SMA Solar Technology AG chooses Across System’s crossAuthor Linguistic for international product communication

LOS ANGELES, USA & KARLSBAD, GERMANY: SMA Solar Technology AG, the world market leader in photovoltaic inverters, is introducing crossAuthor Linguistic authoring support, as an addition to the Across Language Server, to support their extensive translation needs.

CrossAuthor Linguistic, introduced a few weeks ago, along with the Across v5 product generation, enables technical writers to use the central translation memory and terminology system of Across, as well as the seamlessly integrated Controlled Language Authoring Tool (CLAT) of IAI Saarbrücken.

The integration of the two technologies for authoring support provides both the database-based and the rule-based approach. It is the only product on the market offering both approaches in a single, integrated environment.

SMA's decision to choose crossAuthor Linguistic was made after thorough market research, and it has been using the Across Language Server as the central platform for all language resources and translation processes since 2008. The Language Server is seamlessly connected to the SCHEMA ST4 editorial system and other interacting systems.

Through the use of crossAuthor Linguistic, SMA will provide the authors of its technical documents with system-based support for the compliance with grammar and style rules and will ensure that source texts are written with subsequent translations in mind.

"Professionals agree that a high, perhaps even the highest efficiency boosting potential for translations lies in the consistent wording of the source texts," explains Professor Johann Haller of IAI Saarbrücken. IAI has developed the CLAT authoring tool and is one of the leading institutions in the field of linguistic intelligence.

"Consider, for example, the consistency of the texts. If different variants of specialized terms are used, the number of variants is multiplied by the number of languages. The same is true of grammatical mistakes or other incorrect wording."

Other instruments include the possibility to limit the length of sentences or to define style rules for specific departments or text types. Another way to minimize translation expenses is to use wording for which translations already exist. Thus, writers have all information needed, e.g. to decide whether to comply with a style rule or to reuse an existing phrase.

"The integration of the technologies and methods relevant for the product communication contributes to using synergies, streamlining processes, and improving the quality of the contents," explains Jürgen Sapara, Head of Technical Documentation, who is responsible for editorial aspects, as well as the subject of multilingualism at SMA Solar Technology AG. "This not only leads to a higher quality of source texts, but most importantly, better, faster, and more cost-effective foreign-language versions."

CrossAuthor Linguistic is available as an add-on to all common editors, such as MS Word, Adobe FrameMaker, InDesign, PTC Arbortext, Just XMetaL, and others. For every sentence authors write, they see the actual editor, as well as corresponding wording and terminology entries from the Across databases and marks of the rule-based quality assurance by CLAT.