenizer and Scripting plugins

  - Team Projects

  - Legal notices and Acknowledgements

- Keyword index: an extensive keyword index is provided to help the reader find the relevant information.

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