Single-Sourcing, Translation Savings

If you output your content into different formats, you know how important single-sourcing is in content creation. When you consolidate recurring information and build your files from a single source regardless of formats, you are also able to maximize the leveraging power from your translation memories and minimize your costs. For instance, if you have a lot of content for brochures and marketing materials, you can re-use a lot of it for websites without re-writing it for html files. Therefore, the translations used for those brochures are re-used for the website.

Many of the current authoring tools offer the flexibility to single-source. Quark 8® offers the option to create XML based content and output files in Flash. Adobe FrameMaker® also allows outputting content for help files when the structured content is stored as raw content in XML format instead of a manual. When you consolidate your material and start single-sourcing, you are able to save time and re-use your content across your output formats. Translation consistency is also enhanced, and you are able to maximize the use of translation memories.

ICD on Facebook

ICD has a Facebook page now. We are trying to diversify our internet presence. Facebook is a large social network and we hope that you, the reader will join our Facebook page and hopefully it will get our name out. Facebook is a great tool to advertise a business and it allows interaction between fans who are interested in our company and us. You can post questions on the "wall" and post ideas or notes.

So, if you have a Facebook account, please join our Facebook page and help get the word out about our company and services, and hopefully we can keep the world connected through translation and localization.