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Want the best translation software for professional translation in 2021? Access to the top translation software tools is an important factor in translating efficiently and accurately.

While language translation application needs can vary by company or translator, there are some must-have features that you should always look for before you buy. This will help you choose the best business translation software program for your company.

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Save yourself hours of sifting through popular translation app reviews online. Here are the 15 best translation software tools and features to help your business get high-quality translations while reducing your costs and conserving your time (recommended solution at bottom of post).

15 Top Translation Software Tools & Features to Look for

1. Ample Language Pairs

This is the most basic feature of the best translation software tool for any company.

You need compatibility with the language pairs your team translates (or will eventually translate). Therefore, before you invest in what you consider to be your top option for a translation software tool, map out the languages you need to translate to and from. These are referred to as language pairs.

For example, you might work with Spanish, French, English and Chinese. If a professional translation software system says it will translate French, it might translate from French to English. However, it doesn’t mean it will translate from French to Chinese (and vice versa).

2. Best-in-Class File Translation Tool

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The best translation software programs you’ll find for professional use will include premium tools for business file translation. That being said, if you come across a translation system without these, stay away.

Choose a program that’s compatible with all the file types your company definitely needs to translate. You should also think ahead. For instance, keep in mind the additional types of files your company might need to translate in the future.

Ideally, the application won’t only be able to translate files, but it will translate multiple files simultaneously with speed (batch file translation).

3. Automatic File Formatting

Plan to translate digital files? Then search for a system that automatically formats a good portion of your files for you. Think about translating powerpoint presentations and excel file translation. You want to keep those charts, images and styles in place.

This is hands down one of the best translation software features you can find. This is because it will encode your image placement, font properties, spacing and paragraph breaks and attempt to retain most of the original format as possible.

Otherwise, you will spend more than just minutes reformatting your output file to match the original.

Please note automatic formatting isn’t perfect, but it will save you some time.

4. Copy & Paste Text Translation

In some instances, you won’t need to perform high-volume translations. The ability to gist an email, instant message, or paragraph of text from another website will be your task at hand. This is where a copy-and-paste translation tool will come in handy.

When you shop for professional translation software tools, make sure the program you choose doesn’t only include a file translator. It should give you the ability to gist translations of small snippets of text via pasting.

5. Translation Memory

Translation Memory is the core component of the best translation software, because it is central to creating a scalable translation process. It’s AI translation technology used by every major translation company in the world to lower costs. It also delivers ongoing quality improvements and reduces the resources it takes to translate.

It’s one of the top translation software tools available to businesses focused on their bottom line.

Translation Memory learns your words and phrases as you translate. As you edit translations within the system, Translation Memory works in the background. It stores your translations as paired segments.

These segments are then used for future translation projects so that you never need to translate the same word or phrase twice. This is particularly useful for organizations using technical terms or jargon. Especially within content that needs to be updated on a regular basis.

Examples of such materials include owners’ manuals, organizational code of conduct and HR training materials. Any content with a long shelf life applies.

Note: human translation is required for you to reap the benefits of Translation Memory.

6. Top Translation Editing Tools

Your top translation software program option will include the ability to edit translations. This is vital if you want accurate translations.

This is because the software will typically produce a first draft translation for you using machine translation in combination with Translation Memory. Take note of our calling it a “first draft.” In most cases, the software will give you a file that is mostly machine-translated. This will never be as perfect as human translation.

The more obscure or technical the text is that you need to translate, the more manual editing will be required in order to achieve high-quality translations. Think translating an automobile service repair manual for mechanics from Japanese to English.

You’ll need human translation because the translation requires human expertise in that specific subject matter and for those languages. Machine translation is nowhere near adequate for this task.

Therefore, good professional translation software tools are able to improve the initial draft translations with users’ translation edits. These systems can improve draft translation quality quickly.

Always remember that when it comes to effectively using software for translation, best practices include collaborating with a human translator.

7. Dynamic Spellcheck

No need for elaboration here. Look for an integrated spellchecker so you don’t need to proofread. This way, you can focus on the human translation component. Dynamic spellcheckers enable you to replace all instances of a typo with one edit. Additionally, you can add words to your dictionary and look up terms with terminology management.

8. Professional Translation Collaboration

The best software tool for translation professionals will support teamwork and project management. Why? Because there is rarely ever just one person working on a translation request. This means that you’ll need to be able to easily share translations and request editing from within the app.

Choose web-based professional translation software so that you can collaborate with international colleagues. This way, they don’t need to install software on their computers. Everything related to your translation projects will be accessible in one central hub in the cloud.

9. Translation Tracking

Speaking of collaboration, it’s important to be able to track your colleagues’ translation contributions.

The best translation software tools will include translation edit history. You’ll want to be able to see the details tied to each segment of edited text, including date and timestamp. It should also display the editor’s name and what was changed.

10. Speech Translation Software Tool

Does your company create audio and video for purposes such as employee training? A translation software system that allows you to get text-to-speech output files will come in handy for global training programs.

It’s handy to receive an audio file for an uploaded script in the target language. As a result, you’ll save money because you won’t need to hire voice talent. If voice-over translation is important to your organization, make sure you know which languages you need voiceovers for. Additionally, you should look for an integrated mobile speech-to-speech translator tool. Ideally, you can translate speech-to-text and text-to-speech in real time.

You’ll want to be sure that the most common commercial languages are available in any CAT tools you use.

11. Live Human Support

Top-notch professional translation software applications will provide you with 24/7 live human support. After all, your new investment should save you time in all respects.

Don’t buy a program from a company that won’t give you the chance to get live support when you need help.CAT tools can require technical assistance, so this is an important consideration.

12. Professional Translation Software API

Does your company like to integrate its software systems with each other? If so, professional translation API access is important. However, it should include the features listed above. Make sure it allows you to make API calls that deliver more than raw machine translation.

13. Enterprise Security

The best professional translation system is one that comes with enterprise security. Why? Any company that uploads its data into software is at risk of a data breach.

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Look for features such as multi factor authentication and encrypted file storage at rest, in use and in transit. Better yet, ask for proof of a third party security audit and attestation, plus more.

14. Compliance

If your organization needs to adhere to strict data compliance laws due to the industry in which it operates, compliance with specific mandates is important to look for in business translation software. This may include GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

If this is important to your organization, make sure this is available as an option so that you choose the best translation software possible.

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15. Confidentiality

With any software that you use, you need to check the Terms of Service to make sure they don’t reserve the right to use your data in ways that your company disapproves of.

You don’t want the translation software company to reuse your data in any way that could risk the confidentiality of your data. This includes sharing, indexing or publishing it.

Recommended Best Professional Translation Software Tool

At Pairaphrase, we made the all-around best translation software tool available on the market today. This is because we’re focused on ease-of-use combined with powerful professional tools to give you smart, safe and fast translation.

We’re here to support you as your team grows. Not to mention Pairaphrase includes all of the top 15 features we list above, plus more.

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