Bilingual Team Writing: How One Company Is Meeting the Demands of Simultaneous Software and Documentation Release in Multiple Languages  

A company decides to release its software and documentation simultaneously in markets with different languages. For the documentation team, the traditional model of 'write and translate' does not work any longer. A bilingual writing team collaborates to produce a handbook in two languages at the same time.

Duffy, Gerald J. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Collaboration

Building a Case for Global E-learning

As globalization of business continues at a rapid pace, employees are increasingly being asked to absorb and learn from materials that are not written in their first language. These materials range from key corporate policies and procedures that all employees must follow to specific training on products, health, safety or compliance. Very often this is training content created in English at the American parent company and distributed to regional and global offices, where in many cases employees are expected to have a “working knowledgeâ€Ω of English as a second or third language. But there are serious problems with this approach that stem directly from poor reading comprehension and also from learners’ misperceptions of the level of language facility they have actually achieved.

McBrien, Kieran. tekom (2005). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Building a Successful Translation Process  

As a company expands into global markets, the need for localized documentation arises. Much like building or enlarging a house, a successful translation project requires a carefully planned process. When a company decides to produce localized documentation, it needs to establish a translation process. Although the process details may vary from company to company, there are basic steps that apply almost universally.

Lavallee, Nancy C. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Cost Control for Online Help Localization  

Localizing a large online help system often represents the most expensive part of a localization project. However, when international customers or markets are a product’s lifelines, eliminating the online help translation is not an option, especially when customers have come to expect it. Managers of online help localization are left with a paradoxical mandate: Keep localizing, but quit spending (so much).

Kock, Benjamin C. Intercom (2003). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Language

Cross-Cultural Transformation of Technical Documentation for the Chinese Market

Technical authors can compile technical documentation of high quality for a foreign market only if they are able to respect and understand the foreign culture.

Just, Stefan. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Documentation>Localization

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA): Applications for Globalization    

Translation of documentation has traditionally been a major expense in the globalization process, especially if translations are required for multiple languages. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for creating topic-based and information-typed content. It provides a number of features that, in addition to supporting high-quality information delivery, allows for more efficient and reliable localization of information. This article provides both an introduction to DITA and a discussion of DITA features that enhance document globalization.

Harrison, Nancy. IEEE PCS (2005). Articles>Documentation>Localization>DITA

Development of Japanese-Language CD-ROM Manuals Using SGML  

Fujitsu Limited publishes as many as 10,000 manuals a year. Efficient, standardized manual production is, therefore, indispensable. Our department has created a manual on CD - ROM as a pilot project of electronic publishing using the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The use of CD - ROM provides the manual with a convenient reformation search feature and high portability that can not be achieved with conventional paper manuals. This paper discusses our methodologies, problems involved in Japanese language SGML manual production, and how we solved them.

Nakamura, Yuko. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Japan

Development, Use and Profitability of Translation Memory Systems

Product life spans and documentation production times are becoming increasingly short and the expenditures for documentation are rising simultaneously with increasing product complexity. Hence, translation projects are becoming more costly as the parallel increasing documentation complexity.

Knauf, Ansgar. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Machine Translation

From English to Cyrillic to Chinese

The increasing number of languages that companies need to translate into requires careful planning when preparing translation projects. Thus, choosing appropriate tools, finding qualified project teams, and applying suitable concepts to avoid additional work become crucial tasks for the project manager. If all these issues are considered beforehand, a perfect balance can be achieved within the magic triangle of time, cost and quality.

Kreitmeier, Peter. tekom (2006). Articles>Documentation>Localization

International Communication

'Localisation' is the term given to changing the software and the related documentation to suit a particular geographical region. One of the major components of localisation is of course translation. Needless to add, I am talking about localisation from an international perspective. Localisation at the national level would mean having software in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and so on. Surprisingly, this has not happened in a big way.

Kamath, Gurudutt R. IT People (2000). Articles>Documentation>Localization>India

Internationalising Documentation

The translation market is growing with tremendous speed. Pressure comes from various angles: volume, time, quality and price. Hence the challenge can be stated thus: Translate more better and in less time at a lower cost! There is no way this can be done without the use of translation tools.

Stücker, Harald. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>Localization

A Layered Approach to Translating Online Documentation  

Localizing a large online documentation system is a significant, expensive, and ongoing project. SAP AG has adapted a layered approach to translation to help manage an online help system in 12 languages. This approach is based on an analysis of online documentation categories, and it is implemented by an analysis of the target markets. Technologies such as hypertext linking and text embedding need to be carefully controlled in order for this approach to be successful.

Elliott, Keith H. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Translation>Localization

Maintaining Documentation Across Several Languages  

As more companies move into markets beyond their borders, many technical communicators are faced with this new situation of having to deal with more than one language for their documentation The costs and time involved in localising and maintaining these documents can be substantial. This paper briefly discusses some of our experiences and gives some pointers on how a technical communicator can ensure the successful maintenance of documentation across several languages.

Pereira, Reynold G. and Jennifer O'Neill. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Managing Content in Regulated Industries  

Global organizations, particularly those in regulated industries, have to juggle a wide range of competing priorities. They must have thorough documentation, clear internal and external communication, audience-appropriate marketing materials and many types of “fine print” carefully crafted. That means that many different departments, sometimes spread across geography, must be involved in all layers of the business. In a regulated field, multiple touchpoints mean multiple opportunities for triggering a regulatory error.

Giovanis, Kristen. tekom (2006). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Managing Multilingual Documentation  

The author discusses the importance of integrating translation early in the documentation process to avoid translation problems. Explore how multilingual documentation also has an impact on writing style, layout, review procedures, and a variety of other elements.

Dehaes, Christel. Intercom (2006). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Results of the "Survey of Percentages for Documentation Written on the Topic of Controlled Language (CL)"

Here is a summary of a survey that I conducted in April 1999. These results reflect replies received as of 10 June 1999.

Allen, Jeff. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Glossary

Should Documentation Be Written in English in Countries Where the Natural Language is Not English?

Though ours was quite an international group, we soon found that we shared similar experiences. Comparing our experiences led us to affirm that when non-native writers produce English documents, mother tongue reviewers are required.

Payne-Charby, Anne-Marie. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Subsidiary Reviews in the European Union  

Companies in many different industries are working at a feverish pace to produce translations of end-user documentation to meet EU deadlines, some of which are as early as December 2003. As a result of these deadlines, technical communicators in affected industries— such as medical devices and home appliances— are quickly overcoming many traditional translation hurdles. Documentation departments have formed solid relationships with translation agencies, streamlined documents to facilitate translation, and developed corporatelevel translation policies. However, challenges remain for documentation departments and translation agencies worldwide.

Balchunas, John. Intercom (2003). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Europe

Technical Documentation for Europe: Belgium

Belgians do not have a language of their own. But the country has three equivalent languages instead: the partition of the Dutch language zones has been the result of a question of faith: With the freedom of Munster (1648), the first partition of the Netherlands took place, and, in 1830, Belgium was first founded as the catholic counterpart to the protestant Netherlands.

Reimers, Maja. tekom (2006). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Technical Documentation for Europe: Italian

Italian belongs to the family of Romanic languages. The traditional Italian alphabet has just 21 letters, but since recent times, five new letters j, k, w, x, y, have been added, thanks to the use of several words of foreign origin. Typical features are the use of the apostrophe ('l'amore') and the accent.

Manzin, Marisa. tekom (2006). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Italy

Technical Documentation in the Enlarged EU: First Round-Up on the Organisational, Technical and Economic Impacts

After the enlargement in May 2004, the EU has now 25 member states and 20 official languages (not taking into account 48 minority languages). What does the enlargement of the EU mean in the context of Technical Communication and what are the challenges of the on-going internationalisation in general? The industry has to find a way to make linguistic diversity compatible with efficiency within the set parameters of time, cost and human resources.

Wirtz, Ursula. tekom (2006). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Translating Software Manuals from English to Japanese  

Hitachi is importing more overseas software for sale in Japan as Hitachi products. Hitachi develops the Japanese manuals for this software by translating the English manuals. The Documentation Development Department (DDD) of the Software Development Center, Hitachi Ltd., not only translates the English into Japanese, but also rewrites the Japanese and reformats the manuals into the Hitachi manual style. To translate, the DDD makes an English-Japanese dictionary of technical terms for each manual. Hitachi often will contract professional translation companies to translate these manuals. The program-development department and the DDD mutually check the translation results to ensure the highest quality translation. When rewriting, the DDD changes the style and improves readability and referencing. We must improve the efficiency of developing manuals by using automation to convert manual styles.

Ogawa, Masazumi. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Localization>Technical Translation

Turn Off The Tap: Limiting Word Wastage

Sophie Hurst explains how, rather than leaving it all to the translators, authors can influence how their texts appear in other languages.

Hurst, Sophie. tekom (2005). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Writing Translatable Texts Saves Time

'The 'part', could be called a 'piece', a 'section' or also a 'product' for a change', thinks the technical editor to himself, while writing the documentation for a new semi-automatic stamping and book binding machine. After all, everyone learns in school that you should write using a great variety of words. But how is the poor translator who gets to translate this documentation supposed to know that it always refers to one and the same item?

Vollmar, Gabriele. TC-FORUM (2001). Articles>Documentation>Localization

Writing for an International Audience

Ideally, software and its documentation is localised (translated) into the languages of the target markets. However, in many cases, it is not cost-effective do this. Even if the target markets are the English-speaking countries, differences exist between the way English is used in the US, the UK, and Australia for example, and it is easy to cause confusion. This article examines some issues.

TechScribe (2007). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing>Localization