I’ve had an evaluation copy for the 30 days … not had time to use it too much, but tried it as a way of working on an English dubbing script of a brief interview in Chinese. The ability to have the QuickTime movie running in one split while doing the translation in the other was great, though being able to jump back further in the track using the keyboard would have been perfection. But I wasn’t sure that that kind of work is going to be very common and so wasn’t sure I could justify the purchase (It would have to be paid for by credit card and it’s currently the other half’s income that covers credit card payments … Renminbi is not accepted!)
A lot of work I do is editing translations, mostly of scripts for promotional videos for local companies and organisations, before recording them. I won’t record a script unless I can revise it … I’ve been there before and it’s a nightmare! I’ve always done the editing in NWE, but it has meant juggling windows to be able to check the Chinese original where the translation I have received is not immediately comprehensible — believe me, that’s not uncommon!
I had thought that Scrivener might be a good tool for this job.
Today I received a script to edit and record. As usual, they sent me the Chinese original and the translation that they had commissioned. I set it up with the original translation that I am revising in one vertical split and the Chinese original in the other, so that I can cross-check easily. Perfect … no juggling with windows. I was on line to register my copy on the spot.
I finished the editing more quickly than usual; I was able to use highlighting to mark bits where I wasn’t happy with my current version so that I could go back to it … a great working environment. I had only one problem … the spell check seems to be US not British English, and I couldn’t see a way of changing it quickly. I checked the final version in NWE, but it’s irritating being told you are mis-spelling something when you know you are right!
There is a distinct possibility that I might soon have a similar kind of task to do on a 25,000 character (going to come out at around 30,000 words at a guess) guide book, for which I will organise the basic translation to be done by a team of postgraduate students of translation. Great … I can use Scrivener to split up the original text for them (I already have it), can do the editing of their translations in parallel in the same way, then use “edit scrivenings” to check consistency in my version when it’s done. Brilliant!
Do you know, I’m actually looking forward to it, even though it’s going to be very difficult. That one project alone will probably justify the (very moderate) cost of Scrivener.
So thank you Keith.
Mark
Thanks. 
I’m glad Scrivener helped. As for the dictionary - this is a global setting in OS X, as Scrivener just uses the built-in dictionary. You can change it to British English via the spell checker (there is a pop-up button at the bottom).
All the best,
Keith
Thanks Keith … I should have looked!
Mark