CatForm

Project details

Status: Grant-funded project in development
Duration: 12 months, from 01/09/2026 to 31/08/2027
Funding programme: PLG002 – Subvencions per a projectes d’incorporació de la llengua catalana en productes tecnològics i de foment del català en l’àmbit digital, from the Departament de Política Lingüística of the Generalitat de Catalunya
Participating organisation: imaxin
Project website: catform.opentrad.com (coming soon)

Summary

CatForm is an R&D&I project by imaxin to develop a Catalan language assistance solution integrated directly into web-based work environments.

The project will combine machine translation and language correction services with extensions for the Chrome and Edge browsers. The aim is for users to be able to translate or review a text directly in the fields of a web application, without having to copy it, open another tool and then return to the original application.

CatForm will build on the infrastructure and language services of Opentrad and will develop a new integration layer on top of them, aimed especially at public administrations and companies that routinely work with forms, management applications, CRM, ERP, intranets or e-government platforms.

The challenge

A growing proportion of the texts produced in professional settings are written directly in web applications. However, the language tools available are not always integrated into these spaces.

This need does not stem solely from a theoretical premise. In imaxin's work with public administrations and companies, we have identified real cases in which users themselves point to forms and web applications as the places where it is hardest to guarantee the linguistic quality of content.

Even if people have translators, proofreaders or other tools when working with documents, they may lose that support when entering information directly into a corporate application. Correcting or translating a text then means interrupting their work, copying the content into another tool, processing it and pasting it back into the application.

CatForm starts from this problem to explore a different approach: bringing language technology to the place where people are writing, integrating it into the workflow itself.

What imaxin brings

CatForm will build on the experience imaxin has accumulated over more than two decades in machine translation, language correction and the development of technologies for co-official languages.

One of the main technological foundations of the project will be Opentrad, a platform on which imaxin has worked since 2005 and which, over the years, has evolved to incorporate different engines, models and language services, as well as integrations with systems used by administrations, companies and media organisations.

CatForm represents a new step in this evolution. The aim is not simply to develop yet another web translator or proofreader, but to investigate how these services can be easily integrated into the applications people use in their daily work.

The project will make use of existing components, APIs, models and infrastructure, and will focus new development on browser integration, user experience, the expansion of language resources for Catalan and the connection between the different services.

What we are going to develop

The project will be built around two complementary ways of accessing the language services.

First, a CatForm web portal will be developed, providing access to Catalan translation and correction services.

Second, extensions for Chrome and Edge will be created, allowing these functions to be used directly in the text fields of web applications. This integration will make it possible to act on content entered in forms, administrative management systems, CRM, ERP, intranets, public service platforms and other corporate applications.

The development will also include the backend and the APIs needed to connect these components to the existing language services, as well as an expansion of the rules of the Catalan proofreader and the corresponding functional and linguistic validation processes.

Technology and approach

CatForm will follow an architecture based on services and APIs that makes it possible to decouple the user interface from the various language components.

This approach will make it possible to reuse Opentrad's infrastructure and to combine different translation and correction services without tying CatForm's operation to a single engine or model.

A specific part of the work will be devoted to the interaction between the browser extensions and web applications. The aim is for language assistance to be usable in a natural way within editing fields, minimising disruption to the user's workflow.

Development will be carried out iteratively using the Scrum methodology, progressively incorporating functional analysis, UX, development of the extensions, backend, integration of language services and improvement of the proofreader.

Validation, pilot and improvements

Validation will be a cross-cutting part of the project. CatForm will need to work on web applications with very different characteristics and, at the same time, deliver linguistic results suitable for professional use.

For this reason, functional tests will be carried out on the extensions and their integration with different types of fields and web applications, together with specific QA and linguistic validation processes.

The tests will also be used to analyse the user experience and to detect situations in which the integration may interfere with existing applications. The results obtained during these phases will be used to make adjustments before the solution goes live.

Expected results

By the end of the project, the aim is to have a functional Catalan language assistance platform comprising a web front end, extensions for Chrome and Edge, backend services and mechanisms for integration with Opentrad's language technologies.

The project will also make it possible to expand the resources used for Catalan correction and generate knowledge about the integration of language services into professional web applications.

CatForm also envisages the possibility that user interaction could help generate new language resources. The corrections selected by users and, where possible, the revisions made to machine translations may provide useful information for improving and evaluating future language technologies.

This use will be subject to the express authorisation of the organisation or client. Data will not be shared by default and, where appropriate, anonymisation processes will be applied before any potential use in public initiatives for the development of artificial intelligence in Catalan, such as AINA. In this area, imaxin will also draw on the experience gained in projects carried out with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center relating to translation evaluation and content anonymisation.

Impact

CatForm seeks to reduce one of the practical barriers to the everyday use of Catalan in professional digital environments: the separation between language tools and the applications in which texts are actually produced.

Integrating translation and correction directly into the browser can make it easier for administrations and companies to use Catalan in their day-to-day processes, especially in applications that do not themselves include language tools.

For imaxin, the project will allow progress along a line of R&D&I aimed at turning language technologies into services that are increasingly integrated into work processes. CatForm will join the Opentrad ecosystem, extending its reach from traditional access to language services towards models of contextual, integrated assistance.

The project began in September 2026 and will end in August 2027. As it progresses, we will be sharing information on its development, and catform.opentrad.com will be available soon as a dedicated space for the project.

Funding

Project funded under the call PLG002 – Subvencions per a projectes d’incorporació de la llengua catalana en productes tecnològics i de foment del català en l’àmbit digital, run by the Departament de Política Lingüística of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Amb el suport de la Generalitat de Catalunya.