Technical document translation software comes with its own set of benefits, because the translation of technical documents comes with a unique set of challenges.

For example, highly specialized vocabulary and abstract concepts are tough for machine translation software systems to understand. In other words, your text is not going to be accurately translated by your standard machine translation platform alone.

That’s right. Even today, human intervention is needed in the translation of technical documents. However, there is a way to streamline the process.

How? By opting for translation software for technical documents that caters to those who need to translate scientific or technical content—content whose end users’ safety, well-being or success is highly dependent on the accuracy of the translation.

Continue reading to learn about the core benefits of a technical document translator tool. Then, get our recommendation for the best one to use for enterprises and organizations.

4 Key Benefits of Technical Document Translation Software

It’s important to familiarize yourself with the benefits of technical document translation software so that you can look for these when shopping for the ideal language translation tool.

Whether you’re involved in a web development project requiring accurate translation of XML files for an app, or you’re tasked with translating a manufacturer’s manual for biomedical devices, we have you covered.

Here are the top 4 beneficial features of technical document translation software and what they mean for your team.

1. Learns Your Terms & Phrases (Dynamic Machine Learning)

When you invest in technical document translation software, make sure it comes with Dynamic Machine Learning. This will be one of the top benefits to you.

Dynamic Machine Learning refers to artificial intelligence that uses Translation Memory (TM) technology to save you time and money on repeat technical translations. With this technology, the same word or phrase will never need to be translated by a human twice.

So, why is this important to you?
One of the reasons that technical teams hire costly translation professionals who are skilled in a particular field of study is because the technical vocabulary and abstract concepts cannot be understood by translation machines.

You often need a human to translate a technical word or concept because translation engines themselves are not accurate translators. The engines are simply not smart enough yet.

With Dynamic Machine Learning, your translator’s words will be stored in the translation system so that they (or you) never need to translate the same words or phrases twice in one sitting or ever again in the future.

Dynamic Machine Learning really helps with repetitive text. When you edit the first instance of repetitive text, Pairaphrase will search through your file and find all the repetitive instances. Simultaneously, it updates those translations for you.

This will save you lots of time and money. Dynamic Machine Learning works across a batch of files, too.

Essentially, you’re building a glossary of terms, phrases and concepts that your translation software remembers forever for your company or team. Your edits are used to train the machine translation on your company’s language and technical jargon and are stored for future reuse in a Translation Memory.

These edited translations are automatically applied to future file translations and gisting.

This is particularly helpful when it comes to translating technical documents that often have a long shelf life, but still need frequent revisions. Typically, 90% of the text of a technical document stays the same year-to-year.

With Dynamic Machine Learning, your human translator only edits what’s new, and the system will highlight exactly what hasn’t been previously translated by them. This saves significant time and money on the translation of technical documents.

2. Preserves Technical Document Format & Layout (Automatic File Formatting)

When it comes to technical document translation software, another benefit is its ability to retain your file formatting, images and layout. To get the best formatting results, we suggest that you leave plenty of white space on your pages as some languages expand by as much as 20% more than English.

In any software in which you upload a document and download the translation, you would expect the output to look as similar as possible to your original document, but with the text in a new language.

Well, that’s not the case with all translation software.

So make sure to only choose technical document translation software with automatic file formatting. Otherwise, you could spend countless hours reformatting the text and adjusting the placement of your images.

3. Optimized for Technical Documents (Multi-File Compatibility)

Another benefit of opting for technical document translation software is that it will be optimized to work with the technical documents that are important to your team.

If there are specific file formats you work with, make sure you view the list of file formats that the software is compatible with before you invest in it.

It’s best if you look for software that’s compatible with a multitude of file formats. Oh, and don’t forget speed. Any software you choose should also be as fast as possible to process multiple large files (batch translations) at the same time.

A note for developers of XML files: Look for technical document translation software that works well with XML tags. When you translate an XML file, the tags need to stay in place in the file and they need to be left in the source language. Find software that protects XML tags and hides them from the translation editing view.

4. Protects Confidential Information (Data Security)

Data security is crucial to protecting intellectual property and trade secrets that might be contained within the files that are uploaded to technical document translation software.

Make sure the software you choose comes with enterprise-level security, especially if you’re working with highly regulated industries.

Here is what you should look for:

• SHA-2 and 4096-bit encryption
• 256-bit SSL certification
• Encrypted file storage in transit, in use and at rest via AWS
• “No Return” to machine translation providers
• PCI-compliant payment processing via Stripe
• HIPAA, SOC1 and ISO27001 compliant datacenters
• Multi-Factor Authentication
• TLS 1.2 (Transport Layer Security)
• Last login date and time display in footer
• Automatic session logoff if idle
• Password expires after one year
• Auto-lock after failed password attempts
• Device Authentication
• Compliant with GDPR & HIPAA
• Single Sign-On
• Supports secure browsers; Chrome, Firefox, Edge & Safari
• Third-party security audit & assessment records

Also, the translation software company that owns the solution shouldn’t repurpose your data in any way that could compromise the confidentiality of your data. This includes sharing, indexing or publishing it with any search engines.

Check with them before using the software.

Recommended Software

At Pairaphrase, we provide the all-around best technical document translation software available for enterprises & organizations. This is because we’re hyper-focused on ease-of-use combined with the powerful technology you need to get smart, safe and fast translation of technical content. It’s the best alternative to traditional technical translation services.

Not to mention Pairaphrase includes all of the 4 benefits we listed above, plus more!

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