Framemaker automation dtp process

FrameMaker has an in-built dedicated translation tool which can be found under File->Translation-Export to XLIFF and Import XLIFF. Using this tool will save you from relinking and all the other manual stuff.

You may have some minor layout adjustments, but those may be for a large part be taken care of if you have templates for the different languages.

If it is the first time you use it, you may have to a little fiddling around and make sure your translation company is in on the deal, but they ought to be able to handle the XLIFF files no problem. 

I work with unstructured FM for Japanese-to-English using MIF files, but I am also the translator, so I also have the CAT tool. In my CAT tool, any cross-reference and formatting codes (‘placeables’) are shown in each sentence, so I add them to each translated sentence in the correct location. By doing this, when I then open the translated files in FM, everything ends up in the right place and formatted like it should be--cross-references, index markers, formatting, etc.

(But I would guess that any translation company would charge extra to place these markers in the correct location in each sentence. And since some sentences would have multiple markers, getting the markers in the right place could be tricky (impossible) for someone if they are not familiar with how FM works.)

Not sure that there is a good way to automate the post-translation layout issues--Spanish is longer than English, and English is much longer than Japanese. One indirect method might be to have more white space on each page, then if the translated text ends up being longer, it may still fit on the page (in a perfect world, anyway….).  

Best of luck finding a solution.

You can sometimes solve this by your folder and file naming conventions. For example, say you have two books:

Widgets-English.book

• Chapter01-EN.fm
• Chapter02-EN.fm
• etc.

Widgets-Polish.book

• Chapter01-PL.fm
• Chapter02-PL.fm
• etc.

Assuming that the books and documents are in different folders, it may be best to not add the language suffixes to the file names. If the localized file names stay the same as the English files, then cross-references should be preserved when the files are localized (assuming that the links are relative).

The same would be the case with localized images and text insets. If the languages are indicated at the folder level instead of for each file, relinking can be much easier.

Hi Robbie. I have an off-the-shelf solution called PathChanger for updating cross-references, text insets, and referenced graphics. It essentially uses a spreadsheet that you can quickly update with the new paths and apply to your FrameMaker book. See www.frameexpert.com.

If you need further automation, we can explore how custom scripts would benefit you. Please contact me offlist if you would like to meet. rick at frameexpert dot com.