SDL Passolo 2011

Releasing new software simultaneously into multiple markets is a challenge faced by many organizations. Many processes need to be considered to ensure that tight software release deadlines are met. One of the key activities required to develop software for global markets is localization.

SDL Passolo 2011 is a specialized software localization tool that greatly speeds up the translation of user interfaces. It is easy-to-use and users do not require programming experience.  SDL Passolo greatly optimizes both manual and automated localization workflows, either as a stand-alone application, or when integrated with other SDL products such as SDL Trados and SDL MultiTerm.

• User-friendly software localization tool - no programming experience required!
• Speed up software localization projects - translate faster than ever before
• Extensive QA checks - improve the accuracy and consistency of your projects
• Full control of your projects - access previous versions in just a few clicks
• Compatible with the latest Microsoft technology, file filters and languages

New features in SDL Passolo 2011

Re-design of the Microsoft.NET Add-Ins

• Now fully supports Microsoft.NET 4.0 and all older frameworks from .NET 1.0
• Ability to run diagnostic reports to quickly analyse problems and adjust localization kit accordingly  

Introducing SDL Passolo Collaboration Edition

• Designed to support and speed up the workflows associated with the agile development process. SDL Passolo Collaboration Edition knows who is working on  what part of the project
• Enables the localization team to push through changes from customer sources to translator. Removing the need to return bundles before the translation is completed

Support for machine translation

• Support for Google Translate, Microsoft Translator and SDL Language Weaver
• Machine translation can be used while Pre-Translating with any proposals being directly displayed in the fuzzy list. All matching translation entries are marked accordingly to distinguish from those entries that may be new or from an existing Translation Memory

More productivity functions

• Immediate checking of changed text entries. Changes are checked and on error the entry is marked with an exclamation mark to allow quick identification of any errors
• Continue working where you left the project with ‘store and restore’ of the working environment

Enhanced handling of projects

• Merge, extract sub projects, un-pack and  re-pack project files for better performance in network  environments and in multi-user scenarios
• Ability to chain projects (from SR1) allowing another Passolo project to be used as the source file. Multiple languages can also be chained with changes in the editing process generating a change notification (update) in dependant languages

Be future-ready with additional and enhanced support for all the latest file filters

• Microsoft® .NET 4.0
• Direct localization of Adobe® RoboHelp® source and project files
• Enhanced Microsoft® WPF support
• Enhanced Java™ support
• Oracle® 11 databases 

System Requirements

SDL Passolo 2011 will be delivered as a Unicode application and therefore can be used only on Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. A multilingual Windows XP is recommended for projects with Asian languages. SDL Passolo 2011 can also localize software for Windows 9x

Features

SDL Passolo is a specialized software localization tool. It can directly handle a large number of software specific file formats, including executable programs, resource files and XML based files. Text strings can be translated into numerous languages including Asian languages (Unicode) and right-to-left scripts like Hebrew and Arabic.

SDL Passolo is very easy-to-use and optimizes the software localization process. Users require neither time-consuming and expensive training nor programming experience. Software localization can be done without the access to the source code or the developers and can begin even before the final release of the software is available.

Key new features in SDL Passolo 2011 include: 

New! Re-design of the Microsoft.NET Add-Ins

• Now fully supports Microsoft.NET 4.0 and all older frameworks from .NET 1.0
• Ability to run diagnostic reports to quickly analyse problems and adjust localization kit accordingly  

New! Introducing SDL Passolo Collaboration Edition

• Designed to support and speed up the workflows associated with the agile development process. SDL Passolo Collaboration Edition knows who is working on  what part of the project
• Enables the localization team to push through changes from customer sources to translator. Removing the need to return bundles before the translation is completed

New! Support for machine translation

• Support for Google Translate, Microsoft Translator and SDL Language Weaver 
• Machine translation can be used while Pre-Translating with any proposals being directly displayed in the fuzzy list. All matching translation entries are marked accordingly to distinguish from those entries that may be new or from an existing Translation Memory

New! More productivity functions

• Immediate checking of changed text entries. Changes are checked and on error the entry is marked with an exclamation mark to allow quick identification of any errors
• Continue working where you left the project with ‘store and restore’ of the working environment

New! Enhanced handling of projects

• Merge, extract sub projects, un-pack and  re-pack project files for better performance in network  environments and in multi-user scenarios
• Ability to chain projects (from SR1) allowing another Passolo project to be used as the source file. Multiple languages can also be chained with changes in the editing process generating a change notification (update) in dependant languages

New! Be future-ready with additional and enhanced support for all the latest file filters

• Microsoft® .NET 4.0
• Direct localization of Adobe® RoboHelp® source and project files
• Enhanced Microsoft® WPF support
• Enhanced Java™ support
• Oracle® 11 databases 

 

SDL Passolo Feature List	Team	Professional	Translator
Localizable File Formats
Windows Standard Resources (32 Bit and 64 Bit) Binary Files (EXE, DLL, OCX, SYS...)
Windows Standard Resources (16 Bit like Windows 3.1) Binary Files (EXE, DLL, SYS...)
Windows Standard Resources RC Files (RC, RC2, DLG...)
Windows CE, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Binary Files (EXE, DLL...)
XML Files (supporting XLIFF,TMX, Qt, MSI, etc.)
Microsoft .NET Resources (Framework 1.x to 3.x including WPF and Silverlight) Binary Files (EXE, DLL, satellite assemblies) Resource Files (RESX, RESOURCE...)	1)	1)
Java Resources (All Platforms J2EE, J2SE and J2ME) Properties Files, Source Files, Binaries, Project Files	1)	1)
Palm OS Software	1)	1)
ODBC Database Parser supporting ACCESS, Excel, SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, IBM DB2	1)	1)
Visual BASIC 6 Binary Files
Visual BASIC 6 projects (VBP) and forms (FRM) supporting WYSIWYG editor and text extraction from code
Generic Text File Parser (INI, JavaScript, Symbian, Perl and many different file formats)
Portable Object (PO) File Parser
Microsoft Installer File Parser supporting all tables in MSI files
User Defined File Formats Highly structured text and binary files	2)	2)
SDL Passolo Team Edition Translation Bundles
1) Optional SDL Passolo Add-In 2) Macro Component
Localization Features
WYSIWYG Editor for Dialogs and Menus
Bitmap Editor Icons and Cursors
Integration of 3rd Party Editors
Update Features (Leveraging)
Alignment Features
Pseudo Translation Features
Translation Features
Automatic Pre-Translation using Multilingual Translation Memory Technology (Glossaries)
Translation Assistant for easy navigation
Automatic translation of repeated text strings
High-speed fuzzy matching technology (QuickIndex™) for interactive Translation
Concordance searching
Direct lookup in SDL Trados and/or SDL Trados TM Server
Direct lookup in SDL MultiTerm and/or SDL MultiTerm server
Support for chained projects Display an additional reference language
Full history of edits including rollback
Productivity Features
Find & Replace Text Strings
Grouping and Hiding Dialog Elements
Filter Text Strings
Sort Translation List
Multi Selection
Data Exchange Features
Text File Export/Import (ASCII/Unicode)
CSV File Export/Import (ASCII/Unicode)
Import of Microsoft Glossaries and Microsoft Terminology
SDL Passolo Glossary Export
TMX 1.4 Level 2 Export
XML Export/Import for various translation systems
QA Features
Selectable Checks for Common Localization Errors
Text length check and pixel width check
Terminology Check
Consistency Check for Translations
Internal Spell Checker for 13 languages
Spell Checking using Microsoft Word
Project Features
Reports and Statistics
Create Translation Bundles
Edit Translation Bundles
Create Team Edition Translation Bundles
Edit Team Edition Translation Bundles
Customization and Automation Features
Runtime Engine for VBA compatible Macros
IDE with Editor and Debugger
OLE Automation enabled

Editions

With its different editions SDL Passolo offers an optimized, cost-effective solution for any projects of any size.

Professional Edition

As a stand-alone solution, the Professional Edition is particularly suited to the localization of medium to large sized projects. With the add-ins for translation memory systems and terminology databases, translation data can be exported to external programs to translate the relevant manuals and online help.

The integrated script development environment also makes it possible to change or add functions to SDL Passolo.

Team Edition

The Team Edition offers the additional benefit of being able to create and administer a certain number of translation bundles. These translation bundles can be processed using the free Translator Edition (please see below). With a single Team Edition license it is possible to delegate entire projects to external translators, including the task of adapting and testing the dialog layouts.

The Team Edition has three different options, depending on the number of translation bundles you need to manage. You can opt for either 5, 10 or unlimited bundles.

Collaboration Edition

The most advanced version of SDL Passolo offers the further benefit of providing technology to support and speed up the workflows associated with an agile development process.

This edition enables a localization team to push through changes from customer's sources to translator without a delay. Removing the time and cost issues associated with synchronizing updates.

An Export Manager provides information on who is working on which part of the localization for complete project visibility.

SDL Passolo Essential

SDL Passolo Essential is included as an application within the latest version of SDL Trados. This edition allows you to create and translate projects, as well as generate localized target files.

However, there are feature limitations, such as no QA checking feature, no leveraging from previously translated content and you can only use one target language per project.

Translator Edition

The Translator Edition is a free editor that can be downloaded from our website. It allows translators to edit the bundles created with the Team Edition. It cannot parse source files or generate target files, but it offers all the other functions needed.

File Formats

SDL Passolo was originally developed as a tool for the localization of programs containing Windows standard resources. The Add-In concept makes SDL Passolo a secure investment. Add-Ins are already available for the major file formats in all editions. Additional Add-Ins can be purchased or developed and integrated by customers. The following file formats are supported.

Windows 32 bit and 64 bit binaries
All binary files (EXE, DLL, SYS, OCX) that contain standard Windows resources. This includes programs developed with Microsoft Visual C++ or other development environments. This includes programs for Windows CE or Pocket PC or Windows Moibile.

Windows 16 bit binaries
All binary files (EXE, DLL, SYS,...) that contain standard Windows resources. Thus allowing the localization of older Windows applications.

Windows RC files
All resource script files (RC, RC2, DLG). ASCII and UNICODE encoding is supported.

Visual BASIC binary files
All binary files developed with Microsoft Visual BASIC 6 or previous versions. SDL Passolo includes VBScan, a utility that simplifies the steps required for internationalizing Visual BASIC forms. This utility is based on Microsoft's recommended procedures for the internationalization of Visual BASIC programs.

XML files
With XML it is possible to describe texts that are more like continuous body texts, or data formats based on identifiers. Whereas continuous body text is a domain of translation memory systems, ID based XML documents can be processed extremely well using SDL Passolo's XML Add-In. In addition to the extraction of text segments for translation and the integration of the translated text into the target document, the XML Add-In also offers the option of editing metadata. The metadata may include attributes or comments that provide additional information relevant to the localization. Combined with SDL Passolo's macro functions, the configuration options for the XML Add-In allow a high level of automation and a tight integration with XML based localization workflows.

XLIFF files
XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange File Format) is a XML based standard that defines an extensible specification for the interchange of localization information. Find more information about XLIFF on www.oasis-open.org. A configuration file, delivered with the XML Add-In enables SDL Passolo to easily edit text based XLIFF files.
The Visual XLIFF Component for SDL Passolo is a macro-based parser that supports processing of XLIFF files based on the XLIFF 1.1 Specification. In addition, the parser also supports the XLIFF Profile for Windows Resources. This specification describes how standard Windows resources are mapped in XLIFF. XLIFF files that follow this structure can be edited in SDL Passolo. In addition to string lists, dialogs can also be displayed and modified.

HTML Files
The Add-in for HTML files enables you to translate the HTML pages for online help or web pages. The text contained in HTML files is segmented according to segmentation rules based on the SRX standard. Embedded tags can be edited during translation in the text entry tables. A WYSIWYG view shows the translated HTML file.

Text files
Using the configurable text file parser, text strings can be extracted from nearly every text file (e.g. source code files, internet script files, user defined file formats) and translated with SDL Passolo. The parser supports different character encoding. Definable rules describing the start and the end of a text string can be entered. Beside simple rules regular expressions are supported. In addition to the text, ids and comments can be read. An interactive preview simplifies the construction of rules for own files formats.

Microsoft Installer Files
Using the parser for MSI files, text strings can be extracted from all tables of a MSI file and translated with SDL Passolo.

Visual BASIC 6 Files
Using the parser for Visual BASIC 6 SDL Passolo can extract and localize text strings from single FRM files or from all FRM files referenced in a VBP file. Beside the localization of text strings in table form, this Add-In provide WYSIWYG editors for displaying and processing dialogs, menus and bitmaps. In addition text strings from the code area can be extracted and translated.

Portable Object Files
PO files from the Linux/Unix world are containing localizable text strings from software that uses the gettext framework for internationalization. Using the parser for PO files all localizable text strings can be extracted and translated using SDL Passolo. The mechanism of handling different plural form in PO files is supported.

New file support in SDL Passolo 2011

Be future-ready with additional and enhanced support for all the latest file filters including:

• Microsoft® .NET 4.0
• Direct localization of Adobe® RoboHelp® source and project files
• Enhanced Microsoft® WPF support
• Enhanced Java™ support
• Oracle® 11 databases

Optional Add-Ins

Using the optional file parser Add-Ins, it is also possible to process other types of resource files directly in SDL Passolo. These Add-Ins enable SDL Passoloto localize the following file formats:

Add-In for Microsoft .NET programs
All resources, generated with Microsoft .NET can be localized with this Add-In. This includes binary files (EXE, satellite DLLs und Assemblies) and resource files used for development (RESX und RESOURCE). In addition to the localization of text strings in table form, this Add-In provide WYSIWYG editors for displaying and processing dialogs, menus and bitmaps. Also Custom Properties of control elements can be localized. The dialog editor supports private, public and external inheritance, and is able to visualize third party controls and is able to localize user defined properties.

Add-In for Java programs 

All Java platforms (J2EE, J2SE, and J2ME) are supported. The resource data formats can be processed not only in Java source files, but also in compiled binary files and compressed JAR files. 

• Resource Property files have the file extension PROPERTIES and contain a simple list of IDs and strings.
• ListResourceBundles are Java classes derived from the base java.util.ListResourceBundle or from another class derived from ListResourceBundle. The Java Add-In can process source files (JAVA) as well as compiled binary files (CLASS).
• ArrayResourceBundles are Java classes, but their setup is slightly different. ArrayResourceBundles were introduced by Inprise Borland and Oracle. Once again, the Java Add-In can process both the source files and the compiled binary files.
• JAR files can contain a complete Java application in compressed form, which simplifies the distribution and administration of components. The Java Add-In can extract property files and ResourceBundles from the files contained in a JAR file, and can insert the translations into the JAR file in compliance with the Java conventions.

Add-In for ODBC Databases
Using this parser the content of different databases can be translated. Supported are databases, where an appropriate OLE DB Provider is available e.g. MS ACCESS, MS Excel, MS SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL and IBM DB2. The translations can be stored in new records, in different columns or the text can be exchanged.

Add-In for Palm OS Software
Using the parser for Palm OS all localizable text strings from PRC files can be extracted and localized using SDL Passolo. Beside the translation of text strings in table form, this Add-In provide WYSIWYG editors for displaying and processing dialogs, menus and bitmaps.

User defined data formats

In some projects user defined file formats must be localized that do not follow any common standard and can't be processed with one the configurable SDL Passolo parsers. Highly structured text files or binary files are some examples.

Using SDL Passolo's VBA compatible scripting language, customers can implement own parsers for these file types. The integrated development environment and numerous examples enables trained users to develop custom parsers for user defined file formats very quickly. For file formats that contain dialog information the integrated SDL Passolo standard dialog editor can be used by these parsers.

Data Exchange

SDL Passolo comes with a selection of import and export filters. Some of these filters are for export only, while others allow the exported data to be reimported following translation. The data can be exported separately for different modules and languages to enable simultaneous translation.

ASCII text Export/Import
Translation lists can be exported in ASCII format and then translated using any standard ASCII editor.

CSV Export/Import
Many programs support CSV file format. Translation lists can be exported in CSV format for processing in Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel, for example. In this case, the export can be configured so that it is possible to reimport the text resources after external processing.

Glossary Export
The glossary export stores text resources in the format used by SDL Passolo for glossary files. These files can then be edited in any standard ASCII or Unicode editor.

Translation Bundle
This format is only available in the Team and Professional Editions. A translation bundle packages all the data required for external editing or processing of part of a project into a single file. A translation bundle can contain any number of translation lists and target languages. In addition, company-specific glossaries, macros for customer specific test functions, or notes for the translator in the form of Word files can be stored in a translation bundle. The translation bundle also contains the data for menus and dialogs.

With this format, the translator also has to use SDL Passolo. If a translation bundle was created using the Team Edition, the translator can work with the free Translator Edition of SDL Passolo. The use of translation bundles is especially beneficial when the translation work is done by numerous external translators. Only a single file has to be sent to each translator. Using the Team Edition, only one license has to be purchased - the translator can work with the free Translator Edition.

With translation bundles the translator can make full use of SDL Passolo's benefits. The text resources are displayed in context, which will improve the translation quality. With the integrated dialog editor, the dialog layout can be adjusted to fit the new text lengths. The test functions can be used to guarantee error-free localization. Custom test functions can be added as macros.

Optional Add-Ins for Translation Memory Systems

In a localization project, the software is generally translated first, then the online help and user manuals. The software translation generates terminology and expressions in the target language that are important for translating the documentation. Beginning with the Professional Edition, SDL Passolo offers Add-Ins for exchanging data with the translation memory systems and terminology databases from STAR (STAR Transit® and STAR TermStar®) and SDL Trados (Translator's Workbench®, MultiTerm® and TagEditor®).

Longer text segments, sentences or phrases are exported to the TM system using the relevant TMX export. Thus, messages that have already been translated in the software can be reused in the documentation. This is especially useful for documenting error messages. A filter can be used to limit the export to specified text segments.

When exporting terminology, relevant program-specific details are also included. In addition to the source and target strings, information on access keys or key combinations is also available. The origin of the text is also exported, so that more information on the context is available for translating the documentation. A filter can be used to limit the export to specified text segments.

If the translator is going to work with one of the supported TM systems, instead of SDL Passolo, the best option is to export/import the data in the relevant XML exchange format. The translator can then carry out the translation using the editor for the respective TM. The editor protects any tags containing information that must not be changed during translation. On the other hand, the translator is able to view this information.

Customization

The functionality of SDL Passolo is completely customizable and can be modified and enhanced. The core concept is that SDL Passolo is a COM object that includes a sophisticated object model and an inbuilt VBA compatible Scripting Runtime Engine. With this unique technology you can get your customized localization solution which fits your needs like an individual solution. Still you can benefit from the proven core functionality of SDL Passolo and the ease of use.

Customer with special requirements can start developing their own SDL Passolo Edition.

If you have special requirements but no time or resources to implement the solution, we can help you to get your customized localization solution. Send us your requirement specification and you will get a detailed project offer after analyzing the specification.