I would like to ask about the Dorico manuals in Spanish.
It is amazing to have the software translated to Spanish, but it is almost impossible to use the English manual alongside with the Spanish Dorico software.
Dorico is a very sophisticated program, but without the help of a manual IN THE SAME LANGUAGE it is very hard to use as most of the terms do not match easily between both languages. I really believe that a lot of possible users find this a decisive reason for not using Dorico. In fact, it is hard to understand why Steinberg sells Dorico in Spanish but does not offer the manual in the same language.
Please, Steinberg, give us Spanish users a Spanish manual, so we do not have to consider other options.
Thanks for the feedback, Santiago. I agree that it would be better if we had Spanish-language versions of the Dorico documentation, and it is something that we often talk about. It is, as you can imagine, quite costly to produce a translation of the hundreds of thousands of words included in Doricoâs documentation, so we have to weigh up the benefit of making that investment.
We are well aware, of course, that there is a âchicken and eggâ situation when it comes to this issue: users will not buy the software without localised documentation, but we will decide not to make the localised documentation because there are not enough sales to justify the expense.
However, Steinberg has to explain still why you sell this (excellent but not cheap) software in Spanish without proper Spanish documentation. You must understand that in the end you are deceiving customers, who buy a very complex software in a language which really does not have the indispensable documentation in the same language.
It would be more honest if this is the case to admit that you do not have the resources or the intention to do it, so customers may decide if they want to go for the English version instead of a Spanish version (600 million speakers; Italian 67 million speakersâŚ) with no proper documentation, or they may choose another software in Spanish (which we do not want to).
We are certainly not trying to deceive our customers, but perhaps we need to be clearer in our marketing information about which languages include full documentation.
However, customers can certainly discover for themselves what documentation is available simply by searching, and by using our free trial version.
When I started whith the Dorico trial, in Spanish, I started to use it right away with no manual, as I would have never imagined that such a complete and complex software would not have a Spanish manual, the same language of the software.
With Finale out of bussines, I decided that Dorico was the way to go, and bought it, without checking the Spanish documentation which I took for granted.
The sentence âcustomers can certainly discovers for themselvesâ does not seem too responsible for a serious company such as Steinberg. Sounds like âlet them realize about it, if not, it is their problemâ. Yes, pretty much the result of this is deceiving, which surely is not Steinbergâs intention.
Please letâs leave this here. I do not want to engage in an sterile discussion. Steinberg does not explain yet why they sell this amazing software in a language without the correspondent documentation, and this is a fact. Neither does Steinberg state clearly if there will be a Spanish documentation soon.
This is all I can say to my Notation students when they ask about Dorico.
I absolutely understand your point of view, Santiago, and I donât want to argue with you. I have explained why we do not have Spanish documentation for Dorico today, and although I cannot commit to you right here, right now that we will definitely work on this, we certainly do not rule it out.
One point of clarification: there are no separate language versions of Dorico, so you do not need to choose between English and Spanish when you buy. You can change language at any time via the General page of Preferences.
I will answer in English as it is the forumâs language.
Thank you for your message, but it is clear that this cannot be the way to go. Customers should never do this huge and cumbersome translations.
You can see the mistakes that appear just in one page: as âplayersâ which are not âjugadoresâ, and so on, ÂżDo we need to review all the 1927 pages? Besides, Âżwhat shall we do with the next update of the software? Repeat the work again???
The hard task of revising such a long documentation is the responsibility of Steinberg, nobody else. That is what we expect for the price we pay for a professional software.
But I think that at Steinberg they do not yet understand how difficult is to learn a complex software such as Dorico with the documentation written in a different language.
If the solution is to change the program language to English, as suggested above, then the Steinberg company admits that the Spanish version of Dorico is useless as such, because it is a professional software without the corresponding documentation.
Hopefully some day they will decide to rectify this, so we can finally recommend the Spanish version of Dorico, with its Spanish documentation. At the moment this is not possible.
@Santiago_Galan, you are correct that the manual is a âmoving targetâ and very difficult to maintain as Dorico evolves. Usually, one uses tools for such tasks, e.g., Trados (costly) or https://omegat.org/ (free). Once these have been set up (either from scratch or using the alignment tools on an existing language pair), they monitor and auto-translate, âin secondsâ, everything that has not changed and prompt for changes since the last translation. But itâs a profession on its own â requiring skill in two languages, music and music terminology.
IIRC, the âGetting Startedâ for Sibelius in Swedish was translated by a Swedish agent to Avid, who sold the booklet quite successfully here (@dspreadbury might know the exact details, but it was a long time ago now soâŚ), and this might be the only way for non-supported languages. But, copyright, etc., needs to be respected and negotiated etc.
MuseScore benefits from a âshared communityâ that submits translations âad hoc,â but even if this sounds great, their documentation is far from great, even with all the technological marvels at hand.
@Mats_Frendahl thanks for your message, but the absurd situation here is that Steinberg sells a Spanish version of Dorico, without Spanish documentation. That makes no sense.
And it is not acceptable that we customers loose a single minute guessing the equivalence of Spanish terms in the software with English terms in the documentation, equivalences which can be perfectly arbitrary. It is even less logical that we paying customers even think about losing a minute translating the official manual.
Indeed, you have valid points. I have given up on many âSwedish semi-translatedâ software, even fully translated, e.g., the Adobe Suite or Microsoft Office. Once you are stuck and need assistance from YouTube, you are served with a solution in English, which can be a pain to apply to a Swedish GUI because the terminology is so diverse. Even if there were a Swedish GUI for Dorico, I would have installed English since forum experts here are mostly non-Swedes, making it easier to follow their solutions. But, then you do have the âcontinental easeâ, like the Germans and the French that love to dubb any film they get their hands on⌠I never forget watching Sir John Gielgud shouting âMerde, Merde!â in some peculiar voice
As far as I know, Dorico comes as a multi-language version. The software is built in English and the concept and all shortcuts are built around this language. But there are translation modules baked into the software, so one can change the User Interface to display a couple of other languages, Chinese, French, Spanish, Japanese and others. This can be helpful, if coming from a non english spoken country.
I use it in English, even if a (in my case) German translation exists. That translation makes it harder for me to use the software, as it in a way highlights some special aspects of the German language, like using complicated descriptions for easy items. It sounds over correct to my ears.
I know, someone has done the translation with a lot of thought and care, but stillâŚ
On the contrary I am totally amazed, how the company Apple has translated their macOS user interface into the German language in a way you never notice itâs a translation, absolutely simple and unobtrusive. This must have happened in the last century in the 80s I guess.
A bit off topic, since Iâm not going to address the translation of the manual into Spanish, but âŚ
⌠I am going to step near this landmine-like topic:
First let me say that I have only used the English UI of Dorico. Itâs not localized for my other language, Lithuanian, and if it were, I would probably find it time consuming and cumbersome since I have to look for help in the manual and online very frequently, and usually the only thorough sources of information are in English.
But ⌠I have often thought this in regard to software localization: it would be amazingly helpful if there were a way to show two languages in the UI, or toggle between two user-determined languages with the press of one key command.
(Usually changing the UI language is a select-the-new-language-and-restart-the-program process, so one canât switch back and forth quickly. I see from this link that Dorico allows one to change the UI language for the current project and all future ones without a restart. Thatâs good. But it seems to me that the UI should be project-agnostic since projects could be transferred between users with different language preferences.
What I dream of is actually bi-lingual user interfaces, so that the user can have one language showing in a regular-sized font while the other is in a tiny font under the other. And a toggle key to switch them around⌠This would provide heretofore unheard of convenience. (I know there are many reasons why developers would think this proposal is a nightmare or an impossibility. I admit it would be a paradigm shift, but I think a very welcome one for users whose first language is not English â an ever-growing part of the market.)
I have found using software whose UI was translated from English to be a nightmare partly because of what Iâd call strange terminology choices, but mostly because when you want help â but know itâs going to come only/mostly in English â you waste time figuring out the terminology in order to look for help.
Anyway, I can sympathize with both the users and the developers in this.
Eric
P.S. I forgot that I had commented on the idea of bi-lingual UIs earlier (link to forum post).
Iâm not sure if this is what youâre saying, but the language setting is an application setting, not a project setting. It doesnât get saved with the project.
Yes, I see now. I misunderstood this sentence: âThe language used for the user interface in the current project and all future projects is changed. If your keyboard language is set to Default, the keyboard language is also changed.â Sorry about that.
Greetings from Spain. The work of the Dorico team is excellent. Itâs not to look good. A very large human team would be necessary for translation. It happened to me with Finale since 1997. In 2001 Finale launched a manual in Spanish. I had a conflict. Later I couldnât work on Finale translated into Spanish. With Dorico it is the opposite. I started in Spanish and with manuals in English. The good thing is that I have noticed that there is an excellent community. I am learning with questions from the community and with the help of an online translator. In previous years this was impossible. Thank you all and I understand absolutely everything since I am Spanish and I know the work that is going on. A challenge for me. Apologies for my English, it is totally non-existent.
I never forget watching Sir John Gielgud shouting âMerde, Merde!â in some peculiar voice