Proofreading same texts again
Thread poster: Martin Mayhew
Martin Mayhew
Martin Mayhew
Croatia
Local time: 00:26
Croatian to English
Nov 10, 2020

Hi, I have a question about charging for checking pdfs of my translated texts. I recently finished a large translation project for the exhibition panels of a museum. The panels are bilingual. The client and designer are not native speakers of the target language (English). I agreed I would to check the English parts of the panels before they were printed and this was expected in my price for the translation. I could see that the designer had no idea about the hyphenation of English words and I c... See more
Hi, I have a question about charging for checking pdfs of my translated texts. I recently finished a large translation project for the exhibition panels of a museum. The panels are bilingual. The client and designer are not native speakers of the target language (English). I agreed I would to check the English parts of the panels before they were printed and this was expected in my price for the translation. I could see that the designer had no idea about the hyphenation of English words and I corrected this on the panels. Now the client wants to produce a printed catalogue which will contain those same English texts but in a different layout to the panels. My question is can I charge the client for checking the English language parts of the pre-press pdfs of the catalogue in order to avoid new bad hyphenations, or is this considered to be part of the first service? Thanks for any advice.Collapse


 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 23:26
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
@Martin Nov 10, 2020

If you say “now the client wants” this is clearly a new job. I would charge the client but maybe at a lower rate…

Sheila Wilson
Tina Vonhof (X)
Josephine Cassar
satish krishna itikela
Adieu
 
Fiona Grace Peterson
Fiona Grace Peterson  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 00:26
Italian to English
New job Nov 10, 2020

I agree with Teresa that this is a new job, and I would apply an hourly rate. Let your client know upfront how long you expect it to take you, so they know they will not be charged any more than this.

Thayenga
Sheila Wilson
Zibow Retailleau
satish krishna itikela
 
Agneta Pallinder
Agneta Pallinder  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:26
Member (2014)
Swedish to English
+ ...
New job - new hyphenations Nov 11, 2020

It might be that the new job takes less time than the previous proofreading, but a new layout might lead to a whole new lot of hyphenation errors.

Agree with Fiona's approach.

And, definitely a case for time charging.


satish krishna itikela
 
satish krishna itikela
satish krishna itikela  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 04:56
Member (2011)
English to Telugu
+ ...
Definitely a new one. Nov 12, 2020

Dear Martin,

As you have already checked the English parts of the panel before they were printed according to the accepted rate your job is done. And as the client decided to produce a printed catalog now it is undoubtedly a new job, you can charge according to the hour and this will comes under proofreading.

Best regards,
Satish.


 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 00:26
French to English
. Nov 12, 2020

I agree that an hourly rate would be fairest.

There could well be hyphenation problems again, although even if whoever is doing the layout is Croatian there's a good chance they'll find an option in their software for portions of text to obey English hyphenations rules. It's the case here for me in France.
Still, I have found that one last onceover post-layout is always a good idea. The layout guy will mostly copy and paste your text from the panel files, but every so often h
... See more
I agree that an hourly rate would be fairest.

There could well be hyphenation problems again, although even if whoever is doing the layout is Croatian there's a good chance they'll find an option in their software for portions of text to obey English hyphenations rules. It's the case here for me in France.
Still, I have found that one last onceover post-layout is always a good idea. The layout guy will mostly copy and paste your text from the panel files, but every so often he might decide to just retype bits instead. In my experience, they do this mostly for short bits, like titles. They don't necessarily notice their spelling mistakes and indeed, if they're typing directly into a file that's configured for Croatian, auto-correct might mess your English text up. And of course, the title is big and bold and everyone will notice the mistake!

I actually include this one last proofread in my price, and insist on the client showing me the text, because it's also a matter of preserving my reputation when I'm listed in credits. And for clients that don't seem to care much I point out that good spelling is like housework, you only notice when it hasn't been done.
Collapse


 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 19:26
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
Charge by the actual hours to be spent Nov 12, 2020

You probably will need to review only the first and last couple of word on each page. For the DTPer, this task should be like resizing an already approved PDF, and it is not very likely that they would make new errors to the content.

 


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Proofreading same texts again







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