Manual Translation

[Eric Silver <eric -dot- silver -at- EAGLEPOINT -dot- COM>]

We are currently trying to translate our manuals from English to French,
German, Russian, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc. The DTP we are
using is FrameMaker and we have about 50 manuals that are roughly 250
pages; however, some are up to 700 pages.

We are currently having our international dealers translate the manuals
since the cost of translation is entirely out of our budget.

We want to be able to bring the electronic files back to our corporate
headquarters so that we can print the manuals here in case of a
termination of our dealer agreement. This requires that we have the
electronic files in a format that we can read.

We just finished having one of our dealers in France translate a manual
using Word 7. This was a nightmare. They emailed the files back to us
and the total size of the files was 91 MB. As you can imagine, it was
quite difficult to create a Master Document for the TOC and Index. It
took forever. If we have to manipulate or even open 91 MB worth of files
for each manual just to print it out, it will take forever.

How is everyone else doing this? Can we have them use a localized
version of FrameMaker and ship us the files or are we going to have to
bit the bullet and hire a translation company?

Thanks for the help,
Eric

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html