TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
RE: Doc-To-Help Help file - need to convert it to German..Help?!
Subject:RE: Doc-To-Help Help file - need to convert it to German..Help?! From:"Jane Carnall" <jane -dot- carnall -at- digitalbridges -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:18:00 +0100
Aruna wrote:
>I have this 300 pages Help document created using Doc-To-Help, which
>uses good old Word as editor (save us all!). Anyway, I need to convert my
help
>topics to German. How do I do this? Is there a tool that can be used to
convert >languages? Pardon my ignorance and do spam my mailbox with answers!
There are two methods. (1) Convert your Doc-To-Help Word files into RTF, and
send the RTF files* off to a professional translator, specifying what you
want the translator to translate into German. (2) Use an automatic
translation tool - which you can find on the Web - to convert the good
English your Help is written in into lousy, cracked, uncontextual German.
Option one will make your Help file look good. Option two will make your
Help file look really, really bad. Option one requires a handsome inital
outlay (ask the translator for an estimate). Option two is initially cheap
but will run your company into more overhead costs than they can probably
believe.
If whoever has to pay for it doubts this, take a look back through the
archives of Techwr-l. The topic of automatic translation has come up two (or
three?) times in the past couple of years, and every time, the consensus
opinion is - pay a professional and get it done right.
Jane Carnall
Technical Writer, Digital Bridges, Scotland
Unless stated otherwise, these opinions are mine, and mine alone.
*A good translator should be able to use Word files no problem. But there
are major advantages to transferring information for Help files in RTF
files: less likely to get garbled in transit and the added information
required for the Help file's search index is easily available and
translatable.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Announcing new options for IPCC 01, October 24-27 in Santa Fe,
New Mexico: attend the entire event or select a single day.
For details and online registration, visit http://ieeepcs.org/2001
Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
