Translation is a destructive process--both linguistically and electronically. In order to translate written content in the myriad forms in which it can now be authored, we translators must tear the original apart. At the level of meaning we deconstruct the original in order to understand the message, and the text itself must be stripped from its final format so that it can be more efficiently digested and converted into the translated version. This destructive process is a requirement of current commercial translation practices for all kinds of content--but especially for technical texts.
That sounds pretty lofty, but put simply, as translation service providers we need to separate form from content for two simple reasons:
- Unlike technical writers, translators never took to working in myriad applications such as FrameMaker, Quark Xpress and InDesign, so documents are rendered in a neutral, translator-friendly format.
- We need to record, store and be able to immediately retrieve everything we translate so we can reuse it at a later time. We do this using translation memory tools such as MadCap Lingo.
Why should this matter to technical authors? Because your choice of tools and related authoring and publishing processes directly impacts how we translators do our jobs. Choosing the right tools not only makes you more efficient, but it will also makes the translation process faster and cheaper. Even if at this moment none of the content you or your organization is creating is being translated, you should assume that someday it will be, and select tools that will support efficient publishing in a wide variety of languages and publishing formats.
For my company, our decision to support translation of content authored in MadCap Flare has been pivotal to supporting a large segment of customers. And, since starting our services with Flare 2.0, we have expanded our support by including Mimic, Capture and Lingo in our workflow. For organizations already using Flare, Mimic and Capture are likely already included in your workflow as well. And if translation becomes a requirement, adding Lingo may be a logical next step. Quite simply, these tools support and enforce best practices in authoring--and by extension--for translation. Here's how:
Content is Easily Accessed
Remember, translators are not like authors; few translate in the same environment in which content is created. Therefore, it is vital that we can easily access all the content in a project. Lingo makes this seamless, since it is effectively an extension of Flare's authoring environment. But even if third-party translation memory software is being used, Flare's XHTML files can be easily filtered and the content ported to the translator's working environment. Ancillary files such as table of contents and indexes are also easy to manage for translation.
If you create your images in Capture, you can significantly reduce time and cost of translation by adding text layers there rather in, for example, Photoshop. The benefit is that Capture stores text from the text layer in an XML file that can be easily accessed and translated then reinserted into the Capture image. The same holds true for captions and callout text from Mimic.
Content in Different Languages is Easily Controlled
Easy access to content in Flare enables faster, more efficient translation. The other piece of the puzzle is putting the translation back into the original format with minimal effort. For most traditional translation projects (e.g. those done in FrameMaker, Quark Xpress or InDesign), between 20-30% of project costs are consumed by desktop publishing. When working with Flare, related costs for desktop publishing can be less than 10%. This is due to the high level of control Flare offers when designing your documents and by utilizing stylesheets for as much of the content as possible. Occasionally styles may need to be tweaked so they work optimally in the translation, but this is far cheaper than having to apply formatting manually.
Other features in Flare that can further streamline how text is handled in translation are:
Snippets
Snippets are pieces of text that may need to be used repeatedly throughout a document, for example a copyright notice or a warning message. For translation snippets provide the benefit of only having to translate a particular piece of text once. It will then be used consistently throughout the document. We recommend that snippets be created for full sentences or fixed phrases. If you take your enthusiasm for snippets too far and start trying to substitute single words or short phrases you may actually make translation more difficult. For example, a two to three word phrase once translated may not be able to be joined with other text because the grammatical role of that phrase may change and word endings may have to be changed. In English this would rarely be the case, so that is why it is tempting.
Here is an example for what can go wrong with snippets in other languages:
English: Check that the Show Only Today's Scheduled Patients option is not selected in the Admin application Select Event dialog box.
The snippet is the underlined text "Admin application"' and in Croatian the nominative form is aplikacija Admin.
Croatian: Provjerite da mogucnost Pokaži samo pacijente koji su na današnjem rasporedu nije odabrana u dijaloškom okviru Odabir pacijenta aplikacije Admin.
Note that in this context the Croatian word for "application" is "aplikacije", which ends now in "e" and not "a".
Snippets cannot dynamically account for such grammatical variations, so in the translation the snippet had to be removed and reverted to normal text. Translators who know Flare well will look for such potential problems prior to starting translation. Doing this kind of internationalization is critical especially for projects involving multiple languages, since it makes more sense addressing problems once in English than fixing the same problem repeatedly in five, eight or ten translated versions.
Variables
Different from snippets, variables allow you to substitute certain types of text (typically product or feature names) to create a multiple versions of similar documents. The classic example is the full version of a software product and a lite version. Much of the documentation for both products might be similar, but you need to use different product names throughout the documents. Typically this will work just as well in translated content as it does in English, but occasionally it may be necessary to optimize the variables for a given language. Using variables allows you to maintain multiple versions of documents from centrally controlled source. For the translation process it also avoids the reuse of content in which the variable elements might otherwise have to be changed manually, which is what is required if separate versions of the documents were maintained separately.
Targets
The ability to define various target document types in Flare is a huge benefit to the translation process. First of all, well-defined targets clearly communicate to the translation provider what the deliverables are for a project. The target properties also track critical settings for managing and creating the target. Individual target properties can be modified to meet requirements of a particular translation. For example, the paper size of a PDF intended for printing can be changed from Letter to A4 for countries that use that paper size. Be sure however to maintain your list of targets well, since unnecessary or repetitive targets can hinder the process and lead to higher translation costs.
Like with any tool what can be produced is only as good as the skills of the tool user. In our experience a well planned and executed Flare project that takes translation into account can drastically reduce the costs and time of translation, when compared to traditional layout tools. Frankly even those Flare projects that are not well created are still easier to work with and can yield good results compared to using a toolset that has changed little since 1997 (sorry, FrameMaker and MS Word!). In the end it is the management of both content and form that makes Flare and its companion tools so effective for authoring and translation.
