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Subject:Re: favorite DTP From:Shlomo Ramon <ramsol -at- NETVISION -dot- NET -dot- IL> Date:Thu, 1 May 1997 20:31:33 PDT
With respect to relative merits of various DTP programs: one aspect seems to
be overlooked - language support. It is hardly necessary to point out that
the great majority of human race does not have sufficient command of English
language to understand docs written even by best writers in clearest and
most concise style. Within the group, I did discern a following approach to
deal with the problem: "let us write in English and translate into whatever
jargon is required, using professional translating agencies". Well, the
results are often humourous, sometimes tragic, but rarely effective, because
of shortcomings of "professional" translators, who may hold advanced degrees
in both source and target languages, yet as often as not translate without
properly understanding the exact meaning of the text.
Also, as far as Semitic languages (Hebrew, Arabic) are concerned, as much as
I know, nobody provides support except Microsoft - so there is your default,
FM may be excellent and Interleaf even better, so what? Similar situation
might exist with respect to two bytes per character coded languages such as
Japanese. I may be wrong, of course, therefore am interested to hear other
opinions on multilingual user docs.
-------------------------------------
Name: Shlomo RAMON
E-mail: ramsol -at- NetVision -dot- net -dot- il
Date: 05/01/97
Time: 20:31:34
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