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Subject:File Format for Outsourcing Translation From:Alexander Von_obert <avobert -at- TWH -dot- MSN -dot- SUB -dot- ORG> Date:Mon, 1 Sep 1997 11:24:00 +0100
Hello Becky,
* Antwort auf eine Nachricht von jrobeck -at- LDL -dot- NET an All am 30.08.97
jj> Have any of
jj> you ever had a problem with a translation agency not being able
jj> to work with electronic files that you send to them?
as a matter of fact such is life!
From his or her point of view anything beyond Winword is simply overkill for a
translator. But if you are willing to pay for the service you might find a
translator who can work using Framemaker or any other tool.
If you have lots of uniform texts to translate the problem might increase:
There are tools like "translation memory" systems that analyse the source text
sentence by sentence and compare it to texts that were translated before. In
many cases this might boost productivity but relies on import and export
filters for your data formats.
I maintain a Winhelp system that was created in German, went through five or
six versions over the last years and exists in seven languages. We have
simplified the layout and work on the RTF level. When I update the German
version I use the "Ueberarbeiten" ("revision"?) feature of Winword so that the
translators can see where something has been changed. I am not sure if this
information could be exported to any other data format.
From a service provider's standpoint my decision is quite simple: Does it pay
off for me to buy a new program and to learn to use it? I said yes when a
long-time customer wanted me to work with Interleaf.
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