Translating PDF source files with Trados Thread poster: Lindsay Sabadosa (X)
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Lindsay Sabadosa (X) 
United States
Local time: 19:11
Italian to English
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Hi everyone,
I think that I know the answer to my question is no but just in case one of you very clever Trados experts out there knows better, here it goes. I have been getting some lovely translations lately but the pages tend to be faxed PDF files (meaning that I can't get select any text, just the image). Is there any way I can create a TM with a PDF source file and a word doc target file? I'm using Trados 6.5 Freelance and Microsoft XP Professional. Thanks for any suggestions.
| | | | Jerzy Czopik
Germany
Local time: 01:11
Member (2003)
Polish to German
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| Please, don´t start a new topic on PDF again | Mar 7, 2005 |
Please be so kind and use the search function.
You will find numerous threads about PDF.
So many, that it is not necessary to write all the stuff from there again here.
You may wish to start here for example.
Thank you for your kind understanding.
Regards
Jerzy
| | | | Lindsay Sabadosa (X)
United States
Local time: 19:11
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | I tried to look for that but.... | Mar 7, 2005 |
Jerzy Czopik wrote: Please be so kind and use the search function. You will find numerous threads about PDF. So many, that it is not necessary to write all the stuff from there again here. You may wish to start here for example. Thank you for your kind understanding. Regards Jerzy
I DID try to do a search for PDF files and Trados. I did several searches with several different key phrases. I certainly don't mean to bother anyone with my obviously naive question but since the link that you posted didn't come up when I searched, have a bit of patience with those of us are not so quite so well informed about these things. And clearly my post did help because now I have a great link to go get the information from. Thank you!
| | | | Jerzy Czopik
Germany
Local time: 01:11
Member (2003)
Polish to German
+ ...
| I did not want to say you bother | Mar 7, 2005 |
but it is sheer impossible to repeat all that good tips, which are allready written in all that fora.
Members, who allready answered to that topic elswhere and have given valuable tips may not see this topic or may be not present at the moment.
I´m not a specialist for PDF, so I canot give you more good advices about your topis, as you will be able to find on ProZ.
Regards
Jerzy
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[quote]LSabadosa wrote:
I know the answer to my question is no
I know it too. My only suggestion is to use some OCR software to convert your sources into text.
| | | | Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 02:11
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| Just type as usual | Mar 8, 2005 |
Even with OCR you mostly get a source file that is not very comfortable to translate with CAT-tools. Especially if there are a lot of drawings in the file with text in them to translate. OCR like Finereader tends to create very complicated files, and if one chooses plain text creation you later do not know what belongs where.
Last week I translated such a job (27 pages of faxed pdf) straight in word and did the formatting manually. Easy done. Even though I found the source documents in pdf... See more Even with OCR you mostly get a source file that is not very comfortable to translate with CAT-tools. Especially if there are a lot of drawings in the file with text in them to translate. OCR like Finereader tends to create very complicated files, and if one chooses plain text creation you later do not know what belongs where.
Last week I translated such a job (27 pages of faxed pdf) straight in word and did the formatting manually. Easy done. Even though I found the source documents in pdf-format on the net, it was easier this way. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | If it is a "true image" file, the .pdf format is not important | Mar 8, 2005 |
(1) I mean, in the other type of pdf (in which you can select text, etc.), it is important that it is a pdf file and how it was created. There are quite a few programs which claim ability to convert such pdf to rtf, you can try those you own (or have downloaded demo versions of) and see if they really help you in each particular case. In my experience, the chance is about fifty-fity they will. If they don't, you have to go to point (2) anyway.
(2) If it is an image file, OCR definit... See more (1) I mean, in the other type of pdf (in which you can select text, etc.), it is important that it is a pdf file and how it was created. There are quite a few programs which claim ability to convert such pdf to rtf, you can try those you own (or have downloaded demo versions of) and see if they really help you in each particular case. In my experience, the chance is about fifty-fity they will. If they don't, you have to go to point (2) anyway.
(2) If it is an image file, OCR definitely can help. I very much like FineReader and using it is nearly always easier than retyping (unless it is a very bad quality fax - then re-typing may really be your only option); I am told ReadIris is not bad either - I have no experience with it. With Fine Reader, it requires some care in preprocessing the file (telling it what is image, table or text - you can let the program do it automatically, but results of such automatic pre-recognition tend to be unsatisfactory in my opinion) and you should also be careful about the settings for transfer of the "read" pages to Word. For the latter, you should decide to what extent you want (or have) to preserve the layout and fromatting of the orignal text in the translation (customers usually want it to be as close to the original as possible, but you may be able to renegotiate the issue). After a few jobs done this way, you will get enough experience to create reasonable Word files from reasonable image sources, and work on them using Trados or other CAT.
Hoping this can help you a little. It is you who must do the real work.
Antonin ▲ Collapse
| | | | Natalie
Poland
Local time: 01:11
Member (2002)
English to Russian
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Moderator of this forum SITE LOCALIZER
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Just use Adobe Illustrator and make your PDF file look as you like. It is much easier than it looks. Good luck, and let me know if I can help you out with this. Zyntia.
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