Topics covered in this article:

• The Power in PowerPoint Translation
• 8 Tips to Design with PowerPoint Translation in Mind
• Next Steps: Begin Translating Your PowerPoint

PowerPoint is one of the backbones for information communication deployed by businesses and organizations around the globe. In fact, it is estimated that over 500 million people use PowerPoint worldwide. Since information shared via PowerPoint has a global reach, PowerPoint translation is essential to ensure that information is understood clearly in the language of your audience. Let’s explore the benefits of PowerPoint, along with steps you can take to make the translation process more efficient.

The Power in PowerPoint Translation

PowerPoint lives up to its name. From its initial release in 1990 through today, it remains one of the most powerful and widely used presentation tools available. The main benefit of PowerPoint is that it guides its intended audience in an engaging way.

If you are targeting a global audience, you need to be able to re-create your English Powerpoint to be just as effective in other languages. This includes translating and localizing:

• Powerful and attractive graphics
• Text formatting capabilities to highlight and reinforce key concepts
• Accessibility of presentations across multiple devices
• Personalized video and audio
• Quick and straightforward editing
• Support for multiple learning modalities

Mastering powerpoint translation of these elements can significantly enhance your results, whether you’re aiming to educate a global workforce or communicate effectively with a multilingual audience.

Companies and businesses that want to have the most accurate and engaging PowerPoint translations rely on experienced, turnkey translation companies like Interpro for guidance.

8 Tips to Design with PowerPoint Translation in Mind (it’s all about the details)

Working with translation professionals gives you an edge, and of course, we’re here to help. The best way to kick off an effective translation project begins much earlier than when you send files to be quoted on and translated. When you first sit down to create your PowerPoint deck, follow these steps to ensure that your design elements lend themselves to a successfully translated presentation.

1. Avoid text in graphics

Graphics are one of the most powerful attributes used in designing PowerPoint presentations. Not only do they provide support for visual learners, they also help the audience stay engaged and focused on the topic at hand. When creating your PowerPoint deck, use graphics strategically. Instead of placing text within or over the graphics, use bullets and captions surrounding them. This design tip speeds up the translation process and, as a bonus, keeps your audiences from becoming visually overwhelmed.

2. Allow for text expansion

No one wants to view a PowerPoint presentation that is all text from top to bottom. Adhering to this design principle also pays off when it comes to PowerPoint translation.

Depending on the language, text expansion often occurs during translation. Meaning: the language you want the text translated into (the target language) requires more space than the original language (the source language). This sometimes happens when translating languages having different alphabets or character sets. Or simply the target language just requires more words than the source language to accurately reflect the meaning.

Regardless, it’s advisable to take this into consideration when laying out your initial PowerPoint content. By leaving more space around the text, translators can easily preserve the original design. Slides will not feel crowded, and it’s less likely that additional slides will have to be added.

3. Opt for more slides and space

In addition to being strategic with the amount of text used, PowerPoint designers should also think about the number of slides and the amount of space utilized in their presentations. One effective strategy is to use two slides to cover the same amount of content as you might normally put on a single slide. That way, the presentation layout will be preserved during translation. Additionally, this strategy has benefits from a pedagogical standpoint. Audience members will know exactly what information to focus on, without being unnecessarily inundated with content.

4. Graphics and screen captures

Virtually all PowerPoint presentations contain graphics of some kind or another. If you are using text with your graphics that will require translation, it is important to provide source files, allowing for that text to be easily accessed.

More so, screen captures continue to be an increasingly common feature in presentations. Our skilled translation and desktop publishing teams can easily replace the source language screen shots with the localized equivalents. You just need to let us know this is what you want done, and provide us with the target-language screens.

5. Animation

Another aspect of PowerPoint that boosts audience engagement is animation. Animation helps to make your presentation more dynamic, and the information you are presenting more memorable to your audience. Syncing animation audio and visual with translated content may be a critical piece of the project scope.

If an audio voice-over is included along with translated content, re-syncing these elements may be necessary. By re-syncing, the target language audio will mirror the on-screen animation. Our teams of translation professionals and AV engineers are adept at making this happen seamlessly.

6. Notes

One of PowerPoint’s most useful features is speaker notes: talking points that are visible on the presenter’s monitor but aren’t visible to the audience. They might include reminders about timing, key points to cover, or other information that compliments the overall presentation. This is especially helpful if multiple speakers are presenting the same information.

If your PowerPoint deck includes notes, you need to decide whether or not to have them translated. If the speaker is presenting in a foreign language, having translated notes allows them to stay focused in one language rather than pivoting back and forth from one language to another.

7. Links

Especially in cases where PowerPoint presentations are shared electronically with audiences, giving some thought to linked information is important. Many times, on-screen text or speaker notes contains links to external content. You need to consider whether or not this information should be translated (if it is not already available in the target language of the PowerPoint presentation) or left as-is.

If the links are not translated, viewers and students can be supported in another way. Our team suggests translating the phrase “English Only” into the target language and adding that after each hyperlink. This way, viewers will know that when they click the link, the information will be in another language.

8. Handouts

Presentations traditionally take place in conference rooms, classrooms, and other similar settings. Handouts are the perfect way to extend learning beyond the session itself. If you are including handouts with your PowerPoint presentation, consider having them translated as well. That way, audience members have your information to consult after the event.

Next Steps: Begin Translating Your PowerPoint

PowerPoint enables you to get your ideas across visually and engage your audience successfully. Partnering with a professional translation company to make your PowerPoint content available in multiple languages will allow your organization to exponentially extend its global reach.

1. Decide which PowerPoints will need translated and the target languages. You can find a list of some of the languages Interpro commonly works with here.
2. Review your PowerPoints and review the list “Design with PowerPoint Translation In Mind”. You might be ready for translation, but is your PowerPoint ready too?
3. Select a translation agency experienced in PowerPoint translation and cultural nuances. Interpro offers complimentary localization consultations if you’re ready to start translating but don’t know where to begin.

Incorporating these suggestions during the initial design of your presentation will streamline the entire process, and provide your audience with heightened awareness of the message you are striving to convey.

The post PowerPoint Translation: Tips and Best Practices for Maximum Impact appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

Topics covered in this article:

• Making an Impact with PPT Translation
• Trends in PPT Translation Interpretation
• The Future of PPT Translation

Making an Impact with PPT Translation

Companies and organizations can make a real impact with PPT localization. Since localization is the process by which content is adapted into a new market/culture, it makes sense that this process yields big results when PPT information is translated into new target languages.

PPTs have been a staple of business meetings around the globe for decades. By translating your PPT materials, speakers can highlight essential information in many different languages while sharing images, graphs, and charts that complement and further clarify spoken information from the presentation. It has even crossed over to be part of eLearning translation projects, as many course modules created by businesses and schools alike include PPT resources. Now that business meetings, presentations, workshops, and conferences are made up of multilingual audiences, PPT translation is vital. Understanding the important translation trends of 2018 shows the impact that localizing PPTs can have.

Additionally, other adaptations can be made to ensure that the visual components also convey information accurately and that the idioms and region-specific references are customized to new markets. Localization experts will attend to details, such as text expansion and contraction, to ensure that layout and design of the slides complements the text. By applying principles of graphic design, including contrast, proximity, alignment, and repetition, all of the localized content will be visually stunning, in addition to accurate and clear.

In short, PPT translation takes concepts that would be foreign and makes them familiar. When international audiences can easily access and process the information that PPT materials convey, they are much more likely to understand and act. This genuine interest in new audiences can help businesses gain new market shares, and it can also help with global employee training and retention. PPT translation is a way to build trust and establish rapport, winning over new clients and customers, and creating a more dedicated and knowledgeable workforce.

Trends in PPT Translation Interpretation

Before you can appreciate the importance of PPT translation, it is necessary to understand the expected trends in the translation and interpretation fields, including those related to PPT translation. These trends include:

1. Bigger budgets for translation. In a recent survey, 94% of multinational companies intend to boost their localization spending. That means more digital and print content will be translated and shared globally. As this content is shared at workshops and conferences, there will also be a greater demand for interpretation.
2. Demand for faster turnaround. Companies and organizations are going to continue to expect efficiency when it comes to translation and interpretation. This is especially noteworthy considering the fact that translated content is no longer just words on a page, but it often includes graphic and/or audio components as well.
3. Expanding into new markets. The aforementioned marketing research also found that multinational companies are determined to expand into an average of 7 new markets. That is on top of their existing market reach, which also averages out to 7 current markets. As a result, there will be a growing need for translation and interpretation in multiple languages. Since individual companies want to make this growth, there will have to be a streamlined workflow between the companies and the translator service providers.
4. Focus on emerging markets. As of right now, the United States is the market leader in terms of translation needs. However, in the next year, growth will continue to boom in the emerging markets of Africa and the Middle East, with others on the horizon. That means that there will be an increased emphasis on localizing material that fits those cultures and languages.
5. Emphasis on Asian languages. There are over 950 million native Chinese speakers, so it makes sense that Chinese continues to rank in the top spot for business translations languages. Japanese and Korean will continue to be popular, as well. It is also worth noting that Hindi is the 4th most widely-spoken language in the world, causing a new emphasis on translating into this sub-continental Asian language.
6. Attention to more than words. Multimedia digital content needs to reach all of these markets in a variety of formats. As a result, companies will need to focus not just on spoken and printed word, but also the preservation of graphic design elements. For instance, A translated PPT could be shared at a conference with multilingual audiences, challenging businesses to find the best technology for the audience’s interpretation needs.

The Future of PPT Translation

In 2010, companies were investing $26 billion in translation and localization work. Midway through the decade, that figure soared to $38 billion. Marketing research suggests that growth shows no signs of slowing down. Why the interest in translation and localization? The trends in translation point to the fact that multinational companies are looking to continue expanding into more foreign markets, causing a real need for PPT translation and other translation and localization services. As the saying goes, your spending reveals your values. That means more and more companies are placing a real value on reaching as broad of a client base as possible in 2018 and beyond.

Ready to translate your PPTs for a multilingual audience?

1. Review your options of the different ways to translate a PPT with our PowerPoint Translation blog.
2. Decide the languages and PPTs you will need translated.
3. Partner with a qualified translation service experienced in educating without language barriers. Interpro offers complimentary localization consultations if you’re ready to start translating just a single PPT or an entire eLearning course with PPTs translation included.

The post The Power of PPT Translation: Trends and Best Practices for Making an Impact appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.