I am often surprised how many people still work with very old versions of memoQ, though I shouldn't be. Royalties continue to dribble in from books I wrote covering memoQ versions 6 and 2013 R2, and I still see questions from people using versions 4 and 5 as many of us anticipate the release of version 10 later in 2021. In several of the guides I wrote, I tried to give a summary of important changes in versions which are relevant to individual translators, but that's really a rather subjective, moving target and a somewhat thankless task. Well, that task is now a little easier, and you can handle it yourself.
The new "memoQ Features You Missed" web page makes version comparisons a lot easier. In some cases.
Unfortunately, the current version of this page only permits comparisons from the horrible 8.0 ("Adriatic") version or later to the present version. I can hack the URL to make it appear that a comparison is made from version 6.0, for example, but only features introduced in version 8.1 or later will be listed. It is, nonetheless, rather useful for most of us.
I hope that the company adds more information to cover older versions, because - as stated - there are still quite a few people out there on rather old versions, and a more complete summary of improvements might prove helpful in decisions to upgrade.
This page has also helped to settle a few arguments about the extent to which some recent versions are useful or not to individual translators doing particular types of assignments. The most recent version changes have been largely focused on server-based processes of little relevance to individuals in most cases, but for certain specialties there have been new features of good value introduced.
I expect that the value of this tool - if it is maintained by the software provider - will continue to increase with time. It will certainly save ME a lot of time answering questions about whether it is "worthwhile" to upgrade.
Thank you, Kevin! Count me among the users of MQ 2015! Every year I contemplate upgrading to the latest version, wonder what I am missing, and then sort of leave it there. Will definitely check out the "What am I missing" page (and hope that Kilgray eventually adds information all the way back to MQ 2015). Thanks again. Your blog is such a valuable resource.
ReplyDeleteWell, memoQ 2015 (version 7.8) is only one version back from what they already have, and it was the only version available for three years. There are many people still using it, so extending the comparison at least that far would surely help many people. Thinking about it though, 8.0 was junk, and many of the improvement later actually fixed things that got messed up in 8.0, so I suppose an simple comparison of 8.0 with the current version would tell a 7.8 user all they really need to know.
DeleteI guess it's inherent in serving such a diverse user base, but it's hard to tell whether the changes MemoQ advertises would really impact my use experience very much. There's some stuff on the page that seems nice-to-have, like improved MT integration and terminology tools, but I suspect that the things for which I would gladly shell out the Rather Steep Cost of an upgrade (like getting rid of MemoQ's weird prohibition on wildcards in Korean concordance searches, or being able to integrate >10M-unit local TMs), probably wouldn't get mentioned on that page even if they were actually available.
ReplyDeleteSam, you should pursue the Korean issue; that sounds like a very serious defect.
DeleteI'm not aware of a size limit per se for translation memories, though import speeds for very large ones can be brutally slow. If you are talking about DGT data, I've explained better approaches to that in articles on EUR-LEX and elsewhere. There are also external tools like the one from Farkas Andras which may serve you better. At some point, though, excessive TM resources make concordance searches untenable, which negates the primary value of a translation anyway. It's not really about high percentage "matches" as so many wrongly assume, and talk like that by sales people and second-rate trainers serves no one well.