What is it? Ando Tools is a free package of MS Word and Excel add-ons designed for translators, proofreaders and localization engineers.
Is it useful? It boosts quality while saving time with features that are not supported by word processors and CAT tools. Check out the benefits when performing common tasks. Read the built-in help and online tips to effectively integrate Ando Tools with your workflows.
Is it free? Copyright to Ando Tools is held by Pavel Soukenik; it is available under the terms of GNU General Public License, which means you can use, distribute, expand and modify it, provided that you comply with the license. Free and open-source programs have great advantages over expensive and proprietary software. You can download Ando Tools right from this page.
Check the following list of routinely performed operations to see how you can benefit from Ando Tools in different areas.
Preparing for Translation. Ando Tools gives you an overview of what the document contains and lets you effectively solve font and style issues; it can automatically save all documents as RTFs, and insert tw4win styles so that you can replace certain text for external or internal style. You can then define replacement operations and have them performed on all opened documents.
Handling a Number of Small Documents. Features for handling all documents save a lot of time. Searching, replacing, saving and most built-in features can all be easily performed on all documents at once.
Translation in Progress. It is easy to mark a place where you left off and then return to it. You can also mark difficult places (and annotate them). Because auto-corrections can save a lot of typing, Ando Tools lets you create these without navigating menus. Pasting as plain text can also be easily toggled as can be various enhancements to Trados behavior including clipboard protection (copy and paste between segments).
Proofreading. Proofreaders can locate problematic passages that were "invisibly" marked and commented by translators with a single click. A report can be generated on the problem points; this report has all the details and links to difficult places in the document.
Quality Assurance. If the project is large and you need to check that the text is consistent and conforms to glossary across all files, you can use Excelate feature which does this including propagation of changes. You can also validate segmentation and length restrictions, set languages, clear comments, accept revisions or remove highlighting.
Project management. Translation Information dialog box contains names of translator, proofreader and Translation Memory file name for each document. These data are kept within the document.
Features at a glance:
The main zip package contains a ReadMe file and templates for MS Word and Excel.
Current version: 2.73 (05-12-25)
This version introduces new terminology features that are still under development. Learn more about how to use them.
There is also an automatic installer (version 1.2; 05-07-27). To perform automatic installation, unzip both packages into the same folder and double-click the install.vbs file.
If you want to quickly check for new versions, you can take advanage of the RSS newsfeed provided by Yahoo! Groups (the messages are open to non-members).
If you also wish to present questions and suggestions, you can join this group. Visit Ando Tools Yahoo! Group and click on the button Join This Group!
