10 Best Enterprise Translation Software Features

The key to an improved translation workflow is to find the best enterprise translation software for your business.

While your exact needs in a translation system might differ from another company’s, there are some features that enterprise businesses should always check for when narrowing down their enterprise translation software options.

In this post, you’ll learn the top 10 best enterprise translation software features to help your company achieve high-quality translations and simultaneously reducing its costs and improving productivity.

Best Enterprise Translation Software Features to Look for

1. Important Commercial Language Pairs

One of the best enterprise translation software features you could look for is compatibility with the language pairs that are important to your company’s business dealings and employees.

Language pairs are combinations of source languages and target languages. Before you invest in enterprise translation software, list the languages you need to translate to and from. Consider the audiences and countries your company might do business with in the future.

Keep in mind that just because an enterprise translation software platform claims it will translate German might only mean that it translates from German to English, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate from German to Japanese (and vice versa).

2. File Translation

The best enterprise translation software to look for will include a file translation feature. If you come across translation software without this feature, run the other way.

The software tool you choose should be compatible with all the file types your company works with. You should also plan ahead for growth and directional changes. This means keeping in mind the additional types of files your company might need to translate in the future.

Your best enterprise translation software option won’t only translate files, but it will also translate files in batches, speedily.

3. File Formatting Automation

If you plan to translate electronic files with enterprise translation software, be sure to search for a system that will format your files for you automatically.

Many enterprises agree that file formatting automation is hands down one of the best enterprise translation software features you can find. This is because it will encode your layout, image placement, font properties, spacing and paragraph breaks.

Without this feature, you will spend hours reformatting your output files to match the originals you upload.

4. Copy & Paste Translation

In some instances you won’t need to perform high-volume translations. Some days, you’ll simply need to gist an email, instant chat, or a chunk of text from another website. This is where a copy-and-paste translation feature will come in handy.

While shopping for enterprise translation software, make sure it will not only include a file translator, but also the ability to gist translations of copy-and-paste text.

5. Translation Memory

Translation Memory is a necessary component for scaling any company’s translation process. It’s used by every major translation company in the world to reduce costs, preserve time and deliver ongoing translation quality improvements.

This is undoubtedly one of the best enterprise translation software features available to businesses focused on their bottom line.

Translation Memory learns your words and phrases as you translate. As you edit translations within the enterprise translation software, the best translation memory technology works in the background. It stores your translations as segments in a bilingual repository when you edit your translations.

These segments are then used for future translation projects so that you never waste time translating the same segment of text twice. This is particularly useful for enterprises using technical jargon — especially within content that needs to be updated regularly, such as websites and reports.

It’s important to note that human translation efforts are required for your organization to benefit from translation memory.

6. Translation Editing Tool

The best enterprise translation software to choose is a platform that enables you to edit machine translations. This is vital to achieving linguistic accuracy when you’re using translation software.

This is because the software will typically produce a first draft translation for you using machine translation in combination with your translation memory.

Notice that we call it a “first draft.” In most cases, the software will generate a file that is comprised mostly of machine translation. This draft is never going to be as perfect as human translation. The more obscure or technical the text is that you need to translate, the more human post-editing will be required in order to achieve human-quality translations. Think about translating an automobile service repair manual for mechanics from Swedish to English.

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

That being said, the best enterprise translation software platforms are able to improve the initial draft translations with users’ translation edits.

These systems can improve draft translation quality quickly.

7. Translation Memory Development

If your organization needs a leg up with developing your Translation Memories, you should seek enterprise software that offers assistance with this. This will help you accelerate translation quality improvement and automation earlier on in the adoption process.

8. Dynamic Machine Learning

Dynamic Machine Learning will find repetitive segments of text and replace all of them after you edit just one of those repetitive segments. No matter if you work across one file or a batch of files, you only need to edit once and your edit will apply to all matching segments.

9. Web Accessible

Since many enterprises collaborate on translations around the globe, the ideal enterprise translation software would allow you to edit translations from your browser or mobile device. That way, no cumbersome installation needs to disrupt your workday.

10. Integrated Spellcheck

Look for an integrated spellchecker to reduce the tedious task of proofreading. This way, you only spend your time on the human translation component.

Conclusion

Choosing the right enterprise translation software is essential for improving translation quality, reducing costs, and boosting productivity. While every business has unique needs, the most effective solutions share core features such as support for key language pairs, file translation and formatting automation, translation memory, and editing tools. By focusing on these capabilities, your organization can streamline its translation workflow and ensure consistent, high-quality results across global operations.