the game translator’s toolkit

The Game Translator ToolkitOr how to boost your productivity

By Anthony TeixeiraJapanese/English > French TranslatorIGDA Localization SIG Co-chair

Ctrl + Backspace: Deletes a wordCtrl + Up/Down: Jumps to beginning/end of paragraphShift + Left/Right: (Un)selects a letter at a timeCtrl + Shift + Left/Right: Selects a word

It’s not all about finding new toolsDid you know the following shortcuts?You can use them right now

Lack of timeRoutineWe simply don’t know such shortcuts even exist

Why don’t we make the most of our tools?

To work more efficiently, we first need to be aware of what is holding us back

5 tools ready out of the box- XBench- Okapi Rainbow- WinMerge- XLTools- RDBMerge

AutoHotkey, a scripting&automation tool

Introducing two types of tools

Free until v2.9 QA checks

InconsistenciesGlossary mismatchesMissing numbers, tagsPunctuation issues (double spacing, unmatched parentheses)Repeated words

Converts various formats into TMX

1. XBench

Useful for large projects, especially when several translators are involved

Offers all the basic options you need from such a tool (stop words, min/max number of words per term, etc.)

Many other features (QA, batch search&replace, translation package creation, etc.)

Open source, cross-platform and regularly updated

2. Okapi Rainbow (Term extraction)

Tells you what lines have been changed, deleted or added between two versions of a file

Useful if you need to quickly compare two versions of a text

3. WinMerge

...you may also use Microsoft Word’s Compare function

Free version available with the most important featuresData cleaning: removes trailing/double spaces (common issue with CAT tools)Switches case on any range of cells

4. XLTools

Merges Excel files/tabsSaves time for QA/proofreading, word counts and other tasks when strings are spread over a large number of tabs/files

5. RDBMerge

Okapi Olifant (TM management)Notepad++ (Text and code editor)

Other recommendations

Scripting and automation toolMaps hotkeys to scripts or mouse/keyboard operationsRelatively easy to learn for non-programmers (macro recorder available on AHK’s website)Runs in the background, works in any software

Introducing AutoHotkey (AHK)

Automate online searchesRun/Switch to the program or folder of your choiceMap hotkeys to different key combinationsSwitch caseCount characters in selected textOutput special ©haracte®sGenerate text patternsAbout anything?

What can AHK do?

^+g:: run "http://google.com/search?q=%clipboard%"return

"^+g::“ represents the hotkey ("Ctrl + Alt + g" here)"run“ is an instruction used to run a program/open a page. Here, we’re opening a Google search with the content of the clipboard“return“ marks the end of the function

Example Script

For more information about the tools introduced in this document, feel free to contact me at: contact@at-it-translator.comThe AutoHotkey script used during this session is available at the following address: http://bit.ly/AHK-Scripts It comes with comments and links to help you create or customize your own scripts

Thank you!