DTP and Document Translation

Would you know what to do if your boss handed you a 100 page hard copy report and asked you to get it translated from English into French, Italian, German and Spanish? My guess is, you would respond with something like, “huh?” I have managed hundreds of translation projects over the years, and this hub will give you a basic overview of the translation process, basic cost, and turn-around time. Just to clarify, I said I managed the translation process, not translated the documents myself.

So you know you have a 100 page report. The next step is to take a few minutes and look through the document. Here are some things you need to note:

• Are there any illustrations, charts or photos (graphics) in the document?
• If there is text in the graphics, should they be translated or left in English?
• If there are graphics, are there any callouts associated?
• Is there a need for the document to be reviewed by an in-country-reviewer? (More on that later)
• Are there any software screenshots?
• Should the translated document be multilingual or will each language be its own book?

Now you need to find out if an electronic copy of the document exists. This is very important and it is even more important to get that electronic copy in a “native” format such as Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Framemaker, Adobe InDesign or some other type of desktop publishing software. Once you locate the electronic copy, you need to make figure out how the illustrations, charts or photos are linked with the document. Are they embedded in the document or linked. If they are linked, all the graphics must accompany the electronic document when sent to the translation company.

The next step would be to find a translation company and request a quote. You can do all of this online. There are many big, medium and small translation companies with presence on the internet. More than likely, after you contacted the company by email, they will ask you to upload your document and graphics to their FTP site. The translation company will then review your document and send you a quote.

When the quote is returned, there may be an itemized list of tasks. These are the types of tasks that may appear on your quote from the translation company: Translation, Editing, Proofreading / Linguistic QA, Preparation / Analysis / Verification, Desktop Publishing, Graphics callouts localization, and Project Management. These are tasks they will be charging you for so it is important to know what they mean.

ICRs are folks who speak the native language and review translation for accuracy by comparing the English version to the translated version of the document. The ICRs look for incorrect translation, misspellings, and sometimes the correct use of product terminology. The ICRs may work in sales, regulatory, management, or other roles. The ICR plays an important role in translation and it is important to consider the time that they are involved in a project. If you are in a high regulated environment, you will want an in-country review.

DTP stands for Desktop Publishing and refers to the layout of the document, including such things as page numbering, fonts and graphics. In the translation world, DTP is the last phase of the translation process. Once a project proceeds to DTP, it can be costly and time-consuming to make changes to the translation. DTP is an important phrase to understand because it is sometimes the most expensive and time-consuming part of a translation project. To keep translation costs down, revisions to large translated documents should be kept to the text only.

Although translators charge per word, other factors influence costs, such as availability of translators, and desktop publishing. Translating into Spanish will cost less than translating into Arabic just because of the complexity of the language. Special layout documents are more difficult to format and more labor intensive, therefore price per word for those documents would be higher than for a straight report.

The pricing in the quote may have a table such as the example below:

Project Management:  $3,000

TOTAL $23,833.86

Turnaround depends upon word count, complexity of formatting, software used to create the document, if there are translated text in graphics and if you choose ICR.

For a 100 page document with ICR included and with all the tasks included from above, an average turnaround time for a new translation is approximately 3-4 weeks.

The process of completing a project would typically follow the steps described below. The steps and sequence of the steps may apply in whole or partly, depending on the project component.

1. Startup and Preparation
2. Evaluation and QA
3. Translation Tool Analysis
4. Glossary Development and Approval
5. Translation
6. Editing
7. Desktop Publishing (if required)
8. Graphics Editing
9. Client Review
10. Implementation of changes
11. Format and Linguistic Proofing
12. Final QA
13. Delivery of Final Document

The normal reaction to a translation proposal is bulging eyes, uncontrolled coughing, and hands to the head and then of course the boss blames you for the high cost. The next step would be to calmly suggest you will call the translation company and ask to re-negotiate. You can say this calmly and like you know what you are doing because most translation companies, especially if you have never had anything translated with them before, will do back flips to get your business. More than likely, they will cut their cost a good 15-20% if you tell them the price was too high and you are going to look elsewhere. But beware, after you have a few documents translated with the same translation company the price slowly creeps up because now they have your translation memory (but that’s another hub entirely.)

This is a very basic overview of the translation process. As you can see, there is much more to it than you would think especially, if you want your document translation done professionally and accurately.

Machine translation (translation done by a computer), can be used for words, phrases or even small documents. In my experience, machine translation is not 100% accurate and must be proofread carefully by a native speaker, otherwise your document will not look professional.