Translation and design go hand in hand. Pretty much every document created is intended to be read by some kind of audience.
Published documents range from simple Word files to more complex PowerPoint presentations and highly polished designs created in desktop publishing (DTP) software, such as QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign. Ensuring that your translations work well in the design you have is vital to how the final publication looks and is used.
Translation and DTP
There’s a lot involved in getting translation and DTP right. Here are a few of the things we watch out for when handling a translation and DTP project:
Text expansion and contraction
As text is translated from one language to another the final copy can get longer or shorter depending on the language pairs. In a Word file this may not be too much of an issue as the pages will simply get longer or shorter. But when your document has been designed with tight-fitting text around an image, if the translated text becomes longer or shorter the whole design may be compromised.
If not checked by a multilingual desktop publishing expert, this could result in text missing from your final page layout.
Translated text in graphics
Many graphics used in page layouts are created in separate design programmes such as Photoshop, Freehand or Illustrator. To be able to translate the text in these graphics you need to have the original design files, as once they are saved to be used in the desk top publishing software they can’t be edited and therefore translated.
Post translation and DTP proofreading
Text will move around once it’s been translated and placed in a desktop publishing programme, so before starting the presses it’s always best to have another proofread and check to ensure that things like captions are under the correct pictures, headlines are with the right stories, page references are correct and the translated page looks how it should.
Translation and desktop publishing experts
We’re experts in providing translation and DTP: our project managers have worked on all types of projects with the highest degree of accuracy. We only use high-quality multilingual desk top publishing experts to handle these projects so you can be sure your final translated files will be perfect when delivered back to you for publishing.
How do we charge for translation and desktop publishing?
As always we charge translation per 1,000 words. Desktop publishing is charged per page; this is because once a page is designed there’s no standard number of words on a page. So if you have a 32 page leaflet to be printed you’ll be charged for 32 pages. The charge will depend on the complexity of the design our project managers will advise you on any costs before we begin a translation and desktop publishing project.
