I’ve been working as a translator, subtitler and e-commerce manager for almost 10 years. These and many other areas of work and business are often riddled with obstacles.
Let me tell you – I’ve used thousands of different kinds of software, applications or online tools. I have hundreds of different accounts on hundreds of different websites and applications.
It’s not that these tools don’t work, but I wanted to create my own little apps and scripts to make my job easier. The first thing that came to mind was a simple character counter.
When you work as a translator, you are paid either by the hour or by the project. Hourly rates are straightforward, but when it comes to one-off jobs and custom work for different clients and different projects, you will most likely base your pricing on the number of words or characters.
Big translation pro tip: go through the project before you quote your final price. There is a huge difference when:
- Translating a 300 word article with 5 long juicy paragraphs related to each other.
- Translating 300 words of app dashboard strings, where each string is a row in Excel and you have to manually go through Excel or Google Sheet or one of the string translation platforms.
Nevertheless. When it comes to quoting your price for a project, you want to count words or characters. Microsoft Word will do it for you, Google Documents will do it for you, many other text editors like Sublime will do it for you.
But what’s even faster, because you can skip multiple mouse clicks and load times? Super simple online tools with no loading, no unnecessary clicking, no menus, no registration or login, no newsletter pop-ups or subscription payments.
I wanted and needed a lot of small, fast, convenient, simple online tools that I could bookmark in my web browser, link to my projects (for clients and colleagues) and save time and money.
That’s what I like and that what’s arbanca is about.
I will be happy if you use, share and love the tools. If you have your own needs for something useful, get in touch with arbanca project, and we might do some more magic.