Re: User manual: cell merging vis a vis translation

Subject: Re: User manual: cell merging vis a vis translation
From: Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 10:38:13 -0500

Even if there are no text changes, the translation company will charge for
having to reformat the page and re-generate the doc and/or Help system. I
really dug into this at my last company, because I just did not understand
some of the line items on our bills. Small changes end up being fairly
expensive if they're done alone, because of the translation workflow:

- Pull everything out of the original source files into the translation
tool (This is the step that many people don't realize is happening, your
source files are not being used by the translators. Tour text is being
extracted, translated, and then the text is put back into your files. That
transform is a significant expense.)
- Compare the new files to the translation memory and identify changes.
- Translate any new content.
- Port all the translated strings back into the original source format
(Word, FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Flare, etc.)
- Quality assurance that the transform worked properly.
- Additional desktop publishing tweaks due to the text strings in the new
language being different (page breaks, heading wraps, table column sizing,
etc.)
- Files get shipped back to you.


If you can, save that change for a major version bump, when you have more
changes to absorb the engineering costs for the entire conversion process.

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 10:06 AM, Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>
wrote:

> User manual has several pages of tabular stuff pertaining to UI error
> messages. Many of the items in the far right column are the exact same
> message: "Call <company> at <number> for service."
>
> I think such cellular repetition looks dumb, so I'm inclined to merge
> adjacent cells that convey the same thing.
>
> PM is upset, telling me that now PM will have to deal with 28 translations
> (all of which have to change anyway due to other new content).
>
> Pray tell, how in the world does merging such cellular items affect any
> translation, when "Call <company> at <number> for service" has previously
> been translated in all 28 languages?
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris Morton
>
>
>
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--
Julie Stickler
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User manual: cell merging vis a vis translation: From: Chris Morton

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