Redesigned Microsoft Language Portal features terminology downloads

We’ve launched a redesigned and enhanced Microsoft Language Portal!

 

What you're seeing on the Language Portal today is not only a redesigned and easier-to-use site, but part of a wider effort to provide IT terminology for public download in an industry-recognized format.

 

If you are a regular visitor to the Language Portal, you’ll still find our online terminology and UI strings search, style guide downloads, and UI string downloads for TechNet/MSDN subscribers, but we’ve also introduced a brand-new feature: public downloads of our international Terminology Collection—the key IT terminology we use across our products in more than 90 languages—in the industry-standard .tbx format.

 

By sharing thousands of fully defined IT terms via public download, we are providing IT professionals with the resources they need to develop localized versions of applications that integrate with Microsoft products. The Microsoft Terminology Collection can also serve as a base IT glossary for language development.

 

If you are new to this site, the Microsoft Language Portal offers a one-stop location for discovering terminology used in our products, free downloads of localization style guides, a feedback feature to provide input on how Microsoft products are translated into your language, and much more. Since we launched the Language Portal in 2008, it has become an industry benchmark for finding generic IT terminology and the specific terminology we use in all languages in which we develop products.

Open sharing allows integration into other terminology collections

Open sharing of the Microsoft Terminology Collection allows for federation into larger terminology databases. For example, Microsoft terminology now appears in the EuroTerm Bank and the EvroTerm multilingual terminology databases.

More languages, more products ... more terminology

In combination with the relaunch, we have added terminology for languages and products that have released over the last few months: 44 Office 2007 Language Interface Pack languages, 12 new Vista languages ranging from Albanian to Tatar, as well as the addition of Amharic as a new language.

And check out our latest announcement of Office 2010 terminology and UI strings for 18 languages and 20 Windows 7 LIP languages, with more to follow as our localization teams release more languages over the coming months.

Our vision for the Language Portal is to make it a fast, simple, and comprehensive destination featuring high-quality IT terminology that can be used by our customers and users as well as the wider local language communities in all languages offered.

What else is new?

Updates on the new site are the result of listening to what you like about the old site—fast and simple search, definitions for each term, huge language coverage—and responding to suggestions for improvements, better layout, exact term matching, paging of search results, and more information on the terms of use. Based on the great responses from visitors through the Language Portal feedback tool, we’ve made a number of improvements:

· Search is now available on exact matches, using quotes (“like this”)

· Introduction of paging, to display the number of results pages for terms or strings

· Integration of blog posts on our landing page

· Fresher look and removal of unnecessary text

· Easier-to-find Terms of Use

· Updated blog look and availability of subscription email delivery

 

We hope the improvements will help you find the resources that matter.

Tell us what you think

We won't get everything right straight away. The Language Portal and our sharing efforts are works in progress, and we will continue to develop our offerings to customers and users.

If you have problems with the site, or have questions or suggestions, post a comment below.