DTP, typesetting or page layout work has long been associated with translation -many translations are required in formats other than a simple MS Word document. Brochures, catalogues and leaflets have traditionally been completed in one of the design software packages favoured by marketing agencies, such as QuarkXPress , Adobe InDesign, Adobe FrameMaker or Adobe Illustrator. Even MS Word documents often require typesetting if they contain graphics or tables, as translated text can often take up more space than the original English. Fonts used within an English document often don’t support the different characters used in foreign languages, such as Russian, Greek, Chinese and Japanese and even Welsh. We have bought and even developed our own fonts in house to allow us to typeset these languages. A couple of years ago, we were contacted on behalf of a major insurance company who had previously produced a multilanguage leaflet with a message to customers, and who needed it updating. It was only when we received a hard copy of the leaflet that we realised that over half the languages had corrupt characters in the text, which is certainly not the way to promote your business overseas!
At The Translation People, we pride ourselves on keeping up to date with publishing and typesetting requirements and developments in the world of media. The team working in our in-house production studio have attended training courses in the different software packages used in the publishing world. For a number of years now, we have been working on website localisation, translating copy in the source code, in graphics and in animations produced in Adobe Flash, for which we often supply foreign language voiceovers. Developments in translation memory software mean that we can often dispense with the traditional cut and paste method of editing content, with translators often able to work directly with files we export from the original artwork files, saving time and money.
With any artwork produced in different languages, it is imperative to have a foreign language speaker check the files to ensure that no characters have corrupted and no words have been incorrectly hyphenated. Our language specialists give you the peace of mind that the foreign language documentation you produce in any software package will read correctly in the target language.
Adobe Creative Suite ME (Middle East) CS4 is the latest addition to our software suite, giving us greater flexibility with Middle Eastern and Far Eastern languages. The software bundle also includes the latest versions of Adobe Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks, as well as the other Adobe standard programs InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. We have also purchased QuarkXPress 8, which has further expanded our in-house DTP capability.
For a comprehensive DTP estimate, contact us now.
