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When you work with TrueLanguage, the road from requesting a quote to taking delivery of your translated files is smooth and easy. This is a point of pride with us – once you come to us with a project and fill us in on its needs, we can pretty much take it from there. However, there are things you can do at the front end of the process, when it’s time to prepare your text for translation, to make that road even smoother. Here are a few tips from us:
Tip 1: Be sure your finalized content is really final. It’s normal for a content writer to be concerned about the effectiveness of a piece of text, and it’s tempting to fiddle with a text up until publication… or after. But, difficult as it may be to leave your content alone, do try to get it as close to ideal as you can before translation begins. Making changes to the source after translation has begun is liable to extend your turn-around time and raise the project cost. Polish the language, check the grammar, verify that all parts are in place before we kick off the translation. And if you have to begin translation before the text is final, let us know in advance that we can expect changes.
Tip 2: Make the text clean and accessible. Is your text a Word document, or some other word processing file? If so, once you’ve given the content the above check, you’re all set… unless your document contains text that should not be translated, like directions to authors or web designers. This text should be removed, or else marked to indicate that it should be left as it is. What if it’s not a Word document, but a .pdf or some kind of image? Well, every .pdf or image has a source file somewhere, and ideally, that’s what we need. If you don’t have access to source files, and you need us to extract the text for you, we can certainly do that. However, that kind of file preparation is a billable service. By getting us text in translation-ready format, you could shave off some of the cost and turn-around time.
Tip 3: Know your software. It pays to explore your productivity programs – some of them, like major e-learning and presentation programs, have an export feature built in, which will generate translation-ready text files with a click. Take a look around in your software, and you might find a major timesaver!
