Some of the advantages of using software localisation tools as opposed to using software resource editors or development environments are:
- Resource editors integrate very few functionalities which support translation. Usually they lack functionalities such as glossary generation, translation memory, statistics, spell checking, among others; therefore, updates of already translated software must usually be done from scratch
- L10N tools protect user interface items and encoding so that these cannot be inadvertently changed or deleted by translators/localisers when translating
- L10N tools allow users to easily mark strings (with review markers) accordingly if the strings have been recycled from previous versions, if they need to be reviewed or if they are signed off
- Unlike L10N tools, which are small and stand-alone applications, resource editors need to be installed as part of a development environment which may heavily use system resources
(Adpated from Esselink, 2000:383)
Finally, by using a single special tool, namely a software localisation tool, the following tasks can all be performed:
- Project preparation
- Determination of source and target paths
- Parser selection
- Selection of glossaries, TMs and TDBs
- Protection of specific strings (read-only)
- Insertion of comments for translators, reviewers, etc.
- Pseudo-translation
- Translation of the strings
- Adaptation of the user interface
- Generation of target files
- Import/Export of glossaries, terminology, TM
- Project storage