Program

Welcome to Wordfast Forward 2018 and a few brief announcements about the program.

Networking is one of the oldest activities of mankind, those who succeed at it are best performers and get more business. There are a few simple and effective tricks that you can use to enhance your networking skills thus attracting new clients and opportunities.

Poolside

Product manager John Daniel will highlight some of the latest improvements, bug fixes, and new features that have made their way into Wordfast Pro 5 since the last user conference.

During this session, Yves will show all of the new features and improvements that have made it into the latest major release of Wordfast Classic, WFC 7.0.

This session will demonstrate how you can take advantage of advanced TM features available in WFA when connected to Wordfast Pro. We will also see how to improve the quality of your TMs by taking advantage of the TM maintenance features in WFA. Attend this session if you want to use WFA as Cloud TM to host your TMs and keep them tidy.

Buffet lunch in the hotel restaurant, overlooking the pool and ocean.

Wordfast Server is the lesser known product in the Wordfast family. Many think it is only aimed at large organizations that have deep pockets. This session will demonstrate with a hands-on approach how Wordfast Server works and how it can be used not only by large entities, but also by small groups of freelancers working on the same project, individual translators using more than one computer, or individual translators using multiple versions of Wordfast (e.g. Classic, Pro 3, Pro 5). During the session, we will set up Wordfast Server from scratch on a normal Windows laptop, upload a few sample TMs and glossaries and show how to access them in Pro 5, Pro 3, Classic, and Anywhere. Session participants will be able to do it at the same time using their own laptops.

Translators often need to check large numbers of terms on the Internet as efficiently as possible. Without the right tool, this entails repeatedly copying terms, opening your browser, pasting terms into search boxes, setting search parameters, clicking buttons, copying solutions, returning to Wordfast and pasting the terms found. Are you tired already?

IntelliWebSearch semi-automates the terminology search process so your task can be completed more rapidly and effortlessly. This brief presentation will show IntelliWebSearch’s basic features to see how it can be used to speed up and simplify terminology searches.

Poolside

What kind of processes do you have in place for translation quality assurance? Besides a spellchecker and revision by another person, Wordfast products include a host of quality controls to help eliminate hard to spot errors or inconsistencies. During this session, we will compare the controls across the product suite and explain when they would be appropriate to run. Finally, we will discuss some basic, yet oft-overlooked, procedures that should be followed pre- and post-Wordfast.

During the session, Ruth will cover the basics of the winemaking process from grape to glass, with a focus on the specific vocabulary used in the field. She will then delve into the art of identifying aromas and tasting wines. Finally, she will explain common pitfalls in translating for the wine industry, and how to make your tasting note translation sound like it’s been written by a wine expert.

Check out the Networking page for details. Please wear white with a blue or red accessory (for pictures’ sake!).

Understanding the principles of terminology in WFP5 is important to ensure consistent terminology throughout your translation. How to add or edit a new term, how to import a glossary for a project, how to edit both the glossary and the blacklist, how to organize glossaries and preferences that best suit your needs, how to connect to a remote glossary, and how to manage glossary compatibility are just a few of the topics this session is devoted to.

Translators and project managers increasingly need to be involved with "X-files", file formats that have the letter X (which usually stands for "eXchange") in them: TMX, XML, TXML, TXLF, XLIFF, TBX, you name it. This session will explain each of them in layman’s terms: what their purpose is, how Wordfast can make use of them, what their common challenges are, and various tools and tricks to deal with them.

Poolside, overlooking the ocean.

Wordfast Pro 5 includes features that allow you to filter the text to be translated based on different criteria: content, segment length, translation memory matching, among others. With the right strategies, you can optimize your translation session by grouping segments with similar issues in order to manage them faster. During this session, Reginaldo will show you how to implement these strategies and will call upon participants’ experience to develop new ones.

This session will explain how you can leverage WFA features to handle work in connection with MS Word documents, SDLXLIFF files from SDL Trados and PDFs. We will also cover the revision process and look at some advanced features related to it.

Buffet lunch in the hotel restaurant, overlooking the pool and ocean.

In software development, there are three main types of updates: bug fixes, improvements, or new features. During this session, we’ll see how the development teams for each Wordfast tool interpret your user stories in order to implement bug fixes, features, or improvements. They will illustrate with examples from users like yourself and tell you the best way to let your voice be heard so you get “all your features”!

Wordfast Classic still has a lot to offer, whether you have stubbornly stood by its side, return to it for a familiar experience translating Word files, or eyeball it from afar as a Pro user. Come to this short, discussion-style session to find out about Classic features you might never have heard of, features you have seen in the interface but never learned how to use, or to contribute your own gems.

Poolside, overlooking the ocean.

It can be challenging to accept a project with XML or other tagged text files because it is not always obvious how to separate the translatable text from external tags and other noise. The purpose of this session is to show the process for isolating translatable text and then creating custom filters for WFP 3 and 5.

Localizing software is tricky business, especially when you are in the process of becoming a localizer. Wordfast intern Ziqi Zhou will walk you through the process she and her team used to localize Wordfast Pro 5 and share the difficulties they encountered along the way as well as best practices for software localization. 

During this panel session, the product manager of each Wordfast tool will discuss their current roadmap and how it intersects with industry trends and other software. The moderator will ask participants to contribute and express their most wanted features. An interactive voting will take place so product managers can go home and redraw their maps based on your stories.

Stick around for a prize drawing, a few closing remarks, and to find out where next year’s conference will take place. 

We’ll see you next year!