Understand the basic editing process
Smartcat translation engines are highly accurate, but human editing can still improve the quality, accuracy, and style. Smartcat Editor enables you to work collaboratively with your colleagues, utilize existing translation memories and glossaries, and catch errors.
In this brief article, let’s look at how the basic editing flow works!
Your simple two-step editing process
Follow these two steps to go through and complete the editing stage on your translations.
1. Select your translation project
To begin editing, go to your translations and choose the translation project that you want to edit. After selecting the project, open the task in the Editor, which will show you the source text on the left and its corresponding translation on the right, divided into segments.
Note for freelancers! You’ll need to accept the task to be able to open it – but you can preview the document in the Editor beforehand.
2. Carry out your review
The Smartcat Editor auto-checks your translation for quality and flags any potential errors. Hover over each flagged issue to review and, if required, correct.
To then review and edit your translation in full, check each segment for errors and correct them.
3. Confirm all edits
Once you’ve finished your review, confirm your edits by pressing Ctrl + Enter or the green tick button. Alternatively, confirm all segments at once using the same green tick in the left corner.
If you’re the project owner, download your translation file by clicking the arrow located in the upper-right corner of your screen. And you’re done!
Essential information for optimal editing
Use the following insights to take your editing to another level.
Take advantage of your translation memories
The more you translate with Smartcat, the more you are able to grow your automatic translation memories (TMs). If you have a translation memory already, you’ll see a panel to the right of your screen with TM suggestions to implement into your translation. Double-click on each suggestion to implement it. If there are multiple suggestions, take your pick.
Use the find function for more granular filtering
Use find to work with specific segments or phrases. Select the word or sentence from your source or target languages and press Ctrl + F. Smartcat Editor will then display all instances of this exact word or sentence in your translation, so you can edit them all at once, at the same time.
Understanding automatic progress saving
Smartcat Editor saves all your work as you go automatically, even if you close Editor and reopen it again at a later time. This also applies to unconfirmed segment edits, as long as you don’t clear your cache before confirmation.
Wrapping up: Editing success on Smartcat
Okay, now you’re armed with all the essential information you need to get up and running well with your editing steps! The Smartcat Editor is designed with ease of use and simplicity front of mind, so with each translation, you will get increasingly better at it until it’s second nature!
FAQ
What are the differences between editing and proofreading?
During editing, an editor will make changes and offer suggestions in order to improve the overall quality of the writing. The goal of the editor is to improve the fluency, the consistency, the accuracy and the overall readability of the writing.
Proofreading is not as thorough and is a cheaper service. It's still an important part of the process. The proofreader will mostly focus on general language mistakes such as grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors.