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You could hire a couple of translators/editors and use the tool
"Trados". It is a translation tool but works on the principles of
replacing translated text from information that has been uploaded in the
tool's memory. For more on this, check these links out.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+mahithab=collab -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+mahithab=collab -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of bryan johnson
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 2:15 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Translations
I'm hoping someone out there can help me...
My current employer has a need to translate some of our documents (FM)
to Spanish (LA) and French (Canada). Many of our customers are
asking/demanding our manuals be translated. I have investigated various
translation services etc. and have together with our VP of International
sales, proposed a plan to recoup our translation costs. Everything looks
good...
We presented our plan to our CEO who promptly shot it down saying he
wouldn't approve the plan but would approve "software" to do the
translations...
Okay, aside from all of the obvious problems with this scenario, how can
I go about educating him on the short comings of machine translation?
Has anyone been down this road before?
Even if there was a "magic" box that could produce accurate translations
at the touch of a button, we would still need to perform the desktop
publishing. We are a small (2 writers) mono-lingual group. We currently
don't even have the resources to produce our documentation in English!
Let alone perform translation services!
Sorry, trying hard not to vent!
Anyway, I was hoping there might be white papers, reports, speeches...
anything that I can produce from an authority, that will back up my
contention that this is a really, really bad idea.
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Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include single source authoring, team authoring,
Web-based technology, and PDF output. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
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