Website Localisation
Thread poster: junior.K
junior.K
junior.K
Cote D'ivoire
Local time: 10:57
English to French
+ ...
Jan 15, 2016

Hi all,

How do you count the words contained on a website for translation? Are there some softwares to make it more accurate and easy for the translator ?

Best regards,


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 10:57
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
The usual way Jan 17, 2016

Unless you're a real expert with the IT side of websites, you'll be well advised to insist on receiving the text in a format such as .doc. Otherwise you can have problems - either you spend time translating stuff that the client doesn't want to pay for, or you miss some. Both of which result from not really knowing the word count.

 
Daryo
Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:57
Serbian to English
+ ...
Be sure that you are given/indicated ONLY Jan 18, 2016

the text that you have to translate [NOT including programmer's comments, variable and directory names and other bits that are NOT intended to be displayed on the screen for the benefit of the regular end user] - from previously asked questions, it appears that some agencies just dump on an unsuspecting translator the whole HTML file, and tough luck if the translator doesn't know enough about HTML (or programming languages) to spot/select only the parts that need translating!

 
Gabriele Demuth
Gabriele Demuth  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:57
English to German
Good suggestion Jan 18, 2016

On your previous thread was a good link I thought? I found it helpful.

On a number occasions I have been asked that question. Although, I do point out that I would need the text in an editable format and that I cannot do technical side as well, but I think I could provide the client with an estimated word count of their site.


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 07:57
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
HTTrack & Cats Cradle Jan 18, 2016

Now and then I get requests for cost estimates on translating web sites, so I had to streamline the process... especially because there must be cheaper vendors at large: I don't recall ever having been assigned such a job.

First, I download the web site to my hard drive, using HTTrack, freeware.

Then I use an ancient version of ... See more
Now and then I get requests for cost estimates on translating web sites, so I had to streamline the process... especially because there must be cheaper vendors at large: I don't recall ever having been assigned such a job.

First, I download the web site to my hard drive, using HTTrack, freeware.

Then I use an ancient version of Cats Cradle, from the days it was free. It's pretty affordable now, USD 50, and I'd buy it immediately if I was ever assigned a web site translation.

Cats Cradle is a tool for translating web sites, which includes its own internal CAT tool. It also has a word-counting feature that will generate a spreadsheet containing all the file names and their respective word counts. This enables the client to remove any page(s) they don't want translated, and recalculate the total.

One caveat with Cats Cradle is that it won't touch links, URLs. In order to explain it simply, let's assume the site is in EN, they want it translated into PT. If I do the job with Cats Cradle, and upload my PT output, it will OVERWRITE exactly all pages in EN with the corresponding translations in PT.

I think that's good. As a translator, if they give me, say, site.com, I have no idea whether their webmaster intends to have site.com.br, br.site.com, site.com/br or what. So I warn them emphatically about the overwriting possibility, and leave them with the entire task of adjusting the links. Of course, I work on a COPY of the downloaded files in a different folder.
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David Murillo
David Murillo  Identity Verified
Ireland
English to Spanish
good tip!! Feb 2, 2016

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

Now and then I get requests for cost estimates on translating web sites, so I had to streamline the process... especially because there must be cheaper vendors at large: I don't recall ever having been assigned such a job.

First, I download the web site to my hard drive, using HTTrack, freeware.

Then I use an ancient version of Cats Cradle, from the days it was free. It's pretty affordable now, USD 50, and I'd buy it immediately if I was ever assigned a web site translation.

Cats Cradle is a tool for translating web sites, which includes its own internal CAT tool. It also has a word-counting feature that will generate a spreadsheet containing all the file names and their respective word counts. This enables the client to remove any page(s) they don't want translated, and recalculate the total.

One caveat with Cats Cradle is that it won't touch links, URLs. In order to explain it simply, let's assume the site is in EN, they want it translated into PT. If I do the job with Cats Cradle, and upload my PT output, it will OVERWRITE exactly all pages in EN with the corresponding translations in PT.

I think that's good. As a translator, if they give me, say, site.com, I have no idea whether their webmaster intends to have site.com.br, br.site.com, site.com/br or what. So I warn them emphatically about the overwriting possibility, and leave them with the entire task of adjusting the links. Of course, I work on a COPY of the downloaded files in a different folder.


Thanks for this poitnt! Really helpful though.


 


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