Translation to other Languages

Frankie, another possibility for you might be to use the 3rd party tool "MIF2Go" to create better Word files from FM (well, more specifically, to create RTF files which would then have to be saved as the Word .doc binary files).

http://www.omsys.com

MIF2Go is much more robust than FM's built-in Word conversion (it doesn't crash!) and it can be setup to have much more control over the final output.

OmSys offers a free trial, and has a very, very, very extensive user manual. It can be a bit daunting at first, but the results are significantly better than any other method of generating Word files.

Art and Van:

Thanks for your comments. We actually want the responsibility to lie with the distributors in other countries. They have been translating our manuals in their language but with difficulty. They balk at investing in Framemaker (because of expense issues) and prefer Word because they are familiar with it !! I have tried saving some Framemaker files as Word files; sometimes it works and sometimes it just crashes Framemaker !! I am told that the service/sales people of the distributors actually do some translating while they are traveling; basically rewriting the manual in their own language with Word. I am just looking for a way to make it easier for them...

I would add to Art's comments:

Try to minimize the number of different words and sentence structures, that is, write consistently. Good translations companies use translation memory, charge by the word, but do not charge for multiple uses of the same word. By using the same word for the same concept throughout the document, you save money.

Van

The "Best" way probably depends on what you're trying to accomplish, how much control you want to have over the end product, and how much money you can spend. Related to that is whether the companies that you're selling in require local language instructions, which many EU countries do... in general, the broader and less technical the audience for your product is, the more likely you are to have to translate.

Most good translation companies will take Frame source files and farm them out to native language speakers in your target countries. Then you do production on each set of languages in your shop. Note that this requires a fair amount of prep work to flow smoothly. For instance, you should be writing well, using simple English constructions; and not including copy in graphic files (instead of callouts, number or letter the components or steps, so you can translate them as part of the text flow).

The other way to go is to send the source files to your distributors and hope for the best... But in all likely hood that's going to generat e more work for you because they're unlikely to be Frame-savvy. So they're going to both be unwilling to buy, but also to master FM so they can do the work themselves. You may be able to sleaze by outputtting to RTF so they could use Word, but that's also not a great way to go.

Art