Virtaal, a Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tool, has been providing translators with Machine Translation suggestions through its plugin system. We've just committed a new Machine Translation plugin that allows Virtaal to use Microsoft Translator's new Haitian Creole translation engine.

The Microsoft Translator plugin has been waiting for the next major release as we didn't want to introduce any User Interface changes. But the usefulness of this tool in the current Haitian crisis means that we've released it so that people can use it and benefit from the feature.

How does this help?

• Any software that needs to be localised into Haitian Creole can now be more easily translated in Virtaal with Haitian Machine Translation support.
• Documents (OpenDocument Format and wiki texts) can be translated into Haitian Creole using Virtaal and the Translate Toolkit's txt2po and odf2xliff converters.

How do I use the plugin?

You have two options:

1. Windows: Download our special Virtaal .exe for Windows.
2. Linux: Copy the Microsoft Translator plugin into your plugin directory (on Linux this is /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/virtaal/plugins/tm/models/

How to use the plugin?

1. You'll need to define Haitian Creole as a language in Virtaal
1. Bottom Right > New Language Pair...



2. Add Missing Language...



3. Name 'Haitian Creole' and language code 'ht'



2. Ensure that the plugin is enabled. Edit > Preferences > Plug-ins > Translation Memory > Configure... Ensure Microsoft Translator is checked.

Open your file and begin translating, I'm using the tutorial Help > Tutorial and as you can see I'm getting Machine Translation suggestions from Microsoft for Haitian Creole.