Poll: How do you go about formatting documents? Autor de la hebra: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question " How do you go about formatting documents?".
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I try to preserve the original format as much as possible but I have never been asked to provide layout/formatting! I accept pdf files on the assumption that the result is a Word file that the client will format as he/she pleases. Some of my clients ask me to carry out the final check of the pdf file before printing takes place...
| | | | Peter Simon 
Países Bajos
Local time: 14:32
inglés al húngaro
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I use a software but not within my CAT-tool and not on-line, either. It converts pdf's into Word, which, after some adjustments manually (lots of fonts to be changed if the source is Hungarian) is a proper editable Word file. Sometimes the CAT does it almost as well but it's easier to work on a slightly rough Word file than what the CAT provides, and I prefer to see the good original before applying the CAT for the translation. I also have some preserved template-like earlier files, which can be... See more I use a software but not within my CAT-tool and not on-line, either. It converts pdf's into Word, which, after some adjustments manually (lots of fonts to be changed if the source is Hungarian) is a proper editable Word file. Sometimes the CAT does it almost as well but it's easier to work on a slightly rough Word file than what the CAT provides, and I prefer to see the good original before applying the CAT for the translation. I also have some preserved template-like earlier files, which can be adjusted a lot more quickly when a similar new one comes in. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Bélgica
Local time: 14:32
Miembro 2020
francés al neerlandés
+ ...
| Not really my concern... | Jul 12 |
... because almost all the work I do comes in agency-prepared CAT files. The few times I do have to work in original files, it's always a straightforward Excel or Word file.
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| On the rare occasion ... | Jul 12 |
... when a direct client sends me a larg(ish) PowerPoint or PDF file to translate, I send the original PDF along with an OCR Word file or the translated PowerPoint, respectively, to my virtual assistant, who does magic with MS Office  If it's small, I take care of it myself.
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If I see that the format is going to be a nightmare, and that the client expects it to be perfect, I just say that I need the document in a clean format, or I can't guarantee anything
If it isn't, I avoid the nightmare of trying to clean up a terrible PDF-Word conversion...not my job
PDFs: the bane of translators
| | | | | Usually my CAT, or in Word | Jul 12 |
The question normally only arises with small documents such as birth certificates, and I may have a template.
Exam certificates are more of a problem. They often come as 'dead' PDF files, and first I have to copy and translate the text. Then I often create a table in Word and use that to position the different sections. It takes time, but then the client can work on it further if needed.
If it takes a lot of time, I charge extra; that is NOT covered in the word rate! T... See more The question normally only arises with small documents such as birth certificates, and I may have a template.
Exam certificates are more of a problem. They often come as 'dead' PDF files, and first I have to copy and translate the text. Then I often create a table in Word and use that to position the different sections. It takes time, but then the client can work on it further if needed.
If it takes a lot of time, I charge extra; that is NOT covered in the word rate! There are so few words in these documents, which may have to be reasearched and checked in some cases. If I can, I charge an hourly rate for the whole job.
Wherever possible, I simply use the source text as a template, if I can get it in an editable format. The target may take more space than the source for a variety of reasons, but with a little tweaking, it usually fits in anyway.
[Edited at 2024-07-12 09:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Amateur formatting | Jul 12 |
Working with agencies only, I don't handle formatting, and I deliver bilingual files only.
But I did do unprofessional formating to suit one sporadic customer, who used to require thick pdf translations once in a while, asking me to maintain the look and feel of the original English file. Those pdf files were not scanned paper documents or images, but files where I could extract text with Copy-paste.
They were aware that I don't do DTP, but were willing to get my best-effort W... See more Working with agencies only, I don't handle formatting, and I deliver bilingual files only.
But I did do unprofessional formating to suit one sporadic customer, who used to require thick pdf translations once in a while, asking me to maintain the look and feel of the original English file. Those pdf files were not scanned paper documents or images, but files where I could extract text with Copy-paste.
They were aware that I don't do DTP, but were willing to get my best-effort Word file mimicking the pdf.
Of course, those translations were not for publication, but for internal use on industrial sites. Perhaps they weren't even printed, but read on-scren only.
I used to first attempt a conversion with Omnipage, but it often didn't yield proper CAT-tool-friendly results, and work was still needed to clean rogue tags and other rubbish. If this didn't give me an almost perfect source file from the onset, I switched to another, low-tech method, which was fairly efficient and fitted the bill with this specific customer:
Text: Using a simplistic freeware application, AutoUnbreak, to copy-paste text content to a blank word file. It does save a bit of time by removing many unnecessary line breaks compared to simple CtrlC-CrtlV, but is hopeless with tables, headers/footers and some multicolumn layouts. To make it short, there was still a lot of work just to format the source file, but text, font and colour were properly transferred without any rubbish.
Tables: all manually in Word, pasting lists of AutoUnbreak text into the right cells.
Headers/footers: pasting AutoUnbreak text to Word, replacing page numbers with fields, and removing all repeated headers/footers.
Images/Non editable text: Either cropped screenshot of the source image or reconstruction of Excel tables, drawing captions, etc. in Word.
A typical 100-page, 20kword pdf file would take me about half a day to format to full CAT-tool compliance in Word, and then I'd use a CAT tool for the translation. I delivered a Word file, from which they could create a pdf after text revision.
In another instance a long time ago, for a direct customer's printed material, I subcontracted a DTP specialist to create a CAT-tool complying source file and align the resulting target file. It worked well and smoothly, and the customer complied with all the DTP guy's requests for high-res logos and other DTP stuff.
Philippe ▲ Collapse
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Ventnai
España
Local time: 14:32
alemán al inglés
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| Don't do it much these days | Jul 12 |
I usually deliver Trados packages, MemoQ projects and readily formatted Word documents. On the rare occasions I translate OCR documents, I usually format by hand.
| | | | | Limitation of modern CAT tools | Jul 12 |
It’s always struck me as crazy to translate segment by segment with no control over the layout, indeed often no insight into the layout, trusting that someone else will sort it out later.
Most jobs could just arrive in Word and leave in (perfectly formatted) Word, avoiding all these extra layers of processing and so saving time and money while improving quality.
But hey, I’m just a dinosaur.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Bélgica
Local time: 14:32
Miembro 2020
francés al neerlandés
+ ...
Christopher Schröder wrote:
It’s always struck me as crazy to translate segment by segment with no control over the layout, indeed often no insight into the layout, trusting that someone else will sort it out later.
That's not really how it goes. Most of the time you are able to look at a (translation) preview with the proper lay-out in the CAT tool itself (at least in SDL Studio), and even more often you are provided with the original formatted document, so you know exactly where every segment is located in the proper source file.
And the layout is controlled by tags in the CAT file. So the only thing "someone else" will still have to do is adjust the length difference between languages and manually edit the inaccessible images, but that's basically it.
[Bijgewerkt op 2024-07-12 13:23 GMT]
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Lieven Malaise wrote:
Most of the time … the only thing "someone else" will still have to do …
And that is in a best-case scenario where the underlying document is a properly and simply formatted Word document.
In reality, poorly formatted Word documents, inappropriate uses of Excel and PowerPoint, messy conversions from InDesign and pdf files, and godawful OCR scans are rife.
There is no question that CAT tools reduce the amount of playing around with text a translator can realistically do.
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| Any way that works | Jul 12 |
Most of the documents I translate are in Word format, but one regular client provides only pdf files (some scanned) and requires them to be returned in Word formatted as closely as possible to the original document, which usually contains several font sizes and types along with bold, cursive and underlined words, centered section titles, etc. On more than one occasion it has taken me longer to format the document than to translate it.
I usually use an on-line CAT tool to convert fr... See more Most of the documents I translate are in Word format, but one regular client provides only pdf files (some scanned) and requires them to be returned in Word formatted as closely as possible to the original document, which usually contains several font sizes and types along with bold, cursive and underlined words, centered section titles, etc. On more than one occasion it has taken me longer to format the document than to translate it.
I usually use an on-line CAT tool to convert from pdf to Word. If I don't get good results, I try different on-line conversion sites until I find one that gives good results for that particular document. I always have to then manually make changes and corrections, do a spell-check (for some reason, 'la' often converts to 'Ia', 'ción' to 'tion', and so on) and make sure it is as identical to the original as possible.
Then I translate, review and correct, make any formatting adjustments and send it off to my client. ▲ Collapse
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