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Best way to translate PDF Files
Thread poster: sabmac
sabmac
sabmac
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:41
Spanish to English
Feb 4, 2005

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on the following: I need to translate a PDF file (heavily laden with images on each page) with Trados and return a new PDF file to my client maintaining the same format and layout.

Software:
What software do I need to recreate (or edit) a PDF file?

I don't own Adobe Acrobat (just the reader) and won't be purchasing it soon as it's rather expensive.

I do however own a program that ex... See more
Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on the following: I need to translate a PDF file (heavily laden with images on each page) with Trados and return a new PDF file to my client maintaining the same format and layout.

Software:
What software do I need to recreate (or edit) a PDF file?

I don't own Adobe Acrobat (just the reader) and won't be purchasing it soon as it's rather expensive.

I do however own a program that extracts the text and images for me (Solidpdf) but I'm now working on a file that has really heavy images, and therefore I can't use my extracting program this time round as some of the pages weigh over 100MB in Word. Normally this program directly extracts the text to Word which you can then translate with Trados without problem.

Seemingly my client drew up the PDF file in Freehand which I also own. I've opened the PDF with this program but each sentence is in a separate text box and it would take me forever to edit each individual segment.

I'd greatly appreciate some help.
Thanks! ▲ Collapse
 
Mónica Machado
Mónica Machado
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:41
English to Portuguese
+ ...
There are several threads on this issue Feb 4, 2005

Hello,

There are several threads on this issue and I am sure you will find them a great help.

Good luck
Mónica Machado
 
Uldis Liepkalns
Uldis Liepkalns  Identity Verified
Latvia
Local time: 07:41
Member (2003)
English to Latvian
+ ...
Please Feb 4, 2005

go to this new ProZ feature:

http://www.proz.com/forumsearch

and type "PDF" or "Acrobat" in the search window. This issue is one of the most discussed on ProZ and you sure will find many tips how to convert PDF to editable format.
But in short- PDF is not an editable format and it is not feasible to translate in an Acrobat file. If you have full Acrobat version, you can an... See more
go to this new ProZ feature:

http://www.proz.com/forumsearch

and type "PDF" or "Acrobat" in the search window. This issue is one of the most discussed on ProZ and you sure will find many tips how to convert PDF to editable format.
But in short- PDF is not an editable format and it is not feasible to translate in an Acrobat file. If you have full Acrobat version, you can annotate the document, change few words, but not more.

Regards, Uldis ▲ Collapse
 
Heinrich Pesch
Heinrich Pesch  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 07:41
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
Not possible Feb 4, 2005

Tell your customer that you need the original file, from which the pdf had been created. Pdf is not a file format intended for editing/translating. Probably the file was created by a dtp-program like Framemaker or QuarkExpress or whatever. From there it should be exported using a plug-in e.g. Trados.
But otherwise you cannot do more than translate the text and send bach a Word-file.
Your customer does not seem to have experience with this kind of work.
 
Hynek Palatin
Hynek Palatin  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 06:41
Member (2003)
English to Czech
+ ...
Howto Feb 4, 2005

Check the following Howto:

http://www.proz.com/howto/247
 
Klaus Herrmann
Klaus Herrmann  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 06:41
Member (2002)
English to German
+ ...
Get the FH files... Feb 4, 2005

sabmac wrote:
Seemingly my client drew up the PDF file in Freehand which I also own.

Charge an extra 123% handling fee for the PDF file and offer to translate the FH file at your usual rate - this ought to fix the problem...
 
sabmac
sabmac
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:41
Spanish to English
TOPIC STARTER
Great! I understand now but ... Feb 5, 2005

Heinrich Pesch wrote:

Tell your customer that you need the original file, from which the pdf had been created. Pdf is not a file format intended for editing/translating. Probably the file was created by a dtp-program like Framemaker or QuarkExpress or whatever. From there it should be exported using a plug-in e.g. Trados.


Hi all and thanks very much for all your feedback - I really appreciate it!

What I probably should have asked then was "how can I translate original DTP documents that have been saved as pdf?". So according to Heinrich, if I get the original file whih was drawn up with Framemaker or QuarkExpess (think I was mistaken when I said Freehand earlier), I can then use Trados tools to convert this file to editable/translatable text (sorry, this is my first time encountering such a file!) I have Trados 6.5 LSP and Trados 5.5 Freelance which incorporates Trados Tag Editor - I'm going to research this but could someone just confirm that I can indeed convert Framemaker/QuarkExpress and then translate and reconvert the text using this tool? If Trados supports Framemaker, does anyone know what to do with texts written with Freehand (just in case!)

Thanks once again.
 


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