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Best text editor for Unicode (in Windows)?
Autor da sequência: Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström  Identity Verified
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Local time: 01:04
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May 31, 2007

Hi all,

I know this has been discussed, but I want to hear your opinion on the best text editor from a translator's point of view.

I'm on Windows, so let's have that as a starting point. If others want to chime in on *nix, Mac etc, feel free...

Say that you want to open billingual tmx or ttx files, the editor should support right-left languages, CJK languages etc.

So many names have been mentioned, but I wonder if there is any concensus which ... See more
Hi all,

I know this has been discussed, but I want to hear your opinion on the best text editor from a translator's point of view.

I'm on Windows, so let's have that as a starting point. If others want to chime in on *nix, Mac etc, feel free...

Say that you want to open billingual tmx or ttx files, the editor should support right-left languages, CJK languages etc.

So many names have been mentioned, but I wonder if there is any concensus which one has the best language support?!

I've seen recommendations here for UltraEdit, PFE, jEdit, EmEditor, Simredo, SC Unipad, Unired, PSPad:
http://www.proz.com/post/259088#259088

Other bonuses would be elaborate regex search/replace functions, batch processing, colour GUI of tagged/html code etc.

Best,

Jan

[Edited at 2007-06-01 07:57] ▲ Collapse
 
Sonja Tomaskovic (X)
Sonja Tomaskovic (X)  Identity Verified
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Local time: 01:04
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What is the best? May 31, 2007

I think "the best editor" just does not exist. What I find good or even acceptable may be totally unacceptable to someone else.

I can only speak from my own experience.

Simredo is small and easy to use, but it lacks some of the functions you mentioned. I think I never used it to open TMX or other XML files (except for HTML files). It offers Unicode support and support for r2l and CYK languages.

SC Unipad is much better regarding these functions (I am not su... See more
I think "the best editor" just does not exist. What I find good or even acceptable may be totally unacceptable to someone else.

I can only speak from my own experience.

Simredo is small and easy to use, but it lacks some of the functions you mentioned. I think I never used it to open TMX or other XML files (except for HTML files). It offers Unicode support and support for r2l and CYK languages.

SC Unipad is much better regarding these functions (I am not sure it has all the required functions) and I found it suitable for my needs while I was working on Windows. I used it regularly to open tmx files and for search&replace. I cannot comment on colour coding options, as I never used that. Unicode, r2l and CYK support (Unicode support works well, can't coment on the other features). My editor of choice.

jEdit, which I have tried only briefly, looked OK to me but I just wasn't able to commit enough time to find what plugins are available to make it suitable for my needs.

I used PSPad with PHP, HTML and XML files (no TMX files). It offers colour coding options and was easy to use, but is Windows only. I found it very useful when writing my own PHP or HTML code. It is supposed to support Unicode but I found it did not work very well in this respect. ▲ Collapse
 
Piotr Bienkowski
Piotr Bienkowski  Identity Verified
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Local time: 01:04
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UltraEdit May 31, 2007

Jan Sundström wrote:

Hi all,

I know this has been discussed, but I want to hear your opinion on the best text editor from a translator's point of view.

I'm on Windows, so let's have that as a starting point. If others want to chime in on *nix, Mac etc, feel free...

Say that you want to open billingual tmx or ttx files, the editor should support right-left languages, CJK languages etc.

So many names have been mentioned, but I wonder if there is any concensus which one has the best language support?!

I've seen recommendations here for UltraEdit, PFE, jEdit, EmEdit, Simredo, SC Unipad, Unired, PSPad:
http://www.proz.com/post/259088#259088

Other bonuses would be elaborate regex search/replace functions, batch processing, colour GUI of tagged/html code etc.

Best,

Jan


Not free but will satisfy most if not all of your needs.

If the file is encoded in UTF-8, non-latin characters will be displayed, I checked with Russian, Hebrew and Arabic characters.

It has regex, syntax highlighting, scripting language, unicode searching of disk files.

And it saved my... errr.... deadline when I got a damaged TTX file which however could be cured with UltraEdit in HEX Edit mode. It just needed a few zero bytes here and there, and TagEditor could read the file again.

I recommend Ultraedit. Oh, and I use it often for tweaking with TMX files too.

HTH

Piotr
 
Jan Sundström
Jan Sundström  Identity Verified
Suécia
Local time: 01:04
Membro (1970)
Inglês para Sueco
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Autor do assunto
More opinions? Jun 1, 2007

Sonja Tomaskovic wrote:

I think "the best editor" just does not exist.


Hi Sonia, Piotr!

I intentionally chose a provocative title - of course personal tools and software is always a matter of taste. Just like the "impossible question" of the best CAT tool.

In the meantime, I found a very good overview. It seems that someone already made the reasearch for us:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=UnicodeSupport#b54eca14

And:
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/utilities_editors.html

Then there is also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_text_editors#Encoding_support

A lengthy discussion here mentioned EmEditor as a top contender (which also provides a freeware version):
http://acko.net/blog/text-editor

From external recommendations, I also see Yudit and mined crop up, did anyone try them?

I just wanted to bring up the discussion, to see if you've encountered aspects or obstacles that I might have forgotten.

The story about fixing corrupt ttx files in hex mode was very exciting, as an example!

I'd like to hear text editor anecdotes from the rest of the proz gang here too...

/Jan

[Edited at 2007-06-01 08:31]

[Edited at 2007-06-01 08:31]
 


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Best text editor for Unicode (in Windows)?






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