Happy or unhappy with Lingo?

[Phlawm53]

Based on my initial experiences with Flare 6 in March, I successfully convinced my current client to use Flare as its documentation authoring and production tool. I'm now hoping to learn whether using Lingo will be an equally happy affair.

My client has the need to translate the Flare documentation projects I'm creating for them into French; other languages quite likely will follow.

The Lingo product looks like it might be a very good way to attack this problem. However, I'm concerned that the relatively small amount of activity on the Lingo forum, particularly the relatively low number of answers to users' posted questions, indicates that the product isn't all that mature or widely used.

With that in mind, can anyone please comment on favorable or unfavorable experiences with Lingo? I'd be especially interested in learning about:

• Ease or difficulty with initial use
• Issues or "challenges" arising from generating localized content as either PDF or WebHelp targets

Anything else that might help me make a decision will be appreciated.

Cheers & thanks for your help,
Riley
SFO

[Nita Beck]

Riley, I'll get the ball rolling, though with a non-answer. I am neither happy or unhappy with Lingo because I have not yet had an opportunity to use it. I anticipate that someday I will need it, but none of my clients' work has needed to be translated. (I have the peculiar circumstance of having all of my active clients' products being sold exclusively in the U.S.)

Like you, I wonder if the lack of activity on the forum is due to Lingo's not yet being widely used, but that's just a hunch and says nothing about its quality. Perhaps it hasn't yet built up a head of steam in the marketplace, the way Flare has.

[RamonS]

My limited use of Lingo showed that I think it is a good tool for translations of Flare projects. I find it easy to use. Some things come to mind as to why it appears as that Lingo has not much of use:
- it is still a fairly new product on the market
- it is tailored to work with Flare projects, but not much else
- translators rather use their trusted tools rather than buying a new product
- translators are rarely Flare users and may be confused and intimidated by the Lingo UI
- most online help systems for US software are never translated because the bulk of the software is marketed solely to the US and maybe Canada
- help systems get rarely translated even if the software is sold in non-English speaking countries (I grew up in Germany and I know that you either use the English version or you don't use the software at all)
- most translating is outsourced to translation services, so companies using Flare may not necessarily care which tool the translators use

So, taking all that into account, the area where Lingo is the tool of choice and makes perfect sense is quite limited. I'm speculating here, but I think that drawing conclusions based on a handful of posts in a forum doesn't do service to Lingo. This is a peer to peer forum and when there aren't many peers knowing Lingo well then it is difficult to produce answers. There is also MadCap support who may absorb a lot of the questions to begin with because the translators probably don't hang out in a tech writer forum.

Do you translate the project? If yes, using Lingo is likely the way to go. The output format is irrelevant as Lingo creates a brand new Flare project.

[GregStenhouse]

- translators rather use their trusted tools rather than buying a new product

You are spot on there. I guess we would be an ideal user of Lingo as we are translating into 3 other languages. However because our translators and processes are based around FrameMaker, we are sticking with that tool for compares and translation, and only using Flare for the import and help generation.I don't see us using Lingo any time soon - there just isn't really a major issue in our process that Lingo would solve.

[Lucia]

I have no idea of how many people use Lingo, but I guess one of the reasons the forum doesn't have many activity is because using Lingo is very simple and once you learn what you need there isn't much to ask (just guessing...)

My experience with Lingo:

The help project I work on is written in Portuguese using Flare and then translated into English using Lingo. It was imported from RoboHelp and is being updated. Besides that there is frequently a new functionality that has to be included.

The workflow here in my company is (this isn't for sure the only or the best workflow for every context, but in my company it works fine):

Create a new Flare project for the wanted update or new functionality with text and images in Portuguese > Import this content to the general help project that is published for users in Portuguese > Create a new Lingo project and translate the text into English > Export to a new Flare project in English > Import this project to the general help project that is published for users in English > Insert the images in the new English help topics.

The Translation Memory is my favorite part of Lingo, because many of the screens I document have the same or very similar procedures, and every time it's necessary to translate a new part of the help much of the text is automatically or partially translated.

[forfear]

I have no idea of how many people use Lingo, but I guess one of the reasons the forum doesn't have many activity is because using Lingo is very simple and once you learn what you need there isn't much to ask (just guessing...)

i'd agree with Lucia. For a user of MadCap Lingo 1.5, it does what it does. Although i do wish we had a crack at the later versions to be able to maintain the translation memory database, and improvements in overall robusness, and stability.

It works fairly well for what it does, especially more so in the later versions, not so much in the v1 which is what we have (it still works). Just as any v1 releases of software, in its early iterations would have issues. If you are using nothing special for translation, Lingo is waaay better for translating Flare/Blaze projects if you have with zero translation tools or translation memory to work from at all. if you already use something else you might want to check compatibility.

If you're attempting to translate or maintain translations of Flare or Blaze projects without a translation tool, or as they say without 'a method to the madness' ,i highly highly recommend you give it a whirl. The cost of the tool justifiable.

The later versions of Lingo have faster and more intelligent matching of language strings against translation memory.
Its got a slightly more streamlined workflow and user interface for faster translation of projects.

And if you're using Lingo and Flare/Blaze with Capture, you'll be experiencing some gains and efficiencies from a more integrated authoring/translation work stream.

[Longtrans]

Speaking as a technical translator with more than 20 years of experience using translation software, I would have to answer this question with "It depends on what you are used to".

It is certainly a step up on using notepad to edit Flare projects, but still has a long way to go to be a comfortable tool. However, this should be taken in context, because as an editor for Flare projects it is comfortable to use. As a translation editor for FrameMaker or Word, it still has a long way to go. Flare itself is an excellent tool and I think the development of Lingo is a very positive step. It just needs a bit of fine tuning.

It lacks many of the basic translation features of other translation packages such as Trados, across and Transit. My biggest gripe would be the lack of the "Concordance" search feature.

[DocuWil]

At my company we are momentary also considering to use the MadCap Lingo.
I am not completely convinced but I think it is a logical way. I am a very satisfied user of Flare for years now and trust that MadCap Lingo will improve more and more also.

Be aware that februari 9 there will be a webinar for this subject.
I join that to get familiar with it:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/8 ... %2BMadNewz

[techwriter31]

We are attempting to implement Lingo for use with our translations. We currently support 9 languages for one product and 7 languages for the majority of our other products. So far, we haven't been able to implement Lingo due to the issue I reported in this post:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 40&t=12013

I submitted the problem to MadCap tech support. They responded initially, but I've pinged them twice about the issue in the last month and a half and never received a response.

I also have a problem with how I believe MadCap works with 100% matches:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 40&t=11928

I submitted a bug about the 100% match issue, and never received a response to that either.

I really want to implement MadCap Lingo, but until we can at least get the first problem resolved, we can't use it as our translation solution.

[forfear]

Best way is to log up a formal bug report. The forums will help you give it momentum and weight if its a commonly occuring bug that others have noticed.

Translation is growing to be more essential in the coming years as products are sold and used 'everywhere'. And if products and their documentation have a lifespan, a reusable translation memory tool is going to save costs for subsequent product/documentation localization maintenance.

[RamonS]

Translation is growing to be more essential in the coming years as products are sold and used 'everywhere'.

Not only that. People seeking work are moving globally and can benefit from multilingual apps even when the vendor sells only to one or two countries. For US companies English, Spanish, French, and probably Portuguese are the typical targets, but it depends on the audience and region served. Some places in the US have a large ethnic groups who may not adapt English for their daily lives.

[forfear]

Translation is growing to be more essential in the coming years as products are sold and used 'everywhere'.

Not only that. People seeking work are moving globally and can benefit from multilingual apps even when the vendor sells only to one or two countries. For US companies English, Spanish, French, and probably Portuguese are the typical targets, but it depends on the audience and region served. Some places in the US have a large ethnic groups who may not adapt English for their daily lives.

Agreed!

[Skooter]

From my POV Lingo is the only sensible way to go if you are using Flare. We have had problems related to creating a Difference project from an early version (1.0) of Lingo, and are subsequently having a few update issues, but seems to me it's excellent and can only get better - plus the translators like it!

[Mohinda]

We thought Lingo was a sensible option because we are very happy with Flare. Now after getting our first Help Project translated into French, German, Japanese, Russian and Simplified Chinese, we think it was not a right decision. We should have chosen a well established localization tool. Lingo do have many good features however it has serious performance issues. Our translation comapnies have not used Lingo before and they are not happy with its performance either.
Are there any happy/satisfied users of Lingo who we could share our experience with and get hints and tips from?

[techwriter31]

Update regarding my previous issues:
1) There is a bug if you generate stats, where you can't import the translated content back into Lingo.
2) The 100% match issue was confirmed as a bug. MadCap did get back to me after I posted the above comments. Until this gets fixed, its a show stopper for us.

I agree with the problem with performance issues. We have relatively large translation memory databases. If we try to edit the databases manually, Lingo stalls and crashes. If we try to export to TMX, I pretty much have to start the export before leaving for work in the evening and let it run.