# CAT-Tools/OmegaT/User manual/Introduction

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## Introduction
### Overview

This manual is a work in progress. It is subject to the following language availability:
Language - Status Belorussian (be) - Version 1.4.4; update pending English (en) - Version 1.4.6 (current) Esperanto (eo) - Version 1.4.4; update pending French (fr) - Version 1.4.4; update pending German (de) - New version pending Italian (it) - New version pending Japanese (ja) - Version 1.4.4; update pending Spanish (es) - Version 1.4.4; update pending Russian (ru) - Version 1.4.4; update pending Turkish (tr) - New version pending
The two letters in parentheses following the language are the language code for that language.
See the localization section in the credits below for the party responsible for a particular language.
OmegaT is a cross-platform application, so we decided to use UNIX/Linux terminology as it seems to be more common in cross-platform world. This documentation is intended for OmegaT users on all platforms, but some terminology could be a little unfamiliar to Windows users. So when the UNIX/Linux forward slash '/' is encountered, think '\'; and when “directory” is read, mentally translate it to “folder” instead.
For further information above and beyond what is contained in this manual please visit the OmegaT home page at http://www.omegat.org. Should you have any questions or comments on the manual please send them to the author (email: lin4trans@users.sourceforge.net with the subject line "OmegaT documentation"). Feedback is welcome! What is a Translation Memory?
The term "translation memory" is often used to refer to a program that works with a translation memory and an actual translation memory. So there is a need to differentiate between these uses in practice. A translation memory program, a Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tool, is used during the translation of documents from one language to another. It assists translation by storing pieces of text in a database (i.e. the translation memory) so that when the same piece of text (a segment) or a part of it is next encountered it is immediately visible as to how it was translated in the past. In order for translation memory to be very useful it must be used on a large number of document segments to build up a database of sufficient size with the corresponding translations; or sufficiently large pre-made databases must be available.

### What is special about OmegaT?

There are many translation memory programs on the market. OmegaT's particular features include that it is:
   * platform independent; uses a Java Runtime Environment for operation, and so can be used on a number of different operating systems including: Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows;
   * free;
   * open-source software, which means that users are free to distribute and modify it;
   * distributed with OpenDocument/OpenOffice.org file format support.
   * productive in website localization of XHMTL or HTML files.
   * useful for software localization of Java programs.

### Credits

Software Development: OmegaT is the original work of Keith Godfrey, with ongoing development by various contributors.
Project Coordinator: Marc Prior
(Names of contributors in the following are given in alphabetical order)
Localization:
   * Alessandro Cattelan (Italian)
   * Sabine Cretella and Martin Wunderlich (German)
   * Dmitri Gabinski (Belorussian, Esperanto, and Russian)
   * Jean-Christophe Helary (French)
   * Pablo Roca Santiagio; Juan Salcines and Cesar Escribano Esteban (Spanish)
   * Hisashi Yanagida (Japanese)
   * Erhan Yukselci (Turkish)
Software Development:
   * Sacha Chua
   * Raymond: Martin, BSc.
   * Maxym Mykhalchuk (Lead Developer--current)
   * Henry Pijffers
   * Benjamin Siband
Other:
   * Sabine Cretella
   * Dmitri Gabinski
   * Jean-Christophe Helary
   * Raymond: Martin, BSc.
   * Samuel Murray
   * Marc Prior
Thanks go out to all the other people whose contributions have made OmegaT what it is today!