| Desktop Publishing and Content Creation Consulting
As much as 25% to 50% of your localization project budget may be devoted to Desktop Publishing (DTP). This is often the single area in a new localization project that needs the most improvement for efficient localization. Customer source documents are often littered with left over styles and document structures that are no longer needed. This is especially true for customers who are migrating to XML or structured FrameMaker.
ENLASO can help dramatically reduce project costs in three main service areas:
- Document migration
- Template Design
- Building support for non-western fonts and character sets
Document migration
A different file format may be more efficient for localizing your content. Many users outgrow the features available in Microsoft Word, InDesign, PageMaker and Quark as their content evolves into complex, high page count projects riddled with with a high proportion of multi-page tables.
By migrating to DTP applications that better support these large documents, the localization process becomes easier and, as a result, more cost effective. Migrating to a different DTP application involves up front costs that occur one time. Cost justification for this migration is easily achieved with the savings in the localization costs for each language each time the document is updated with subsequent project updates..
Because ENLASO specializes in high volume technical publishing, FrameMaker is most often the product of choice when a customer has outgrown another publishing application. ENLASO has established a reputation for high expertise in FrameMaker consulting and FrameMaker training.
Click here for a brief case study on how ENLASO helped PELCO convert over 500 pages of PageMaker files into FrameMaker and the benefits that were achieved.
Template Design
ENLASO can design new templates (or modify old ones) to simplify formatting and reduce turn around time proofing target language files. Special areas of localization concern in templates include:
- Table cell margins that can accommodate text expansion in target languages
- Avoiding the use of certain types of text formatting in table cells to avoid bad breaks
- Automatic “prefix” paragraph text, like Figure and Table titles
- Boilerplate text in automatic cross references
- Automatic text in “Cautions” and “Warnings”
- Dynamic and static text in page headers and footers
- Handling sort order for indices and other generated lists
- The most effective method for changing fonts for non-western languages
- The most effective method for changing fonts for non-western languages
ENLASO can construct new templates from scratch, or upgrade your existing templates. We can provide a full service solution, or train you to do this yourself. Examples of template improvements include:
- Automating headers and footers
- Reducing table usage for framing text (leads to smaller file sizes and more logical text display for linguists)
- Creating numbered lists that automatically restart based on context
- Optimizing table formats (cell margins, etc.) to allow for target language text expansion
- Managing multi-lingual templates for target languages
Non-western font and character sets
Determining the correct fonts and characters sets that support non-western text can be especially daunting. Although UNICODE and Open Fonts are reducing such problems, these standards are not in universal use. ENLASO has the expertise to help you conduct pilot testing for non-western fonts that support various Asian languages to ensure that all output (print, PDF, HTML and Help files) is error free.
In addition, ENLASO can advise you on the best strategy when going into eastern-European, Greek, Arabic, and bi-directional languages for the first time. Click here to read our White Paper on challenges with Arabic and other bi-directional languages.
Developing customer-specific FrameMaker practices
It is not always easy to know the best way to create specific content in FrameMaker. Our consultants can perform thorough document analysis to identify where improvement is needed. For example, FrameMaker users often use tables to achieve desired formatting results. Tables, though, are subject to page-break issues when they are localized because the translated text within the tables expands. We can show you more appropriate formatting techniques to better plan for text expansion issues.
We can also identify specific FrameMaker features that best fit your specific workload. FrameMaker often has four or five alternate methods for achieving an identical result; ENLASO can help you select the most efficient method. Custom training is available on document best practices to ensure that you attain self-sufficiency in effectively designing new content suitable for localization.
Summary
ENLASO analyzes your document assets to determine where hidden problems may lie, helping you fix these problems to reduce the cost of localization.
ENLASO's Desktop Publishing and Content Creation Consulting Solutions
For more information about our Desktop Publishing and Content Creation Consulting Solutions, please contact Chris Raulf at marketing@translate.com, call 303 516 0857 x103, or complete the quote request form.
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