Files Preparation

No matter the file – you can feel safe that your files will be properly prepared for the translation process and for any DPT process afterwards while getting the best out of any Translation Memories or Terminology Databases existing.

Why? Often, the preparation of files for translation is overlooked and as a result, a lot of money can be wasted. A file incorrectly prepared might create extra work on each step of the production line and can double or triple or even 10x your costs.

Here are 3 examples a bit extremes, so you see the potential savings!

Example 1 – I recently prepared an Excel file where one column was in HTML format.  The file was big, about 1.7M words. Processing the Excel file with Trados produced 200K of repetitions and placeholders/tags everywhere. Converting the Excel file into HTML programmatically and then processing it with Trados produced 1.3M of repetitions with almost no placeholders. Imagine the time and money saved per language!!!

Example 2 – An Excel file had in each cell a list of entries (sentences and words). Not prepared, and processed with Trados, each list was one segment. Once, the Excel was prepared properly with tags added, the number of repetitions  increased from 80k to 92k on a 148k file. But also the number of placeholders decreased from many per sentence to almost none. So better consistency, money saved, faster translations and less mistakes on each step of the production line.

Example 3 – An InDesign file was badly typeset by a client, meaning that many sentences had one or more linebreaks. That file was not prepared properly and put directly through Trados. As a result, each translator had segments of piece of sentences. Consequently, propagation couldn’t be used neither by the translator or the QA. Finally, DPT had to do the same typesetting corrections in all languages. The file would have been setup properly, translation, QA and DPT would have been much faster with most likely a higher quality product. At least 3 hours wasted by language on the full production line when the preparation of the English file required less than 30 minutes.

So, if you run into strange files, including some of the following example, I can prepare the files for translations – no matter who will translate them (myself or your favorite translator/agency) so you can minimize the overall production costs :
–  An Excel file which has some columns with HTML tags or XML tags or other tags.
–  An Excel file in which cells have full paragraphs or lists of items
–  An Indesign file, Word File, Powerpoint file which is not typeset and prepared for translation
–  A PDF file to translate
–  Strange text, HTML, XML or other formats or multiple formats combined
–  Formats not recognized by Trados or your CAT tool.

Simply send me the files with all pertinent data you have to start the process and get a quote.