How do you decide whether it’s worth upgrading from your current version of SDL Trados Studio to the latest release? The answer to this common question depends on which version you’re running at the moment and which features you need. Since the first release of SDL Trados Studio back in 2009, each version (2011, 2014, 2015 and, shortly, 2017) has brought major new features that may be decisive for you.
Below is a summary of new features by version. I’ve listed the features in order of importance (in my opinion), so you can spot the differences quickly. Features are cumulative, obviously, so each version includes all previous features. They refer to the latest build (usually SP2) of the Freelance edition.
It’s like a potted history of SDL Trados Studio, showing which feature came out when. Studio users who provide support on forums can use this post as a reference to answer questions such as, “Can I translate a PDF in Studio 2011?” or “How can I add a symbol in Studio 2014?”
SDL Trados Studio 2009
A list of new features doesn’t apply here, because Studio 2009 was the first of its kind, replacing Trados Workbench in MS Word and TagEditor for other file types. The key differences compared with the legacy tools were:
- Side-by-side source-target display
- Look-up in multiple TMs (translation memories) and TBs (termbases)
- QA checks to catch source/target inconsistencies in numbers, punctuation, etc.
- Autosuggest, with suggestions as you type (from TMs, TBs and autotext lists)
- Autosuggest dictionary creation from TMs with at least 25,000 TUs (translation units)
- Translation progress displayed as a percentage or word count
- Project workflow, with different file formats in a single project
- Autopropagation of identical segments
SDL Trados Studio 2011
- Source segment editing in DOC(X) and PPT(X) file types
- MS Word spell checker (in addition to Hunspell)
- Editable PDF file support
- Track changes (in source and target segments in DOCX files)
- External review in MS Word, with changes then added to the bilingual SDLXLIFF file
- Bilingual Word file support (legacy Workbench files can now be processed in Studio)
- More options in segment display filtering (segments with numbers only, track changes)
- Pseudo-translation to test translated document output
- OpenDocument file support
- Open Exchange apps: Ttx It, T-Window for Clipboard, Batch Find&Replace brought into core product
- Find&Replace: regex can be used in replace operations
- Autosuggest dictionary creation license now a paid extra
SDL Trados Studio 2014
- Ribbon interface
- Java no longer used for MultiTerm
- Quick merge of several files in a project
- Much faster processing times
- Automatic concordance (when no fuzzy matches are returned)
- Autosave (automatic back-up of the SDLXLIFF file)
- Customised user ID (instead of the Windows default ID)
- Alignment tool revamped (WinAlign is deprecated)
- Autosuggest dictionary creation from a TM with only 10,000 units (previously 25,000)
- Source segment editing for almost all file types
- Autopropagation in segments with track changes
- Alphanumeric string recognition
- File analysis is a separate task
- 100% matches can be locked
SDL Trados Studio 2015
- AutoCorrect (same options as in MS Word)
- Word 2016 file type support (essential for opening a Word document created in MS Office 2016). New file type offers real-time preview in Word and fewer target saving errors
- Scanned PDF file support, with recognition in 14 languages
- Autosuggest 2.0, with real-time leverage of current TM, concordance and MT providers
- Retrofit feature that updates an SDLXLIFF file with changes made in a target Word file
- Ribbon customisation
- New bilingual Excel file type
- Symbols, bookmarks, AnyTM (to use TMs in different languages) in core product
- New-look interface and new interface languages: Italian, Russian, Korean (in addition to English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese)
SDL Trados Studio 2017
I’ll add a full feature list when SDL Trados Studio 2017 is released, but you can look forward to TM fragment recall, match repair, adaptive MT, merging across paragraph marks, simultaneous searching in source and target segments and more.
Upgrade options
The aim of this post isn’t to convince you to snap up an upgrade offer. In fact, you don’t even have an upgrade option if you’re still running Studio 2009 (and by March 2017 this will also be true of Studio 2011).
The post was inspired by a colleague who asked me yesterday whether it’s worth upgrading to Studio 2015 now (and getting 2017 for free when it comes out). So this post is for you, John, and Kim and Raquel and Jane. I hope it helps others, too.