Where are we headed? Integrated and Automated Translations

With technology rapidly changing and our need for instant gratification, the translation world as slowly evolved over the years to meet the demands of our fast paced life. The advent of CMS (Content Management Systems) has facilitated this process. It has allowed us to move content from one source to another with email exchanges and zipping files. However, these systems are not cheap, and smaller translations companies are finding hard to understand the integration aspect when a client says: "Can you work with our CMS?"

The complexities vary from one CMS to another, but the clients expectations are often the hardest for translation companies to meet. The integration process is usually the easiest part, if the client is willing to allow the translation company to access their CMS and "grab" approved content for translation. There are also integration technologies like "Global Link" by Translations.com that allow a "seamless" integration between Interwoven a popular CMS that is capable of dealing with translation and localization technologies and SDL Trados.

The bottom line is the amount of work and cost involved for both sides. Current FTP technology and Web based servers can create workflows that allow clients to export content form their CMS and get it to an FTP, and a notification is sent to the translation company, who then downloads the files. The translation company reverses the process for the translation (either through their CMS, or uploading files to their FTP). In this scenario most of the work is handled by the translation company. Overall, integration technologies are common palace and it's more about choosing he right fit then the integration process itself. The challenging part lies in having a editing module where clients can access the translation memory and get translated content as the create or update documentation. A simple integration/file transfer will not accommodate this process. Always test out new technologies first, most companies offer Free Trials, so it's a no brainer.

Fonts Fun

Desktop Publishers will sympathize with me on this topic. Fonts are a big problem when translated materials are desktop published. It is important to find out what platform the original document was created on: MAC or Windows, and then if there are compatible fonts for that language. Most Western European languages have fonts that are built into most of the software programs, and are compatible with both platforms. True Type Fonts (TTF) are a universal font type that you can install on both MAC and Windows. There are certain groups of fonts that are specific for Adobe's software, checkout the list at: Adobe Fonts

Asian languages have various fonts that are specific to each language based on the character type. For example: PMing Liu (包含鋰離子電池) for Traditional Chinese, and Sim Sun (包含锂离子电池) for Simplified Chinese. They may look similar to the common eye, but an expert desktop publisher will know that there is a difference, and you don't want your readers reading the wrong thing. Therefore, you can have your content translated correctly, but if you use the wrong fonts then it's a complete waste of time and money. On a side note, as I was writing this post, a client sent me an email asking what fonts I used for Arabic, Chinese, Polish, and Russian. What a coincidence since I was blogging about the importance of knowing and having the correct fonts for translated content.