CHUCKTRANS utilises 30 years of practical experience in translating documents. This is supported with modern electronic hard- and software, without losing the individual approach to every client.

CHUCKTRANS works principally with Microsoft documents, i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint files. All such files are then translated using SDL/ Trados 2007 Freelance Workbench and Multiterm Translation memory software. Note that:

• TRANSLATION MEMORY ensures consistency of translation and increases speed and efficiency, particularly in longer documents.
• As the name implies, TRANSLATION MEMORY stores translated sentences, phrases or chunks of text and automatically recalls a stored text if it is repeated in the document.
• PDF text files can usually be processed normally following conversion to a format suitable for SDL Trados.
• Hardcopy documents can of course be accepted, but these take considerably longer to translate and the format may not be identical to the original. Longer text documents may require scanning to PDF and subsequent conversion to Word, depending on the volume of text to be translated.
• Very short or handwritten documents will usually be translated without using translation memory.
• TRANSLATION MEMORY is not to be confused with MACHINE TRANSLATION, where the computer offers an automatic translation of a document. Although machine translation can often provide an initial rough draft, a human translator is invariably required to remove sometimes embarrassing mistranslations! It is the experience of CHUCKTRANS that correction of machine-translated texts often requires more time and effort than the straight translation using TRANSLATION MEMORY.

CHUCKTRANS uses a wide range of specialist and general dictionaries, both in electronic forms and as reference books.