Always Pick the Right Word with Checkterm – Checked in All Types of Content

How do you quickly, easily, and inexpensively check whether company-approved terminology is being adhered to for each piece of content that is created and translated? Be it entire documents, e-mails, social media texts, online texts, or even text snippets such as ERP texts, CAD lettering, or software interfaces? Kaleidoscope has the answer to this burning question: Checkterm.

Checkterm identifies and checks terminology in any type of text – simply via the clipboard or in Adobe InDesign, Trados Studio, MS Word, <oXygen>, XMetaL, Visual Studio, and Visual Studio Code even directly via plug-ins. The check not only involves terms defined as forbidden in the termbase, but also – thanks to the morphological approach – incorrect variants, spellings, compositions, etc. With Checkterm, Kaleidoscope is respondingto frequent customer requests for a reliable, high-quality solution for terminology checking, which is easy and quick to implement at the same time.

The checking tools available on the market are either so complex that their implementation simply exceeds the financial means, process maturity level, or IT administration capabilities of many customers, or they are not reliable enough, as they work purely with character-based matching without providing linguistic and morphological functions such as stemming or the breakdown of compositions. "Checkterm now fills these gapswith its clever linguistic terminology checking and the fact that it is easy to implement," says Klaus Fleischmann, CEO of Kaleidoscope regarding the positioning of his new product as a new category on the market.

Checkterm is not a new termbase that has to be introduced to the company. Instead, the clever terminology check is based on Kaleidoscope's Quickterm terminology management solution or RWS MultiTerm. You can therefore continue to store and manage your terminology using either system. Checkterm draws its information about allowed and forbidden terms, for example, directly from these data. For example, you can state that "alloy rim" must always be used, but "aluminum rim" or "aluminum-rim" are not permitted.

With Checkterm, you can now check whether this prescribed terminology has actually been adhered to in various different types of text. If an employee is creating a quote in Word, a technical document in a CMS, or is writing an e-mail, Checkterm always checks whether "alloy rim" is actually used. And that goes for spare parts in the ERP system and the labeling of software interfaces, too. In short, it's possible to check content of all types to make sure it adheres to the prescribed language.

Of course, the termbase contains these allowed and forbidden terms in all foreign languages. And with Checkterm, you can run a bilingual check to determine whether the correct terminology has been used in the translation. Translators and project managers enjoy these benefits thanks to the integration into RWS Trados Studio directly in their normal environment. Here, Checkterm first identifies which terminology appears in the source text. The clever software solution checks whether the preferred foreign language terminology has been used with the correct spelling in the translation. In contrast to conventional, segment-by-segment terminology checking in Trados Studio, Checkterm checks the entire document in one go in batch mode, and creates a detailed report for the translator or project manager.

Checkterm can do all this because it takes a morphological approach. While the statistical approach normally used only identifies 'similar' character strings, Checkterm actually checks texts for relevant parts in terms of terminology by means of stemming, breakdown of compositions, etc. and matches them against the termbase. It is only possible to define and check compositions or declined/conjugated words using this approach. Checkterm therefore recognizes "rim" and "rims", but also derives compositions containing "rim" correctly. Conventional review mechanisms already fall at these kinds of hurdles, as they check purely whether a term stored in the termbase appears in the text.

Another considerable advantage of the solution lies in the significant reduction of 'false positives'. Conventional term checks identify many known 'similarities' that are often actually different terms. However, stemming means that Checkterm recognizes the real connections and avoids suggesting 'similarities' as incorrect terminology. The morphological engine of Checkterm therefore not only increases the number of hits in the terminology check, but also reduces inefficiencies at the same time by reducing false positives.

The sophisticated morphological basis of Checkterm came about through almost two years of research in cooperation with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. The developer team linked open source algorithms for morphological language analysis with our existing Quickterm terminology application. The result is a completely new piece of terminology checking software both on a terminology and linguistic basis.

Checkterm is available in various modules and versions depending on the usage scenario.

In the desktop version, the application is minimized after starting in the system tray and can be called up for checking in any application using a freely definable hotkey. Once called up, Checkterm analyses the entire marked text independently regarding terminology and brings up corresponding hits. For MS Word, Checkterm is also available as a plug-in that marks text directly in Word and allows for the immediate cleanup of errors. Both versions can be used completely independently as single desktop solutions, or in combination with the Checkterm server as a client-server solution.

Alternatively, a browser application is available: in this case it is sufficient to copy the text to Checkterm or upload a document. Any errors or deviations from the defined corporate terminology are marked or output as a report.

Checkterm is also available asa plug-in for Trados Studio for bilingual checks during the translation process. The translator or project manager can therefore continue working directly in their familiar environment.

With Quickterm and Checkterm, Kaleidoscope covers theentire life cycle of terminology, from creation, approval, and standardization, right through to checking. All those involved are therefore collaboratively integrated into the process both in the browser application and desktop version. For instance, reviewers can create new requests immediately or search for suitable alternatives in the termbase.

The benefits for the customer are clear: valuable termbases can be used to automatically improve content. A deliberate effort has been made to minimize the "effort" required of the user, as regardless of the program being used, you simply select the text and check it by hitting a hotkey. A browser-based solution and a plug-in for Microsoft Word are also available. Not only does this give every employee in the company access to the central language "memory", but it also provides an easy way to check that the terminology is actually being adhered to in every text and translation. This will ensure the linguistic consistency of content both internally and externally – much to the satisfaction of everyone from the marketing department to the legal department. Consistent advertising materials, more efficient search engine optimization, optimized communication, and an improved image are just some of the benefits, not to mention avoiding patent disputes and product liability lawsuits.

Would you like more information on Checkterm or our other solutions? Then don't hesitate to contact us!

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