July 2009: I wrote a word add-in in vba that called Google Machine Translation. I built it for myself and named it “Google Translate for translators.” Little by little, I started thinking about selling it. I mentioned the idea on excelhome and got mocked for it. I wrote posts about my "inventions" on proz.com. Not long after, my first paying users showed up. I still remember Bill Gray, Michael Jackson (yes, really), and Tor Rustad—those last two still use it today.

Here it how roughly the first versions looks!

Yes, that's right. I made a tiny program. I wrote a post. Got 59 replies and some paid users. I guess it's a simpler world back then!

Late 2009: I rewrote it in vb6 and it "grew" like this:

And it grew and grew and soon there were not enough space in one interface. Tabs came to the rescue!

Early 2010, I went Beijing for Chinese New Year and complained to my little brother about how painful vb6 was—and how unreliable the system hotkeys were. He suggested rewriting it in autohotkey.

From 2010 to 2011, development was brutal. My hair fell out in clumps. This time I built a pop-up UI. Back then, machine translation was phrase-based: for each phrase in a sentence, users could pick different translations and even tweak the word order. Looking back now, all that effort feels like it went to waste.

In 2014, I basically let both projects fend for themselves.

In early 2017, Shali was born. Suddenly it felt like we never had enough money, so I picked gt4t back up, put my head down, and worked like crazy—eventually creating my “secret sauce”: using glossaries to correct machine translation.

This feature was highly praised by http://proz.com kudoz champion Michael Beijer—a big-bearded, tattooed guy—who said it beat you-know-who by a mile. With an influencer like that talking it up, sales shot up.

And come to appreciate the icon for GT4T I created before the era of AI. This represents the best of my artistic skill and taste!

Still this is a kind of success story. GT4T still is alive. It brings in around 2000 USD monthly, steady and stable.

It's very different now. It utilizes the power of AI and gives translation suggestions by keyboard shortcuts like this:

It is also a file translator that translates the largest number of file formats. It's a real local-first app, handles files locally and It doesn't upload users files.

Well. That's the story of a 17-year app with moderate success. I hope you guys enjoy it. This is a work before AI. It's really hard handling formats like .PDF and .docx files.

https://gtranslate.gt4t.ai/

An AI powered Google Translate Alternative. The translation quality is probably better than the real Google Translate.

It runs on paid Qwen services but you don't need to pay. I will pay for your usage.

A: For the uppercase issue, check if you accidentally checked this option:

Use GT4T shortcuts, you can

1) get translation suggestions by hitting ctrl alt j.

2) Or even get your whole document translated by hitting ctrl shift j 😄

It doesn't matter even if MT or AI engines are disabled. GT4T just works over all CAT tools regardless of their settings.

I suppose you didn't know this before? I am not surprised. GT4T is translators' best-kept secret weapon for over a decade.

Once GT4T is installed and running in the background, you can use these shortcuts in the following CAT tools even when the automatic translation feature is either disabled or doesn't exist internally:

Trados Studio, CafeTran, Dejavu, Memsource, Memoq, Wordfast, translate5, Crowdin, Heartsome Translation Studio, Across Translator, Smartling, Swordfish, Fluency Now, OmegaT, Transifex Editor, Sony Online Translation Tool, Alchemy CAtalyst, 译马网, XTM, Transit, Lokalise, Idiom WorldServer, TransTool, Scriben, 雪人, SmartCat, Marseditor, Yicat ...

Impressive. GT4T has been serving translators for over a decade and no other apps do this.

GT4T version 8.43.251106: fixed a broken smartcat.com support

Troubleshooting: If it doesn't work:

1. Turn off your Chinese input.
2. Use your CAT built-in buttons or shortcuts to copy all source text to target first.

Download GT4T

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