Layout for texts in "incomprehensible" languages Thread poster: Anthony Green
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I do a lot of work with a local graphics/communications office. I make sure that they get all of the texts they need in various languages, and they do what they are good at - the layout.
Recently, however, we have been dealing with a lot of "incomprehensible" languages (for them), such as Japanese and Chinese, Arabic, Russian etc. where the graphics studio are unable to guess the meaning of the phrases they are reading, so sometimes get a bit lost.
Has anyone found a solution for laz... See more I do a lot of work with a local graphics/communications office. I make sure that they get all of the texts they need in various languages, and they do what they are good at - the layout.
Recently, however, we have been dealing with a lot of "incomprehensible" languages (for them), such as Japanese and Chinese, Arabic, Russian etc. where the graphics studio are unable to guess the meaning of the phrases they are reading, so sometimes get a bit lost.
Has anyone found a solution for lazy people like me? Where translators use Trados I have been sending the studio the uncleaned BAK files, but sometimes translators don't use Trados, in which case I have to create a two-column table where the first column contains the original and the second contains the target, but it's terribly time-consuming.
Has anyone found a better way? ▲ Collapse
| | | | chance (X)
French to Chinese
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| A two-column table by translator himself | Apr 23, 2004 |
You may ask translators to make a two-column table for translation or ask them to try Wordfast with uncleaned file
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HTML - maybe refined with CSS - is a helpful tool to separate content from layout, so both can be handled separately, and HTML can even be considered as a database format.
But I am not talking about automatically generated HTML which contains much more than necessary.
| | | | Anthony Green 
Italy
Local time: 03:02
Italian to English
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TOPIC STARTER | That looks complex... | Apr 23, 2004 |
I'm quite good with manipulating text, but I'm not sure what you mean by this - how easy is it to implement and are there any texts/instructions on how to do it?
Would the end result be a table?
Now that you've helped to focus my mind, what I'd be looking for would be something like the contents of the alignment window in Trados WinAlign - without having to export the contents!
Harry_B wrote: HTML - maybe refined with CSS - is a helpful tool to separate content from layout, so both can be handled separately, and HTML can even be considered as a database format. But I am not talking about automatically generated HTML which contains much more than necessary.
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Anthony Green
Italy
Local time: 03:02
Italian to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Avoid overburdening the translator | Apr 23, 2004 |
Yes these are both possibilities but create extra work for the translator - I'm wondering whether there's a way of avoiding that. Also, some translators would understand what I meant and others would curse me...
chance wrote: You may ask translators to make a two-column table for translation or ask them to try Wordfast with uncleaned file
| | | | | Why not simply keep the source text? | Apr 23, 2004 |
The translators don't even have to be bothered with delivering a table format.
If they don't use a CAT tool they could simply write a translated paragraph behind the source paragraph, and the graphics/communications office could understand it like an uncleaned Trados file.
If necessary, a manually inserted "segment separator" like ## could be used.
[Edited at 2004-04-23 16:17]
| | | | Anthony Green
Italy
Local time: 03:02
Italian to English
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TOPIC STARTER | The simplest ideas are the best | Apr 23, 2004 |
Now why didn't I think of that?
Thanks Harry
Harry_B wrote:
The translators don't even have to be bothered with delivering a table format.
If they don't use a CAT tool they could simply write a translated paragraph behind the source paragraph, and the graphics/communications office could understand it like an uncleaned Trados file.
If necessary, a manually inserted "segment separator" like ## could be used.
| | | | | Or better two different segment separators | Apr 23, 2004 |
In case you might want to import the translation into a TM, later, you could simply replace one of the segment separators with a column separator (like a tabulator) to allow for an automatic alignment.
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Eva Blanar
Hungary
Local time: 03:02
English to Hungarian
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| Write a macro | Apr 24, 2004 |
I use this for proofreading (very simple, could be much more sophisticated):
step 1
macro (Tools > Macros > Record new Macro)
convert source text to table
add one more column
step 2
convert target text to table
copy the table into the empty column - ready
You can at least see immediately, if the translator did a good job in terms of formatting...
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