Latest Blog Entries
Optimizing Document Translation with Adobe Captivate Screen CapturesNovember 30, 2011 0 Comments
Captivate is an authoring tool designed to assist in creating multimedia eLearning content. If you need to develop branched scenarios for soft-skills training or create software simulations where you need to take a lot of the screenshots for complex branching, then Adobe Captivate is exactly what you need to use. Your translation services agency should also be familiar with Captivate and how to handle embedded rich media in FrameMaker files, destined for multiple delivery formats.
Captivate has a variety of features, including screen capture. You can learn how to use the screen capture feature of Adobe Captivate in a few relatively easy steps. Incidentally, Adobe Captivate will also automatically create “captions” for full motion software video and these captions can be easily exported for translation and imported “in place” with no copy/paste. Watch for a future blog on that specific feature.
Highlights from Adobe Tech Comm Enterprise Summit 2011October 25, 2011 1 Comments
The week of October 13th, Adobe held highly informative Tech Comm Enterprise Summit in both Waltham, MA and San Jose, CA, celebrating 25 years of FrameMaker and 20 years of RoboHelp. The events, which were restricted to a relatively small audience, featured various thought leaders who shared their vision of where technical communications are going and how Adobe’s Tech Comm Suite (FrameMaker/RoboHelp/Captivate etc.) can be an essential tool on that journey.
GPI’s own Maxwell Hoffmann was a featured speaker, sharing both a case study on DITA benefits and insights into how content may be optimized for globalization. In this blog, Maxwell shares highlights of the event, which include many key concepts that will prove useful to any customers working with a translation agency on multilingual projects or clients who still work in English-only.
- Category:
- Document Translation
- Tags:
- Adobe, RoboHelp, FrameMaker, Adobe Tech Comm Suite, DITA, Desktop Publishing
Correctly Setting InDesign Tabs for Post-Translation Text ExpansionOctober 21, 2011 1 Comments
Incorrect use of tab settings in InDesign documents may lead to unnecessary formatting “cleanup” after document translation creates text expansion. Many of us heavily rely on the tab key to quickly align information. Most of the time we just use default tab settings in Word or InDesign. If the document were to eternally stay in the English language, or never have heavy editing, this would not be a problem.
But this is seldom the case anymore. Documents have longer life cycles, as text is more frequently repurposed. And in today’s global economy, you never know what portion of a document you author may be “borrowed” for other content destined for global markets. In those cases, something that is perfectly formatted with tabs in English may look downright ugly after it is translated. Read on to see how this blog will give you simple steps for properly defining and aligning tabs in your InDesign documents to avoid the problems mentioned above.
- Category:
- Document Translation
- Tags:
- Desktop Publishing, DTP, Document Translation, Document Globalization, Adobe, InDesign
Optimizing InDesign Documents for Translation with TablesJuly 25, 2011 0 Comments
Many of us remember the early, dark days of InDesign desktop publishing (DTP) when there were no real tables. Users had to create “fake” tables with a combination of tabbed text and manually drawn vertical and horizontal rules. “Real” tables have been available in InDesign for years, and they can automatically increase cell/row depth and adjust line breaks within table cells to minimize billable, post-translation format correction.
Document translation becomes much more expensive when “fake” tables are present in InDesign files, because all post-translation text expansion must be manually corrected one line at a time. Even though InDesign has an excellent tables package today, we still see many new clients submitting files for document translation which were created in Adobe CS5.5, without automatic tables.
- Category:
- Document Translation
- Tags:
- Desktop Publishing, DTP, Document Translation, Document Globalization, Adobe, InDesign
Using PDF in Illustrator When Source Files are LostJune 29, 2011 2 Comments
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) is a versatile file format that can represent both vector and bitmap data. Adobe Illustrator is one of the most powerful vector graphics editors and it is a great tool for working with these kinds of files. In fact, the native Adobe Illustrator file format (*.AI) is PDF, and as such it is one of the best applications supporting direct import/export to PDF.
Many times a translation company is asked to translate document content from PDF files when the source file (e.g. InDesign) is no longer available. GPI has found that Illustrator can be a good solution for opening the PDF file and recovering the file, or part of it, to avoid recreating the source file from scratch.
How Acrobat X Benefits Post-Translation ReviewJune 15, 2011 3 Comments
Adobe Acrobat is used in a variety of ways in language translation projects. Perhaps its most common use is to enable specifically annotated PDF files which indicate required changes to documents after the language translation process.
Your translation company no doubt uses some form of Adobe Acrobat in the translation and localization process. In this blog we share with you some of our favorite features at Globalization Partners International (GPI) in the latest version of this dynamic product, Adobe Acrobat X.
- Category:
- Document Globalization
- Tags:
- Desktop Publishing, source files, PDF, Adobe, Word, Acrobat, DTP, Document Translation, graphic
Optimizing InDesign files for Translation with Automatic TOCJune 01, 2011 0 Comments
Adobe InDesign is a rich and powerful publishing tool, and is one of the most popular source document formats for marketing materials translated into other languages. Unfortunately, many InDesign users have not mastered some advanced features which will save a great deal of time and money in post-translation document reformatting.
At GPI, we have observed that many users either do not know how to create an automatically generated table of contents (TOC), or they do not mind manually updating the TOC if the project starts out as English-only. A manually typed TOC can be tedious and expensive to update in multiple target languages, after translation, when many page numbers will have changed due to post-translation text expansion.
Extracting Word Format Source Files from PDFMay 11, 2011 7 Comments
Nearly every customer finds themselves in the embarrassing situation of not having a critical source file for translation in the appropriate desktop publishing (DTP) format. Sometimes, all that is available is a PDF file derived from a “lost” source file in FrameMaker, InDesign or Word format.
Regardless of the reason, you and your translation company have several tools and methods available to create an editable source file from PDF. This blog will cover two of the more effective techniques that our production staff has discovered here at GPI while performing multilingual desktop publishing.
- Category:
- Document Globalization
- Tags:
- Desktop Publishing, source files, PDF, Adobe, Word, FrameMaker
Welcome to GPI's Translation Blog! Being a Translation Agency means finding ourselves immersed in all types of interesting discussions about global business, translation companies, document translation, software translation, website translation, global search engine marketing and optimization (SEM/SEO) and a wide range of language translation and technology topics. With our Translation Blog, we will try to share those conversations with you!
Enjoy the ones you find interesting and feel free to start a discussion with our team and the world!
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