Multilingual or Not Multilingual, That is The Question? Right

Two weeks ago when it was ridiculously cold in Milwaukee, I had to jump start my car so I could get to work. While in the process of trying to jump start my car, the car's alarm decided to go off , and I frantically tried to disarm it. I could not find a way to disarm it, and I had to consult the owners manual. 8 minutes of deafening noise and evil-eyed neighbors later, I finally managed to disarm the alarm with a few coordinated clicks of the key less entry remote. In those 8 minutes of flipping through the owner's manual of my car, I was shocked to find that the bilingual manual was laid out in weird line by line sections without proper page breaks. So, as I continued to read a sentence at the end of one page and instead of continuing on the top of the next page, it continued to the middle of the next page, while the top section listed the instructions for operating the keyless entry for the trunk. This bizarre bilingual layout got me thinking about the best way to have multilingual layouts for manuals.

I think part of the problem was not planning ahead for a multilingual manual. The cover and index page were in English and since it was for the North American market and specifically the U.S., they decided to place Spanish translations below each English instruction and ignored the re-flow of text and page breaks causing text to jump from one section to another without re-adjusting the images that correspond to the instructions. I think the best way to create a multilingual layout is to have sections for each language. I have noticed that most manuals have this type of layout. The car company in question did revise the layout of the owners manual for the next model year to a trilingual sectioned setup. It looks much better, and it's easier to locate information. By the way, my neighbors still give me evil looks. Once again to those affected, I apologize for the noise.