Multilingual Desktop Publishing Services

At Global Digital DTP, we follow an organized Multilingual DTP process. Quality Assurance has always been a part of our standard production cycle. We are also offering it as a standalone task. Here’s how we go about the Multilingual DTP process. The workflow is as follows:

Working with Your Application’s Source Files

• Reformatting pages to ensure the translated layout is as close as possible to the source language layout
• Reformatting pages to accommodate language expansion and shrinkage
• Localization of images containing translatable text
• Replacing source-language screen captures with screens captured from localized applications
• Generating indexes and tables of contents
• Updating cross-references
• The content is then validated with the source file, as a part of the post Multilingual DTP quality assurance.
• Executing a final technical QA of the source and target language layout
• Executing a final linguistic QA of the source and target content side-by-side
• Generating high or low-resolution PDFs to be sent as deliverables along with the source application files

Working without Your Application’s Source Files

• Text extraction: If your source is only available as a printed copy that does not allow editing, we can extract the text into editable files that work with specific DTP applications. We accomplish this through advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition). The extracted text then goes through a quality control check that includes a spell check.
• Typesetting: We transform the localized font, colors, images, white space, and other DTP elements to make the localized document as compelling as the original.
• Layout creation: When necessary, we create a new layout that takes advantage of the target language’s unique features, such as mirroring the design for Arabic readers.
• Source match: The content is then validated with the source file, as a part of the post Multilingual DTP quality assurance.
• Quality assurance: Throughout the project, we analyze our efforts to ensure that it meets your specifications and our standards as defined by our Multilingual Quality Metrics Quality Assurance system. We then subject the completed design to a final QA by native-speaking professionals before releasing it to you.

Preflight Checklist

Preflight is the final step in the printing process where the design file is validated for correctness.

• We ensure that the file resolution is 300 DPI or more.
• We ensure that all images are at least 300dpi (to avoid pixelation).
• We ensure that all images are in CMYK (unless otherwise intended).
• We work with CMYK and/or Pantone color swatches for optimal outcomes.
• We use spot colors, metallics, and other special colors if specified when using an offset printing press to handle these special colors.
• We export the entire file as a high-resolution image (300 dpi or higher. Formats supported include .tiff, .jpeg, etc).
• Margins – We ensure that important elements like text stay within the specified margins and don’t come too close to the edge to mitigate the possibility of them getting cut off.
• Bleed – If an artwork goes all the way to the edge of the page, we extend it past the artboard to prevent a white border from appearing when trimmed to size.
• Crop Marks – We provide crop marks to some printers as a guide to where to trim the paper to the finalized size.

At the end of the production cycle you will receive, Quality assured localized files with matching formatting and layout—simply, translated documents with the look and feel of the original. Postscript, PDF files for online and print publication, with or without bookmarks and working hypertext links.

Character-based languages, such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean, require specific versions of even standard publishing software installed on the native (non-US) platform to generate localized documents for the target users. Translation of technical documents from one language to another has a substantial impact on the graphical layout of documents. For example:

• Documents translated from English to languages such as French, Spanish and Arabic expand in word count and require more space or smaller font size
• German and Russian words can be dozens of characters long, requiring re-sizing of graphics and menu items
• Middle Eastern languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Farsi change the order of layout because they are written right to left