InDesign Documents Change After Translation

The world of business just keeps getting smaller. As your company expands to new markets, you need printed materials like product catalogs, marketing collateral and user guides translated into additional languages. Those beautifully designed documents look great in their original form, but once you start translating the text, things can get (and will get) messy.

You have a number of options for translating text, but translating Adobe InDesign introduces new hurdles.

For starters, there’s the text flow. When you translate from one language to another, the text may expand or contract by 30 percent or more. After InDesign translation, you can expect your German product catalog to take nearly two pages to say what your English catalog said in one. Meanwhile, your Chinese catalog needs only two-thirds of a page to share the same information.

That means adding or removing pages, moving images and headers, resizing tables – essentially recreating the InDesign document from scratch. And when the designer doesn’t speak the language, knowing how to place elements like line breaks and image captions can feel like playing darts in the dark.

Next, there are fonts to reckon with. Your marketing team is concerned with keeping fonts on-brand, but probably hasn’t considered whether the brand font can be applied to a translation in InDesign. Not all fonts support all languages. Western European languages that use a similar alphabet to English often require characters such as umlauts or tildes. If you’re translating for Middle Eastern or Asian markets, your InDesign document must be designed with Middle Eastern or CJK functionality exposed.

This is just the start of why in-house InDesign translation leaves many marketers shouting at their computers in frustration.

How Most Companies Perform (and Fail) Their InDesign Translation

The standard methods of changing the document language in InDesign are painfully tedious. First, the text is copy-pasted into a common format like a Word document. It’s translated by a professional translator, or, if you’re living on the edge, a software tool. The translated text is then copy-pasted back into the document, where the design has to be changed page by page to accommodate the text flow of the InDesign translation.

You then comb through the text to fix formatting issues like headers or italics.

After all this, most companies still don’t have a quality assurance process to make sure the finished InDesign translation will resonate with the target audience.

Many find themselves asking the question “But how important is it to make sure the translated message resonates with the target audience? Surely they will be able to understand the message intent.”

Actually, a minor mis-translation can completely ruin your message. Consider the case of one international travel company. It was using machine translation to translate its materials – including documents mentioning face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19 – into more than a dozen languages.

In English, the face coverings were called “face masks.” After several InDesign translations were already complete, the marketing department realized the natural language processor had lost the nuance of the phrase. The Spanish-language translations used words you would use to describe a Halloween costume mask, while the French-language translation described cosmetic masks like cold cream.

The translated message didn’t make sense because the company failed to use a localization specialist in their target language.

Another company, a manufacturer of presentation software, couldn’t understand why marketing materials that worked beautifully in other countries were having trouble gaining traction in Turkey. This time, it was a matter of localization. It turns out the Turkish audience was looking for a “presentation program,” so “presentation software” failed to resonate.

Marketing Translation with Artificial Intelligence or Machine Translation

Artificial intelligence (AI) has its place in translation. The most powerful and reliable marketing translation services use human translators equipped with Translation Memories. Translation Memory tools can be trained to recognize industry jargon or trademarked words and phrases, so your materials remain on brand in every language across all your translation projects.

But when it comes to marketing psychology, AI can’t beat the human touch. Even the best translation software has difficulty capturing the feeling of a great tagline. Words and phrases that have marketing “sizzle” in one country can feel stiff and flat in another.

In marketing content, word choice matters. A simple translation might make your materials intelligible to a foreign market. A translation partner focused on localization goes a step further. A localized translation doesn’t just convey the meaning of the words, it shares the meaning of the message. True localization should be done with human translators, paired by subject matter expertise, and immersed in the target country.

Hassle-Free InDesign Translation

For an InDesign translation that resonates with the target audience, you want a marketing translation service that combines Translation Memories and human translators with localized knowledge.

Language translation is just the first step in turning that user guide or product catalog into a compelling piece of multilingual marketing content. Once your text is translated, localized, and quality tested, you’re still faced with importing it into your beautifully designed InDesign document.

And if your designer doesn’t speak the target language? Can you be sure the right words are being italicized, emphasized, or dropped into image captions?

Surely you and your designers have more important things to worry about.

Imagine this: you send an InDesign document to be translated and you get back an InDesign translation that’s formatted, localized, quality checked, and ready to publish.

Our localization preparation process entails having our team employ filters that protect the original InDesign document’s tags and coding while they translate, preserving the format without the tedium of copy-paste. Our expert desktop publishing specialists then create a new document that mirrors your original, including the placement of headlines, images, and captions.

The InDesign translation you get back is ready for immediate deployment, without any additional prep work by you or your team. There is no faster, easier, more accurate way to translate your InDesign marketing materials.

What does a Translation Agency cost?

The first question to ask yourself is what is not hiring a translation agency costing your business? You might be spending too much effort trying to do the translation process yourself. Passing the process and hassle off to a translation agency that offers everything from translation to final design and proofreading may be worth the cost to your organization.

Cost will vary by the translation agency, but there are a few questions to consider when considering a new translation service:

• Does the translation agency offer
  • Localization Specialists – people who make sure your message will resonate with in the target language.
  • Multilingual Desktop Publishing Specialists – people who make sure your translated document mirrors the original English version.
• Does the translation agency include a quality analysis review in their cost? (Are they checking to ensure the translated document actually says what you wanted it to say + looking for spelling/grammatical errors. Not all agencies include this step.)
• How easy is it to work with your translation agency? Do they offer immediate response times? Do they provide project timelines and meet due dates?
• Are they internationally certified in quality and translation services?

Hiring a high-quality translation agency for translating InDesign documents will save your team time, money, and effort – all while increasing accuracy and efficiency.

3 Tips to Save Time by Formatting for Translation

If your company regularly does business in foreign languages, you can make the InDesign translation process faster and easier by designing your documents for translation from the start.

Here are some tips for creating a translation-ready InDesign file:

• Create a style guide. You may already have a style guide your marketing team uses to keep materials on brand. Style guides are essential any time you work with outside agencies such as freelance writers, design firms, or marketing translation services. Style guides lay out brand standards for elements like color palette and word choice, keeping all creators and translators on the same page for consistent brand representation.
• Build white space into your design. Most languages take up more space than English. You don’t need to know how much room you will need, but designing with oversized images and margins that can be shrunk or manipulated will minimize the need to add extra pages to your InDesign translation.
• Build graphics in layers. Many designers link graphics in an InDesign document. Others build the graphics using layers. In the finished product, you probably can’t tell which is which. But if your graphics include text, their structure matters to an InDesign translation. There is no way to translate text on a linked graphic – the words are part of the image. By layering a text box on top of the image, you keep the words and image separate, making it easy to translate into another language.

In a digital world, physical marketing materials can have a powerful impact. According to Top Media Advertising, adding printed materials can make online marketing 400 percent more effective.* The effectiveness of your campaigns is a direct result of how your words and visuals impact each regional audience. Ask us how our experienced InDesign translation professionals can get your print documents ready for a global audience.

References

* https://www.gardnerweb.com/blog/post/26-relevant-print-marketing-statistics-2022-ad-spending-impact

The post InDesign Translation: How to Translate Documents Accurately and Quickly appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

With the advent of machine translation applications, many people assume that translating text these days is as easy as just pushing a button. But direct, word-for-word translation omits the subtleties, idiosyncrasies and inflections that are unique to each language and locale.

Additionally, subtitle translation comes with a very specific set of rules. Take, for instance, the widely accepted “six second rule,” which says that a full two-line subtitle should be displayed for six seconds in order for the average viewer to be able to read it. Considering that every language has its own set of characters and letters, what specifically goes into those two lines is what separates machine-translated output from what a skilled linguist would develop.

So, what are the benefits of subtitle translation, and how can subtitle translation be advantageous to you and your organization?

Whether you need to translate an entire film or a simple, instructional video, using subtitles is a cost-effective way to reach a broader audience. Subtitles allow you to communicate your message to specific markets and regions without having to reshoot your video or hire voice talent to record over the source language, both of which are costly and time-consuming.

If you’re trying to expand your business into overseas markets or train employees in a specific country, subtitles can help take your business to the next level.

In addition to becoming more accessible to a global audience, subtitles can help increase your visibility on search engines. Google’s search engine spider, Googlebot, can extract a multitude of data from the text on a web page, but only a small amount from a video or audio file. Therefore, subtitles help Googlebot understand the value and relevancy of your content, which can then improve your SEO, and potentially move you closer to the top of a Google search.

Keep in mind that not all subtitles are created equal, and that there are a couple different video subtitling options to consider.

First, there is source-to-source subtitling, which means the audio and the subtitle text are in the same language. This type of subtitling is a useful learning tool, but also assists those with hearing impairments. Medical facilities often use this kind of subtitling in staff training and patient materials.

Then of course there is foreign language subtitling, which includes written text in a language that is different from the audio’s. The best way to tackle this is to first prepare the source-language subtitle content before translating the text. Then, using that subtitle file, the text can easily be translated into multiple languages. It’s also easier and quicker to edit subtitles than it is to edit a dubbed video should changes need to be made.

There are also different options for displaying subtitles as well. Embedded subtitles remain on the screen, while interactive subtitles — also known as closed captioning — give the viewer the option to turn them on or off as needed.

So, if you’re considering adding subtitles to your videos, why is it important to work with a professional translation organization?

Consider this: In a 2019 commercial for Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo, a 13-year-old fashion designer speaks to a 98-year-old fashion model in English. In the source language, the conversation between the two women was sweet and innocent, but the Korean-language subtitles were so offensive that Uniqlo eventually had to pull the ad. People claimed that the commercial’s subtitles made light of the horrors of Japan’s forced occupation of South Korea between 1910 and 1945.

Obviously, this was not the company’s intent. Not only did it offend a nation, but the subtitle mishap damaged the brand’s reputation.

Relying on a well-established professional translation service could help you avoid costly mistakes like Uniqlo’s, in addition to some of the following subtitling pitfalls.

Poor timing: Surely, you’ve seen a poorly dubbed films from decades ago in which the voice-over words don’t match the actor’s mouth. Timing is everything in dubbing as well as in subtitles. If words appear on the screen too soon or too late, you could confuse your viewer. A professional translator will take the time to synchronize what’s happening on screen and what’s written below.

Making incorrect assumptions about language and culture: If the translator is not located in the target-language geography or, at a minimum, deeply familiar with the locale, it can be easy to fall back on assumptions concerning the content being translated. Most locations have their own unique way of speaking, and if a translator is lacking in this knowledge and expertise, it could end with content that is culturally tone deaf at best, or completely offensive at worst, much like Uniqlo’s ad in South Korea.

Additionally, professional subtitles will convey individual speech styles, rather than making every character sound the same.

Poor line breaks: Long strings of text must be broken up into segments, otherwise the entire screen would be filled with subtitled text. When and how to break certain lines is a skill developed through years of translation practice. A professional translator will ensure that lines are broken correctly and at the right time, making the viewer’s experience as seamless as possible.

A professional subtitle translation service should offer a turnkey solution to your needs. From creating subtitle files to ensuring synchronicity between the audio and the text, a professional agency should do all the heavy lifting for you.

Whether you only transcription of your video’s audio or fully validated, subtitle translations in multiple languages, an experienced translation and localization agency will help you get your message across to your target audience.

The post Subtitle Translation: Make Your Video Content Relevant and Accessible appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

Enter the Internet. Today, businesses of all shapes and sizes have the opportunity to sell their products and services to people in the next town over, or even across the globe. The Web provides incredible opportunities to grow revenue and increase profit. However, in order to maximize reach, organizations have to think beyond communicating only in their own native language. After all, Asia, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean, and Africa each have more Internet users than North America.

Here’s an important truth: a mark of many successful organizations today is the ability to communicate in more than one language with their customers. Your Website is the perfect place to start. There are many benefits to having a multilingual website.

Multilingual Website can Increase Website Traffic

The more professional and accessible your Website is, the more customers you will gain and the more loyal they will be. In the age of smartphones and constant e-connectivity, there’s no doubt that your business’ Website will be one of the first (if not the first) place you get to make a strong first impression. In fact, 61 percent of global Internet users research products online (source), so your Website is one of your greatest marketing tools.

With this in mind, consider the impact that multilingual content can have on your Web traffic. The ability to engage global customers will increase your Website’s traffic significantly – it is essentially an instant return!

A Multilingual Website Can Convert Visitors to Loyal Customers

Of course it’s not just about convincing people to visit your Website, it’s about converting those visitors into loyal customers. Did you know that you have only a few seconds to capture the attention of visitors and turn them into potential customers? It’s true! Most visitors leave a site somewhere after a visit lasting between 0-8 seconds. This means that your content needs to be engaging and, even more importantly, translated accurately. You likely spent valuable time and money making your site’s English content amazing, so it’s vital you do the same when translating pages to other languages.

Maybe you’ve come across automatic translation tools or plugins on the Internet. They’re cheap and easy, but sadly cannot guarantee a linguistically correct Website localization. A professional, high-quality translation service that will localize your content is essential. This is your only real option if you’re serious about reaching global markets with new customers and maximizing your business opportunities.

Final Thoughts

Consider taking a close look at what your competitors are doing. Multilingual websites are becoming more common today, and translating your site can provide a significant competitive edge. It could be your next big marketing move.

A multilingual website gives you both the opportunity to connect with more people around the globe while providing for a world-class customer service experience. You will not regret it!

The post Why Go Multilingual? The Top Reasons for a Multilingual Website appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.