Desktop publishing (DTP) is seldom a talking point when discussing technical language translations, yet effective DTP has the potential to transform your translation workflow. Not only can it dramatically improve your production process and turnaround times, but professional DTP can also reduce translation project costs significantly.
More Than an Add-on Service
Many businesses consider language translations as a commodity that is separate from their main content creation processes. That is because most language service providers look at it that way themselves. At Protranslating we understand that you can’t have effective translations without effective DTP. From simple Word documentation to structured FrameMaker, we have the staff to assist you in optimizing all best practices for document translation.
While combining language translation and DTP means we effectively have more work to deliver, inefficiently formatted documents slow down the translation process––and the more languages there are to cover, the more expensive the delay. Instead, we deliver professionally produced documents as our final product, streamlining the translation workflow for customers, reducing DTP labor costs, and saving translation fees, too.
Precision Makes Perfect
Even something as simple as improperly formatting technical illustration callouts can increase the overall cost of a multilingual project. Let’s say, for instance, you provide a document for translation into four languages with drawings and related callouts copied directly from the art file. Not only will such a file be cumbersome to handle, but it will also require conversion back into the art file once the translation process is complete.
If we assume it takes two hours to enter the translated callouts into the art file (per language), then that could equate to a massive eight hours of wasted DTP labor. Other common examples include technical manuals that require tables of content and reference links to be manually updated. Depending on the size of the document, this can rapidly add 30% in costs (or more) to a translation project.
Talk to Us About Cost Savings
Protranslating, a BIG Language Company, routinely works with customers to develop efficient and cost-effective translation workflows. By analyzing your documents and existing processes, we can give rapid and practical advice that will help your company save time and money while improving translation quality. Contact us today to find out more.
