Translation management system, the translation memory leverage sheet and the string catalog, built for the engineer who owns the strings
Xlifflane is for the person who owns a software product's string table: the engineer who exports the XLIFF on Thursday, the product manager costing the German and Japanese release, the developer who finds the hardcoded string when the pseudo-locale is switched on. The free worksheets on this site cost a release from your own word count and your own memory's leverage per locale, and score a locale build against the defects it shipped with, with no account. Then the paid plan keeps the strings as the record, so the catalog, the memory and the handoff stop living in a spreadsheet, a folder of files and a thread with the translator.
Keyed, translated, handed off, shipped
Every string key with its source text and its translation in every locale, every status from new to shipped, the memory the next release leverages, and the XLIFF handoff generated from the record and read back, in one place the whole team can see.
A product's strings are one record, and they usually live in three file formats and a spreadsheet
- Every string key with its source text and its translation in every locale, with a status against each. Most release arguments are about a catalog nobody owns: the developers' resource files, the product manager's spreadsheet and the translator's XLIFF each name a different set of keys. Keeping the strings in one catalog with a status per locale is the decision, and it is the one most teams make three times over.
- Every translated segment kept, so the next release pays only for what changed. A release costed at the full rate for words the memory already holds is a release paying twice. Holding every translated segment against its source, and reading the leverage before the quote is accepted, is what turns a vendor's word count into a cost the team can argue with.
- The XLIFF generated from the record and read back into it, never edited by hand. A handoff assembled by hand from three file formats is a handoff with a key missing. Generating it from the catalog, and reading the translator's file back against the same keys, is what makes the strings that come back the strings that went out, and makes the untranslated count on ship day a number rather than a surprise.
The free tools
The free worksheets here work the figures a localisation engineer already has: the source word count of the release, the target locales, the analysis report's exact and fuzzy match shares, and the rate the vendor charges for each; then the strings in the build, the locales, and the defects the locale pass found. From those the leverage sheet gives the new, fuzzy and exact words per locale, the cost of the release per locale and across every locale, what it would have cost with no memory, and the leverage the memory delivered. The testing checklist turns the defects into a rate per thousand locale checks, a pass share and the count to fix before the ship threshold. Each runs on your numbers rather than a published average, and each prints for the release review.
- Translation memory leverage sheet: Put in the release's word count, the locales, the analysis report's exact and fuzzy match shares and the rate for each, and see the cost per locale and across every locale, what it would cost with no memory, and the leverage the memory delivered.
- Localization testing checklist: Put in the strings in the release, the locales, and the untranslated, truncated, hardcoded and format defects the locale pass found, with the team's ship threshold, and see the defects per locale, the defect rate, the pass share and the fixes owed before the build ships.
Xlifflane Pro
Upgrading turns the worksheet into the record. The word count becomes a catalog with keys on it; every translation is recorded against its key and locale with a status; the handoff is generated from the record and the translator's file is read back against it; every release's leverage sheet and locale test results file themselves under the release. Export is always available, so the catalog and the memory are yours whether or not you stay. Xlifflane Pro is $135 per month for your whole team, billed monthly.
