ProZ.com Translation Forums

PDF conversion | Stripping out all formatting

Marion Lemari — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 03:58:00 +0000

Forum: Software applications
Topic: PDF conversion
Poster: Marion Lemari
Post title: Stripping out all formatting

I have always wondered about the same thing.

I agree with Tony M, and I believe it is more professional to actually rebuilt the layout after the translation process. Every attempt to keep the converted layout always looks messy. I have discussed this subject with a project manager once, and according to him, the agencies expect that the translator submits her work with a clean layout.

I am currently using Adobe Acrobat, but it takes a few additional steps before a document is ready for translation. I am not sure if this very professional, but at first, I always convert a PDF into a Word document. Then, I copy the text into a new Word document and simply paste the text without any formatting. Next, I remove any breaks and fix spaces between the words if there are any. I do some basic formatting before I start the translation process, but I keep the majority of the formatting work for later.

I am not sure if other converter programs let you choose your source text language as well, but Adobe Acrobat has this function, and it seems to help a lot.

[Edited at 2015-07-23 04:03 GMT]

[Edited at 2015-07-23 04:20 GMT]

PDF conversion | Spare licence

Andrea Garfield-Barkworth — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 11:31:00 +0000

Forum: Software applications
Topic: PDF conversion
Poster: Andrea Garfield-Barkworth
Post title: Spare licence

Not sure this is the place for it but if anybody is interested I have a spare licence for Abbyy FineReader 12 as I bought two by mistake. It has never been activated.

PDF conversion | Foxit Phantom PDF

Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.) — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 03:15:00 +0000

Forum: Software applications
Topic: PDF conversion
Poster: Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)
Post title: Foxit Phantom PDF

[quote]Grite wrote:

Thank you Tony! I hadn't thought of saving as txt. That is probably the way to go until they invent a good OCR tool!! [/quote]

Foxit Phantom PDF is light-weighted and versatile for OCR. It is easier to handle if compared with Adobe Acrobat. It can save OCRed documents in a number of format including text files.

Soonthon L. :grin:

PDF conversion | Good advice!

Marguerite Storm — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 14:22:00 +0000

Forum: Software applications
Topic: PDF conversion
Poster: Marguerite Storm
Post title: Good advice!

Thank you Tony! I hadn't thought of saving as txt. That is probably the way to go until they invent a good OCR tool!!

PDF conversion | Search the forums

Tony M — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:01:00 +0000

Forum: Software applications
Topic: PDF conversion
Poster: Tony M
Post title: Search the forums

This topic has come up many times before, and I think you should find some interesting reading in the existing posts in the forums.

In my own experience, Abby FineReader is a very successful PDF > DOC OCR program (and can even be advantageously used with PDFs that are actually in an editable format anyway).

HOWEVER, its attempts to re-create the original formatting / layout of the document are a total disaster, and I always choose the 'straight text' option, as it is much less work to translate first and then re-instate the page layout later — if indeed it is necessary, depending on what the customer intends to do with it.

Whatever solution you use, I strognly recommend stripping out ALL formatting (if necessary, by using 'Save as...' and saving as a .TXT file) in order to simplify the translation part of the job; after that, the layout is merely a secretarial task!

PDF conversion

Marguerite Storm — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 12:54:00 +0000

Forum: Software applications
Topic: PDF conversion
Poster: Marguerite Storm

I need some education on how to translate PDFs using a CAT tool. I have tried several solutions and haven't found a very good solution.
I generally use Wordbee for my translations and project management, and overall I am very satisfied. It's an all-in-one tool that is very well designed. It has it's own PDF converter (bought separately). I don't think it's very good and has cost me many hours of trying to fix my end result.
My best experience has been with Adobe Acrobat, then Wordfast Pro. However, I still have layout/formatting issues and cannot come up with a 'perfect' Word document.
I'm interested in your comments and suggestions on this.
Thanks!!