Calculating the Financial Impact of DITA for Translation

Success in a global marketplace requires translating content into multiple languages. Moving to a topic-based XML architecture, such as the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), can help you control the translation process and save money.

Swope, Amber. Writing Assistance (2007). Articles>Content Management>Translation>DITA

Closing the Content Gap: Converging Authoring and Translation  

As companies strive to improve themselves by rethinking their global content strategies and redesigning these for the new world of continuous and multilingual deployment, they must unify their authoring and translation processes--not an easy task. Fenstermacher explains why authors and translators should work to close the content gap that often exists.

Fenstermacher, Hans E. Intercom (2007). Articles>Content Management>Translation>Localization

Control Costs of Translation with Advance Plan

The liability of a translated manual is several times greater than the English version. This increased liability can be tied directly to the accuracy of the translation.

McBride, Bill. Boston Broadside (1993). Articles>Language>Translation>Project Management

SAPHelp: A Multilingual Authoring Tool  

SAPhelp is a proprietary authoring tool for documenting and translating on-line. It allows development, documentation, and translation to function concurrently. Its documentation structure lessens the need for redundant storage of texts. It provides version and authorization control and assigns work to authors and translators.

Ladd, Dennis D. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Content Management>Localization>Machine Translation

Calculating the Financial Impact of DITA for Translation

Success in a global marketplace requires translating content into multiple languages. Moving to a topic-based XML architecture, such as the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), can help you control the translation process and save money.

Swope, Amber. TechCom Manager (2008). Articles>Management>Translation>DITA

Intersection of Content and Translation Management  

In today's global economy, multilingual communications are the conduit to multinational revenue profiles and global brand recognition. Buyers in countries large and small are increasingly demanding local language materials as a condition for purchasing products. Laggards that deliver multilingual products and services late to regional markets lose market share and see their global brand fragment and decline in value. Multinational business demands that organizations redefine the value of content to drive global customer experience, increase customer satisfaction, promote brand awareness and consistency, and support time-to-market goals.

Ciarlone, Leonor. Multilingual (2009). Articles>Content Management>Localization>Translation

Building Efficient Multilingual Workflows    

O’Keefe gives detailed information on two technology standards that may be used in multilingual workflows: XSL and XLIFF.

O'Keefe, Sarah S. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Workflow>Translation

Evaluation of an XML-Based Content Management System in the Translation Process

Translation companies typically embrace innovations in methods for efficiently creating final formatted documents. About a year ago a client asked if we would be interested in testing and evaluating a content management system (CMS) and how it would relate to our translation process.

Argondizzo, Peter. STC International TC SIG (2008). Articles>Content Management>Translation>Assessment

Managing Product Translation: One Technical Communicator’s Experiences  

As Documentation Manager, I was recently responsible for selecting a subcontracting company to localize one of our applications and its related manuals into three European languages: French, German, and Spanish. Concomitantly, R & D hired quality control testers, with fluency in each of the three languages.

Carmel, Patricia. STC International TC SIG (2003). Articles>Project Management>Translation>Case Studies

Reducing Translation Costs

Over the past two years my team conducted an extensive review of translation process and costs, and we found a lot of ways to reduce translation time and costs. This including exploring use of machine translation. In the end, we found that machine translation created more hassles than it fixed. It was hard to explain to upper management, but the concept that helped most was explaining that translators aren't translating word for word, they're translating thought for thought.

Brewer, John. STC International TC SIG (2005). Articles>Content Management>Translation>Language

Taming the Translation Alligator: Or How to Facilitate Document Translation without Getting Eaten Alive  

When the cost for translation on support documentation for a foreign sold machine continues to go up, what can be done to minimize the cost of this EU mandated requirement?

McDowell, Elizabeth C. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Content Management>Translation>Localization

Translation Management: In-house or Outsourced  

The suggestions that follow are culled from 10 years of experimentation and note-taking by a client in the translation game. I have tried to arrange them in logical groupings, but real coherence is difficult to achieve when it involves such a compilation. Although the company I work for has found it advantageous to move away from dependence on translation agencies, complete hands-on management of translation projects is not for the neophyte. Easing into it one language at a time, however, may be attempted after becoming intimately familiar with the basic translation process.

Whitman, Michael. STC International TC SIG (2001). Articles>Content Management>Translation>Machine Translation

Effective Update Management in the Localization Process  

Whether one is localizing documentation or translating Web sites into multiple foreign languages, managing updates is a major component of the localization process. Content development often involves constant updates. Therefore a localization methodology must have the infrastructure to manage change seamlessly, efficiently, and accurately. It must also offer complete flexibility to accommodate each project’s unique schedule, requirements and development cycle.

Shapiro, Tom. STC International TC SIG (2003). Articles>Content Management>Localization>Translation