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Desktop publication apps
Thread poster: Jessie Nelson
Jessie Nelson
Jessie Nelson  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 02:15
French to English
Jul 29, 2012

Hello,
I have lost a few jobs recently because the document is in the for of a booklet. They wanted me to reproduce it exactly with picture, translating the French text to English.
Does anyone know of an app for desktop publishing.
Thanks in advance


 
Sergei Tumanov
Sergei Tumanov  Identity Verified
Local time: 08:15
English to Russian
+ ...
InDesign Jul 29, 2012

InDesign is a great tool

 
Mohamed Kamel
Mohamed Kamel  Identity Verified
Egypt
Local time: 08:15
English to Arabic
Of course, but, it takes a long time to learn Jul 29, 2012

Sergei Tumanov wrote:

InDesign is a great tool


Of course, the main DTP software is InDesign, but, it takes a long time to learn and it will take longer to master.

MK


 
Joakim Braun
Joakim Braun  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 07:15
German to Swedish
+ ...
Yes Jul 29, 2012

Using Indesign at a professional level is no harder than using Excel or Word (or Trados) at a professional level.
In fact Indesign has a far better user interface than any of these.

Like all pro tools Indesign is easy and fast to use once you know it very well, but not before. If you know little about professional DTP, you'll be a long time learning at this point. There's much more to it than just sort-of-approximating layouts. (ICC color profiles, anyone?)

Oh, a
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Using Indesign at a professional level is no harder than using Excel or Word (or Trados) at a professional level.
In fact Indesign has a far better user interface than any of these.

Like all pro tools Indesign is easy and fast to use once you know it very well, but not before. If you know little about professional DTP, you'll be a long time learning at this point. There's much more to it than just sort-of-approximating layouts. (ICC color profiles, anyone?)

Oh, and to duplicate typography, you'll need the exact fonts of the originals, regardless of the software used. Professional fonts are quite expensive - many hundreds of dollars for complete font families. But of course the agency - being professional enough to demand professional DTP services from its translators - realizes this and pays for (or provides you with) the fonts, right?

[Bearbeitet am 2012-07-29 21:00 GMT]
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Stanislav Pokorny
Stanislav Pokorny  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 07:15
English to Czech
+ ...
They should give you the source documents Jul 29, 2012

Hello Jessie,
if they give you the source documents e.g. in InDesign, Framemaker or Quark, you should be able to process it with the CAT tools you have (according to your profile). If they sent you just a PDF, tell them that:
1. You will take care of the translation
2. You will assign all DTP tasks to a professional DTP studio and that in this case your client should be prepared to pay for a professional DTP service.


 
TargamaT team
TargamaT team  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 07:15
Member (2010)
English to Arabic
+ ...
DTP professional Partnership Jul 29, 2012

Hello,

Have you consider to associate your work with a DTP professional?

In TargamaT, we did the experience. In order to provide a complete solution for our clients and to meet all their needs with commitment and accountability, we created a specialized DTP team and we never looked back!

Typography, type matchmaking & document design are serious topics, especially in the western culture, and you have all the interest to prepare your partnership with DTP spe
... See more
Hello,

Have you consider to associate your work with a DTP professional?

In TargamaT, we did the experience. In order to provide a complete solution for our clients and to meet all their needs with commitment and accountability, we created a specialized DTP team and we never looked back!

Typography, type matchmaking & document design are serious topics, especially in the western culture, and you have all the interest to prepare your partnership with DTP specialist and that resolve your problem!

All the best.

[Edited at 2012-07-29 22:32 GMT]
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Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 07:15
German to English
Freelancer experiences Jul 30, 2012

Hello everyone,

I am a freelancer who works almost exclusively with direct customers, and I recently also couldn't bid on a query because I can't provide InDesign files.

For me, this represents an unusual exception rather than the rule, but these are likely to be fairly lucrative jobs because I could offer everything from one hand (like an agency), but also offer the guarantee of an expert translator like a freelancer.

Assuming that I am provided with an
... See more
Hello everyone,

I am a freelancer who works almost exclusively with direct customers, and I recently also couldn't bid on a query because I can't provide InDesign files.

For me, this represents an unusual exception rather than the rule, but these are likely to be fairly lucrative jobs because I could offer everything from one hand (like an agency), but also offer the guarantee of an expert translator like a freelancer.

Assuming that I am provided with an InDesign file, how hard would it be to translate in Wf Pro (or with another CAT or by hand) and then check the pre-existing file or "copy and paste" (or whatever you do in InDesign) into it?

I assume that I would not need to do any real DTP myself (I would make sure that all the translations fit into their "text fields"), but only check and be able to fix small problems in the final file. Is matching fonts, etc. a non-issue if I am working from InDesign to InDesign?

InDesign seemed to cost around 1000 EUR: I don't know what their licensing policies are, but if that allows me to work for several years, it would almost certainly be a good investment.

TargamaT's suggestion was my other idea: Is that so much simpler that it is clearly the better way to go? Who else has personal experience on this issue?

Sincerely,
Michael

PS: In the case of simpler, shorter documents delivered as PDFs and intended to be released or printed by means of PDFs, ABBYY FineReader (< 100 EUR) is a perfectly adequate solution.
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christela (X)
christela (X)
Wordfast Pro Jul 30, 2012

Michael Wetzel wrote:

I am a freelancer who works almost exclusively with direct customers, and I recently also couldn't bid on a query because I can't provide InDesign files.

For me, this represents an unusual exception rather than the rule, but these are likely to be fairly lucrative jobs because I could offer everything from one hand (like an agency), but also offer the guarantee of an expert translator like a freelancer.

Assuming that I am provided with an InDesign file, how hard would it be to translate in Wf Pro (or with another CAT or by hand) and then check the pre-existing file or "copy and paste" (or whatever you do in InDesign) into it?

I assume that I would not need to do any real DTP myself (I would make sure that all the translations fit into their "text fields"), but only check and be able to fix small problems in the final file. Is matching fonts, etc. a non-issue if I am working from InDesign to InDesign?

InDesign seemed to cost around 1000 EUR: I don't know what their licensing policies are, but if that allows me to work for several years, it would almost certainly be a good investment.


Wordfast Pro does miracles with native InDesign files. Strange that you didn't discover that. Just load the file, translate it and convert it back. Of course there's no need to copy and paste! One just has to work in the WF Pro interface.
Before I had Indesign, I asked my client to check after translation. He only made some minor DTP changes. Now that I have the software, I check title length and page endings because the translated target text is always longer than the English source text. And if there is too much text on an InDesign column or page, it automatically passes onto the next column or page, and booklets often have a standardized number of pages (8, or 16). Supplementary pages, or white pages somewhere, may be undesirable.
In my opinion, InDesign is no more difficult than Powerpoint, and it is a good investment. But if you don't like Powerpoint, you won't like InDesign.


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 03:15
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Faulty conclusion Jul 30, 2012

christela wrote:
In my opinion, InDesign is no more difficult than Powerpoint, and it is a good investment. But if you don't like Powerpoint, you won't like InDesign.


I have been in love with PageMaker for 20+ years. InDesign is its son, works just the same, however it's an overkill for the type of DTP challenges I've faced so far. Could handle all of them so far with the good old PM 6.52 (almost nobody liked v7, that's why InDesign came up, among other reasons).

However I still hate PowerPoint. I loved Astound Presentation, capable of importing PPTs and enhancing them beyond belief. Yet Astound had too many unsolvable problems under Windows 98, that heavy users had to devise creative ways to circumvent. When Windows XP came up, and solved ALL these problems at once, making Astound fully functional and its presentations stable as a rock, it was too late: its developers had already buried it forever. If they'd had just a few years' more patience, few people nowadays would remember what PowerPoint once was.


As translators seldom create a new publication, and the publications for translation are every time more often available in PDF format, the new trend for translation is InFix Pro. Instead of having to buy the three leading DTP packages (InDesign, Frame Maker, QuarkXPress), and sometimes the amateur-level ones (MS Publisher, Serif PagePlus), and learning to use all of them, InFix works on PDF files generated by any of them, as well as by other programs. If someone was crazy enough to devise a complex layout publication using Word, it is now easier to generate a PDF and translate it, than to struggle with Word's formatting.


 
Kristyna Marrero
Kristyna Marrero  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 02:15
Use the Preview Feature in WFA Jul 30, 2012

Hi Michael,

Assuming you are working with an .inx file, you can also translate it using Wordfast Anywhere (register for a free account at www.freetm.com). Or, as Christela mentioned, you can use Wordfast Pro to easily translate the file, and once you are finished translating, you can upload the completed file to Wordfast Anywhere and use the preview feature. This will give you an in-browser preview of
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Hi Michael,

Assuming you are working with an .inx file, you can also translate it using Wordfast Anywhere (register for a free account at www.freetm.com). Or, as Christela mentioned, you can use Wordfast Pro to easily translate the file, and once you are finished translating, you can upload the completed file to Wordfast Anywhere and use the preview feature. This will give you an in-browser preview of how the InDesign file will look to your client, without requiring you to have InDesign on your machine.

Hope this helps,

Kristyna
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Jessie Nelson
Jessie Nelson  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 02:15
French to English
TOPIC STARTER
DTP and apps Jul 31, 2012

Hello again everyone and thanks so much for your replies.
Christela, I now have Word Fast and will investigate using it for this purpose for my next request.
I did not have it until recently.
Jessie Nelson RN BSN


 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 07:15
German to English
Thank you very much Christela, José, and Kristyna Jul 31, 2012

Hello Christela,
That's great. In my case, it was a fairly large project with a fairly short deadline with a big-name client that I did not want to disappoint. (I preferred to let that chance go by and wait for the next time instead of messing things up with them.)

When I have some free time, I'll try out working with an .inx file in Wf Pro so that I'll be ready for next time.

I also have the advantage of working DE>EN, which means that - at least in the main body
... See more
Hello Christela,
That's great. In my case, it was a fairly large project with a fairly short deadline with a big-name client that I did not want to disappoint. (I preferred to let that chance go by and wait for the next time instead of messing things up with them.)

When I have some free time, I'll try out working with an .inx file in Wf Pro so that I'll be ready for next time.

I also have the advantage of working DE>EN, which means that - at least in the main body of text - it is very easy to simply make certain that the target text is slightly shorter than the source. Obviously, length problems are not uncommon and are a significant issue elsewhere, e.g. in captions, headers, headings, etc.


Hello José,
Along with obsolescence issues, the question of how many DTP programs are relevant for my market also concerned me: Thanks for the list and the suggestion of InFix Pro.


Hello Kristyna,
Thank you very much for the Wf Anywhere vieweing suggestion, I'll try that out with Wf Pro when I have time. I'll also figure out how public material there is (I don't do anything top secret or even confidential, but anything that I get involving InDesign is likely to be copyrighted material).

Thank you all very much for your comments. Occasionally the forums here really are a great thing.

Sincerely,
Michael
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José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 03:15
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
A few more points Jul 31, 2012

Michael Wetzel wrote:
Hello José,
Along with obsolescence issues, the question of how many DTP programs are relevant for my market also concerned me: Thanks for the list and the suggestion of InFix Pro.


Michael,

The worst among the three leading DTP apps is that their file formats are proprietary. I once saw a converter (not sure, I think it was from Quark to PageMaker), and it didn't work at all. So if you take that route, you'll need to have and operate all of them.

I wonder what goes on with Frame Maker. It's still alive, and possibly competes with InDesign within Adobe. Once a prospect requested me to translate some tech catalogs in Frame Maker, and no other. So I tried it on a friend's computer, and didn't get too far. I finally found a DTP operator who would extract the text for me to translate, and then implement my translation there. His price to do it was about what I'd charge to translate and rebuild the entire publication with Page Maker, under the excuse that using Frame Maker was such a pain, that he wanted to get proper compensation from it.

This video http://iceni.cachefly.net/infix/DemoMovies/Translation/Translation.swf shows how the translation job is done with InFix. Its developers told me that they tested it with both Trados and DejaVu. I use it with WordFast, either Classic (mostly) or Pro.

I introduce my case at http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/pdf-en.html , and there is a link for the partnership proposal TargamaT suggested, on another page. However considering your language pair, don't invite me: I don't work with DE.

The interesting thing is that one fellow translator hired me for such a partnership. He was so happy with the results that he bought InFix on the next day we were finished, though he has InDesign and knows how to use it. What's interesting about it is that we are both engineers and, by coincidence, were born on the very same day, month, and year. I guess both of us realized that the InFix workflow makes it easier for us to focus on translation first, and do the DTP fine-tuning later.


 
Serge Mazille
Serge Mazille
Local time: 07:15
FrameMaker Aug 12, 2012

> José Henrique : FrameMaker isn't that hard to use and shouldn't be charged higher than with an InDesign file.

I used to work often with that software 5 or 6 years ago but I have to admit that I haven't seen a lot of work needing FrameMaker for a long time now...


 
ewcad
ewcad
Poland
Conversion Jul 19, 2013

You can always try to convert your file. I use True DTP and I can recommend it. Have you [Jessie N] mentioned what kind of file are you working at (input files in True DTP: dwg, dwf, dxf, hpgl, dgn, pdf) ?

 
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