Localization Academy

Memsource – First TMS Experience

Memsource is a popular TMS used in the localization industry. In this video, you’ll see my (not so) first experience with the tool. My goal is to translate a simple DOC and XLS. What was it like? 😲

Welcome to the new series where we look at UX of all the TMS tools in localization. I’ve documented the whole journey with Memsource from sign-up and project creation, through translating the DOC and XLS in the online editor using MT, to finally downloading the translated files.


Andrej Zito 

Hi, my name is Andrej Zito Welcome to my new series in this new video series, I want to be sharing with you my first experience with all of the TMS tools that we have in our industry. I want to see what the different companies are offering on their website. How is the registration process? How is your first experience logging into the UI? How do you create a project? How do you create a job? How do you get files translated? And then finally, how do you get and what is the quality of the files that you get after the translation? And in this very first video, we will look at memsource.

Andrej Zito 

Now what other files that we will be translating? I have something special but very simple.

Andrej Zito 

” There is a great horror beneath the man”

Andrej Zito 

So recently playing this game called Darkest Dungeon, so I copied the text from the wiki about this game, it’s a very short one. Here we have a title or something bold and italic. There are a couple of links here. And then we have a simple spreadsheet with the list of the DLCs for this game. So these are the two files very simple that we’re going to try to translate. Using all the themes tools have to be honest with you. In the beginning, I mentioned that I’m trying to capture my very first experience with a TMS tool, so that it’s all authentic. So just to be completely fair, I did use memsource before for some of my training projects. So I do, I am familiar with the UI a little bit. But I haven’t used memsource in maybe three months.

Andrej Zito 

So it was still a little bit. I’ve still consider myself to be a newbie when it comes to main source. And then of course, some of the design critic that I have still remains nothing has changed over time. final note that I have for you everything that I say in this video is just my personal opinion. No one would talk about design and style. It’s very old, very preferential. So let’s go memsource Here we are memsource. Helping global companies translate efficiently. Okay. Seems that the main focus is on translation. Here we have a bunch of clients. Very nice to try to show Thank you. I guess we have benefits reduced translation costs with AI, automate process, connections and use API.

Andrej Zito 

What do you translate? Okay, multiple different things. The website looks very nice and clean. I would say the the colors are very, very nice and clean. Blue as the primary color and then we have some mix of white and grayish. It looks good. So what do we want to do? We want to have a free trial. Free Trial price. Simply select the edition you wish to trial. no credit card required. Thank you most popular so you can get everything except for two enterprise as a trial. That’s good. Let’s go with the most popular Team 130 day free trial. Okay, so it opens a new blank sign up for key medicine. I have read sign up with email. What email Am I going to put there? I’m going to use my new username, Andre ml passwords except weak passwords for now. Let’s see the robot your account has been created.

Andrej Zito 

You’ll be redirected in a few months okay. Your account has been created please take a few moments to enter the following info before proceeding. First name, Andrej Zito. Country, Canada. Phone, I’m not giving you my phone. Finish. This is the first screen that I see as a new user. Obviously you can see the big emphasis on subscribing. Says we are on a trial version. When it comes to the first impression. It looks nice and clean. The colors are identical with the homepage. The only extra thing now is the green thing I’m wondering if they are using green anywhere else? Or is it just in UI? There’s a bit of a splash of green or some green. So yeah, I think they might be using it the same way that I use the orange golden color for my website. So my primary color is purple. And they have an orange for some special things. But okay, it’s great.

Andrej Zito 

So the sidebar on the left side is collapsible. You can resize it, but there’s no need to do that. We have projects, can you? Oh, the plus means to create something. Got it. I thought it was expanding the project. Typically, it would be on the left side if it was for expanding and collapsing. Great. plus minus. So that’s all acute. What else do we have here? Oh, this is a home I haven’t seen before. Oh, it’s a dashboard. Show session analytics. I don’t we don’t need this right. It’s too much. So let’s go to projects. And let’s say we want to create a new project. This is the only thing that I don’t like from my experience about memsource is these buttons. I think they’re too small, at least for my taste. So yeah, I would just make the buttons maybe slightly bigger. But that’s the only thing. They seem like very techie, like tech people that maybe like to use small things like this. But the reason why I’m reporting is this that probably my own personal experience from using all the software is that the buttons are usually bigger when it comes to UI.

Andrej Zito 

Okay, let’s create a new project. Cool, what darkest dungeon. Source language we’ll do English. Let’s say English. You as target languages are going to do German. German. Okay, so he here we have a selection of the target languages. I’ll just do one probably I think maybe I should do two. Yeah, let’s do two as the German notice. Three. That’s a German so I guess this is how you add the language Japanese. Japan Oh, I didn’t pick the country. sought me do this. And what else check let me do Czech, Czech Czech Republic. This I’m not sure why it needs to be there. if let’s say for a check, you only have check spoken in Czech Republic. I don’t know why it is there. Twice if it helps anyone but Okay, let’s stick to the same format. Here. I would prefer to see this. Polar because the selection is small. You only see 12345 languages at the same time. Also, I’m not sure about the colors. But I guess this was a good thing thing as a background for these fields. I don’t know. Anyway, due date. Okay, we have a date and time picker. Well, you can adjust the time using sliders. So let’s say we’ll do next. Next week status to new project what are the other options assigned complete canceled? I don’t know what assignments right now.

Andrej Zito 

Note test note purchase order we don’t have anything. Then this is what I also remembered. There’s a bunch of a bunch of a bunch of settings for project. I’m not going to go through them. I was my impression from the whole memsource thing is that it’s like I was saying when it comes to the buttons. It’s very techie tech heavy. It’s not like for the people who are totally dumb when it comes to software. To Yeah, let’s just create a project that we created a project. Okay, now we have what are the options. See like these buttons look bigger. They now have my icons here and icons have a lower corner. Trust, then the text. I’m not sure I typically use the same color is it the same color is just that the image is so small that the white seems so insignificant on the blue. I like the fact that the leap gets turns red when you hover. There, we have more options, which is to archive, okay.

Andrej Zito 

Okay, we don’t want to bother with this thing. Um, so jobs, jobs, I think this is the individual files that you upload and creates a job within a project. So let’s try it. You get a new job. And I’ll go to my computer, see work you to production. Production software, you x. And I can select these two files. Good. Okay, it says two files. Okay, I have a list of them on the mouse over. It’s okay. Target languages Czech, German Japanese provider, we don’t have any provider except for me. Pre translated, we don’t want to put our state now alternate off due date for this job. Doesn’t matter. But let’s say we wanted to one day earlier. Notify providers. Okay, so here, I guess you can select the notifications. interval. Most this meant, again, we have a bunch of crazy settings.

Andrej Zito 

This is maybe what I don’t understand could be smarter. Like why we have file import settings for all these things. If technically, I’m just creating a job for a Word document and a spreadsheet. So this could be technically simplified by detecting the files that I have here, but maybe the tool doesn’t know about it right now. Because I didn’t submit and upload the files yet. I don’t know. So let’s just go ahead and create this. Okay, so what is this? This is the still the project right? So we have a dashboard, zero issues, progress. 0% languages, Czech, German, Japanese, okay. And here are the jobs that we created jobs to get ID for each job. How does it do it? Okay. Does it based on the file first for all the languages and it goes to the next file. Okay. And analyzes so I already know how this works. So I select all the jobs like analyze, analyze, and wars analyze. Now, analyze is complete. I have it here. Let me click it. So this is my analyzes summary two files, worth 448 words total for two files. Okay, so it is a summary. Oh, yeah, it’s a summary for check. Got it.

Andrej Zito 

So it’s splitting the analyzes based on the language. Alright, so we have our analyze this. And now let’s say that we go and translate the file. How do I do that? If I just click the file? It opens web editor memsource editor where the translator can type in translation. How many things do we have here? Can I pull it in somehow? How do I pull it in? I double click we know this is wrong. So the game state same Darkest Dungeon Control Enter nice it’s pulling automatically from the empty very good. Darkest Dungeon and hardcore should be confirmed. Held then yes. Okay, the text good. First Darkest Dungeon contemplate what emotional attribute does a life of action take? Sure. Enemies Mark Darkest Dungeon sematic at its high gather. I think this one is this one I need to move attack when stressing a gameplay but glided foot I never should was Tyler washtech Okay. Should I need to move the stack? Please remember something about German writer is the one.

Andrej Zito 

And that’s it that we translate everything. We translate everything good. Very good. Very good. Very good. Now, do I just press complete? It feels like something’s heating up. Can I leave with you? Your account will be the activate. What? jobs that are sadly set to complete. Okay, let me go back here. Okay, it’s completed. So in the same way, let me do German DLC. spread sheet. DLC. That’s DLC and below we have a preview of the table. I think it looks pretty, pretty good. Crimson court.

Andrej Zito 

Anything else? Nope. That’s it. Oh, I forgot to accept the job. Okay, accept it. And I complete don’t wait. Close. Refresh. And we should be good with German. Yep. 33%. Progress. Done. Okay, good. Now, let me do the same thing for the other two languages. Leaving. Now we have the we have all the jobs. Translated very good. Now, how do I get all the files back? Download? I can download something. Let’s see what happens. Okay, download have options here. So a little bit weird that it doesn’t show the arrow? Normally, I would expect an arrow here if it has options, but that’s okay. Where’s your file? bilingual? No, we don’t want anything bilingual a completed file or final? What’s the difference? Oh, I cannot download the final file. Maybe it’s because the workflow is set up that there’s one stage behind the I mean after. So let’s just download the completed file waiting for a cloud.

Andrej Zito 

Okay, waiting because it’s generating the files. And it’s download it. Let’s get that lip source. Translated files are back. downloads. This one. Okay, we have all the files here. Beautiful. So let’s look at German. That’s our main thing. So this is the file as they got a chrome straight from them source. And it looks great. The formatting is the same. I mean, it looks the same. This one formatting again. The links seem to be okay. does it lead? Yep. It’s the same link. Yep. It looks good. So let me just check refund the Japanese one. Yeah, this is Japanese, but not much I can say about that. Let’s look at the spreadsheet. So that’s that one. And this is my original spreadsheet, the English one. So it looks good. It looks great.

Andrej Zito 

So that’s it for memsource If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing. I will definitely be covering all the TMS tools in our industry in the later future videos so you don’t want to miss out. You liked this video, please give it a thumbs up consider subscribing.

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