Turkish Proofing Tools

[Jam_Winner]

Office has a wonderful proofing tool on Windows in terms of proofing Turkish syntax. But when it comes to Mac, we have NOTHING. As a long time Mac user, as well as a Microsoft user, I wish I could see something related to Turkish on Mac OS X platform. It's pity not to have a proofing tool for my language inside one of the best software on the world. If you need help, there are thousands of people who can help you prepare an equivalent tool for Mac. There is a Windows version. There should be one! When I ask my friends who purchased Office 2008 whether they can see a proofing tool for Turkish Language is available or not, Microsoft disappointed me one more time.

I can hear some of you saying 'Ah! Who cares Turkish tools?', 'How many people use it?' ... etc. But please do not forget that if you want to gain new users, you have to speak from their language. Put yourself in my position and tell me. Wouldn't it be nice to be corrected when you write in your own language using your Mac?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Please use Help | Send Feedback in Word to request support for Turkish.
MS crunches the numbers and does what they think is profitable.

 

[Cumali Çalı]

I wanna talk to somethings in my language. I dont care somebody can understand.

Microsoft gibi dünya devi bir firmanın Apple Platformuna karşı bu türde yanlış ve kısıtlayıcı yada en kötüsünden yetersiz bir uygulamaya gitmesini hem yanlış buluyor hemde kınıyorum! Bilişim çağının tam ortasında yani 21.yüzyıl dünyasında hala bu türden açıklar veren firmaların dünya devi olması beni çok şaşırtıyor. Türkçe gibi dünya üzerinde 400.000 den fazla konuşanı olan bir dilin böyle yeni bir programda olmaması sizin ayıp ve cehaletinizin aynası.

 

[Jam_Winner]

Exactly, Cuma is right in his ideas. I do not defend him just because of the importance of the language and the number of speakers but there is a marketing misconception for Mac products in Microsoft's marketing strategy. Well, the number of Office Mac users could be low but it shouldn't mean that they shouldn't develop or transfer more or less the same data available for Windows based computers. If MS is thinking about the level of pirate copies for Turkish Mac products, they should have a better market search on Windows based computer market. I have been using computers since 1992 and i haven't seen a person who uses original Windows Office products. You can buy duplicate CD as if you bought chew gum from a market. If you don't code in a language, you cannot sell in that country.

Well MS, should be more open to this issue rather than opening the data code for office files. At least, if they cannot develop such a patch, they could have let us develop instead.

There are thousands of things to say....

Türkçesi:
Cuma düşüncelerinde haklı. Sadece dilin önemi veya konuşan sayısı nedeniyle de değil ama MS'un Mac ürünleri üzerinde bence bir pazarlama hatası var. Mac kullanan sayısı bir ülkede az olabilir ama bu durum Windows tabalı bilgisayarlarda kullanılabilen verilerin transfer edilememesi anlamına gelmemeli. Mac üzerinde çalışan Tükçe destekli Mac ürünleri hakkında korsancılık tehdidi görüyorsa MS, bence Windows pazarına tekrar bir bakılmalı. 1992 den beri bilgisaar kullanıyorum ama orjinal MS ürünü kullanana henüz rastalamadım. Sanki bakkaldan sakız alıyormuşsunuz gibi kopya Windows veya Office CD leri alabiliyorsunuz.

MS bence ofis dosya biçimini açmaktan daha da açık bir hal sergilemeli. En azından böyle birşey geliştiremiyorsa, biz kullanıcılara bırakabilmeli

Söylenecek tonlarca şey var....

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

At least, if they cannot develop such a patch, they could have let us
develop instead.

There are several issues for proper internationalization of Office for
Mac.

Office 2008 now offers the proper structure for multilingual support THe
applciations are packaged and host the resources in lproj folders.
I'm not 100% sure it's a simple matter of localizing these resources,
but it looks like it could be done by anyone who knows how to and wants
to spend the time and effort (I'm not just saying it like that - I
localize a lot of applications myself)

Then comes the issue of right-to-left support. This affects a fairly
important set of users. At this point, Office doesn't do it. I guess you
need to convice MS that it's economically worth doing (Use the Sed
Feedback command in any Office app??)

FInally, there is the additional issue of the proofing tools. If they
are not available in Office, you can't really develop them yourself. I
wish there was an SDK to create them though, but it's not the case. You
have the option to use thriid party tools. Of course, you can also try
and convince MS...

Corentin

 

[John McGhie]

If MS is thinking about the level of pirate copies for

Turkish Mac products, they should have a better market search on Windows based
computer market. I have been using computers since 1992 and i haven't seen a
person who uses original Windows Office products.

And that's the reason you don't have a product in your market, right there.

If people are going to pirate their software in your market, then Microsoft
won't make software for that market.

My company is not quite the same size as Microsoft (!) but I am certainly
not going to offer ANY product in a market where "everyone you see is using
a bootleg copy".

Any fool can make "software". Microsoft's shareholders expect it to make
"money"

I think you both will find OpenOffice more suitable to your needs. You can
download that for free.

Cheers

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jam_Winner]

And that's the reason you don't have a product in your market, right there.

I think there is a misunderstanding. We have a Turkish version of Office and many MS products but only for Windows not for Mac. Without numbers related to statistics, there is no need to go on such a discussion.

By the way, thanks for the recommendation Mr. McGhie but as a user who have a chance to use the software you need in your own language, I do not expect you to understand me and other Turkish Mac users who wants to use MS products. The matter is just a simple failure to transfer the available experience to another platform. If pirate copies are one of the reasons for not bringing out a software that has the target language's abilities, there is no need to bring out it even in English. Just for this case, compare the number of speakers of English and that of Turkish and those who uses the pirate applications. I am sure the number of the former is going to be much more bigger than the latter.

 

[John McGhie]

Truth is, we "understand" that you 'want' Mac Office in Turkish. We get it.
So does Microsoft!

Microsoft "has" transferred its available experience to the Mac. You can
buy a copy of Windows and a copy of Word 2007 and it will work just fine in
Turkish on a Mac.

But "Word" is not providing the Turkish in PC Office, Windows does that.
And in Windows, they have Software Activation encryption. That is a very
successful technology: it means nearly every copy of the latest versions is
paid for: it is nearly impossible to pirate. The price of Windows in
English-speaking markets was reduced 500 per cent when Activation was
introduced because all users began to pay for the software

What you want is "Microsoft Office for Mac in Turkish". That's a whole
different deal. Instead of making Word, running on Windows, utilise the
Windows language extensions, you now want Word, running on a Mac, under Unix
to use Mac OS X's language extensions.

It would cost as much to make that, as it did to make the Windows version.
You can't just drag the code over and re-compile: the two systems are
nothing alike, you have to re-design and re-write from scratch. In the case
of adding a language, you have to rewrite almost the whole application,
because the language of the interface appears everywhere.

There are just not enough customers using Macintosh in Turkish to justify
the cost. Especially since you say most of them don't pay for the software.

So: You may not like the answer, but that's the answer. Microsoft is
continuously evaluating which languages in which to release software. We
got more languages in this version than we did last time. Turkish is ALWAYS
considered, along with Arabic and the other RTL languages.

But each time they do this calculation (each version) they count up the
number of Mac customers in the market, subtract the proportion that use
pirated versions, then divide the cost of producing the language by that
number; and add the result to the base cost of Office. As soon as that sum
results in a figure less than about $500 US dollars, you will get your
language produced.

Sorry: I can't change the realities of the world. Microsoft is a
profit-making corporation, and its shareholders won't let it give stuff away
for free.

Oh, and by the way: Word is not available in my native language either
Not on the Mac.

Cheers

I think there is a misunderstanding. We have a Turkish version of Office and
many MS products but only for Windows not for Mac. Without numbers related to
statistics, there is no need to go on such a discussion.

By the way, thanks for the recommendation Mr. McGhie but as a user who have a
chance to use the software you need in your own language, I do not expect you
to understand me and other Turkish Mac users who wants to use MS products. The
matter is just a simple failure to transfer the available experience to
another platform. If pirate copies are one of the reasons for not bringing out
a software that has the target language's abilities, there is no need to bring
out it even in English. Just for this case, compare the number of speakers of
English and that of Turkish and those who uses the pirate applications. I am
sure the number of the former is going to be much more bigger than the latter.

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jam_Winner]

Truth is, we "understand" that you 'want' Mac Office in Turkish. We get it.

So does Microsoft!

Microsoft "has" transferred its available experience to the Mac. You can
buy a copy of Windows and a copy of Word 2007 and it will work just fine in
Turkish on a Mac.

Thanks for the reccomendation again, but you stlll insist on saying the same thing. If I had needed a Win based computer, i would have bought it and you woun't need to show your racist and xenophobic ideas that you keep for the speakers of other languages.

But "Word" is not providing the Turkish in PC Office, Windows does that.

And in Windows, they have Software Activation encryption. That is a very
successful technology: it means nearly every copy of the latest versions is
paid for: it is nearly impossible to pirate. The price of Windows in
English-speaking markets was reduced 500 per cent when Activation was
introduced because all users began to pay for the software

That is just because the GDP of most English speaking countries is more than that of ours. That is an economical truth.

What you want is "Microsoft Office for Mac in Turkish". That's a whole
different deal. Instead of making Word, running on Windows, utilise the
Windows language extensions, you now want Word, running on a Mac, under Unix
to use Mac OS X's language extensions.

It would cost as much to make that, as it did to make the Windows version.
You can't just drag the code over and re-compile: the two systems are
nothing alike, you have to re-design and re-write from scratch. In the case
of adding a language, you have to rewrite almost the whole application,
because the language of the interface appears everywhere.

I am not a dummy who doesn't know what a computer means. I know that both systems are being written by different infrastructures. When I was talking about a transfer, I meant a transfer of experience and knowledge. Thats all. All we need is just a couple of dictionaries and spell checker tools. without Turkish menus we can still use it.

There are just not enough customers using Macintosh in Turkish to justify
the cost. Especially since you say most of them don't pay for the software.

Well those who don't pay is the Windows users, not Mac.

So: You may not like the answer, but that's the answer. Microsoft is
continuously evaluating which languages in which to release software. We
got more languages in this version than we did last time. Turkish is ALWAYS
considered, along with Arabic and the other RTL languages.

But each time they do this calculation (each version) they count up the
number of Mac customers in the market, subtract the proportion that use
pirated versions, then divide the cost of producing the language by that
number; and add the result to the base cost of Office. As soon as that sum
results in a figure less than about $500 US dollars, you will get your
language produced.

This is the only part in your reply that agree with you. Microsoft is a profit-oriented company that will never do anything for free.

 

[John McGhie]

Microsoft "has" transferred its available experience to the Mac. You can

Thanks for the reccomendation again, but you stlll insist on saying the same
thing.

Did you imagine that the facts would change because of your rudeness?
That's an interesting idea...

you woun't need to show your racist and xenophobic ideas that you keep for the
speakers of other languages.

I beg your pardon?? Racist? Xenophobic? Those are very serious
accusations in the society I live in. We have one of the largest Turkish
populations outside Turkey.

You, it seems, don't know much. About computers. About Australia. About
Microsoft. Or about the world.

I guess that's not likely to change.

If you want to keep babbling your rubbish, send it to Microsoft, where some
poor unfortunate person is paid to have to read it. Don't put it in here.

Microsoft doesn't read this forum, and the people who do are all grown-ups
who get bored with your stupidity or ignorance.

You have a nice day now...

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

If I had needed a Win based computer, i would have bought it and you
woun't need to show your racist and xenophobic ideas that you keep for
the speakers of other languages.

That's not at all at all how I understood the explanations provided by
John here.
I just fear he is being mater-of-factual in this matter. If there aren't
enough paying customers for a language-specific version of Office, then
the MacBU has no incentive to commit the efforts required for
localization (which includs the proofing tools).
Some languages even only have partial proofing tools at this point (eg:
spelling but not grammar, etc.).
You should re-read what he said as I really couldn't find anything in
there I could interpret as either racist or xenophobic.

[...]

All we need is just a couple of dictionaries and spell checker tools.
without Turkish menus we can still use it.

Did you look around to find out whether there were any third party tools
that could do that ??

I've been using third pasrty proofing tools for French for years.

There is also the option to download "dictionaries" from the Web (e.g.
Excalibur for some languages) and adding all the words in a custom
dictionary for Turkish.
It's not perfect, but it can help,

Localizing proofing tools is far from being as trivial as it looks. You
have to understand the structure of the language, adapt the words
depending on context, etc. There is no such thing as "just a couple of
dictionaries and proofing tools" unfortunately.

Corentin

 

[Jam_Winner]

Before accusing people of being illiterate, you should know more about his or her own life and experiences as well as academic life. Well, i am sure I know more than many people on the WORLD about the world depending on my studies and degree. We'd better stop writing from here till it gets worse. Please, if you want to go on the discussion without Turkish proofing tools, you are welcome. Otherwise, I want you not to send any posts to this topic.

 

[Jam_Winner]

Dear Corentin,

Well, when i was talking about those accusations, i depended on Mr.'s wrong knowledge about Turkish language. Classifying things and countries according to geography is one thing, classifying languages is another. If you classify a language into a different group, this means you know wrong things about it and therefore this means you do not know the language and many things about it. Then, this sets the basis for xenophobia, because in this philosophy you create a kind of prejudice against others. There are a lot of reasons to talk about, but i want to stop talking about it and focus on the topic.

wrote:

If I had needed a Win based computer, i would have bought it and you
woun't need to show your racist and xenophobic ideas that you keep for
the speakers of other languages.

That's not at all at all how I understood the explanations provided by
John here.
I just fear he is being mater-of-factual in this matter. If there aren't
enough paying customers for a language-specific version of Office, then
the MacBU has no incentive to commit the efforts required for
localization (which includs the proofing tools).
Some languages even only have partial proofing tools at this point (eg:
spelling but not grammar, etc.).
You should re-read what he said as I really couldn't find anything in
there I could interpret as either racist or xenophobic.

[...]

All we need is just a couple of dictionaries and spell checker tools.
without Turkish menus we can still use it.

Did you look around to find out whether there were any third party tools
that could do that ??

Unfortunately, there are no 3rd party extensions for Turkish language that can be used in Office.

I've been using third pasrty proofing tools for French for years.

There is also the option to download "dictionaries" from the Web (e.g.
Excalibur for some languages) and adding all the words in a custom
dictionary for Turkish.

Online dictionaries are of great importance of course but this doesn't help Office to correct wrong words, and do some language related stuff.

It's not perfect, but it can help,

Localizing proofing tools is far from being as trivial as it looks. You
have to understand the structure of the language, adapt the words
depending on context, etc. There is no such thing as "just a couple of
dictionaries and proofing tools" unfortunately.

Corentin

--
--- Mac:MS MVP <http://www.cortig.net/wordpress/> ---
<http://www.mvps.org> - <http://mvp.support.microsoft.com>
MVPs are not MS employees - Les MVP ne travaillent pas pour MS
Remove "NoSpam" to e-mail me - Retirez "NoSpam" pour m'�crire

Thank you Corentin,