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hogooe
Participant
April 14, 2010
Question

bilingual document

  • April 14, 2010
  • 3 replies
  • 1758 views

for writting user manuals I need to include two languages (original and translation). For example the layout includes two rows (A and B, textflow) one row for english and the other for chinese.

>How can I chain titles or subtitles, so that the corresponding titles has all the time the same level in both languages (to include "new lines" that I have the same level is terrible when I add later more text anywhere in the document)? (Translation have never the same textflow length like the original language or some parts are missing in the translation)

>How can I includes pictures which take place over both colums (A and B) and are chained with the text (not a fix background picture), so that column B is not hidden by the picture?

At the moment I'm using FrameMaker 7.2 and I think about to upgrade to FrameMaker 9.0.

Thanks for your help

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    David_Crowe
    David_Crowe
    Inspiring
    April 22, 2010

    I did some research a while ago, and found one program developed with parallel texts in mind.

    Classical Text Editor, from the Commission for Editing the Corpus of the Latin Church Fathers, is a specialist tool capable of handling parallel text in two or more columns, or alternatively on facing pages.

    I bought a licence a couple of years ago, and it does that and more. A bit difficult to get to grips with – being aimed at academics rather than typesetters, its layout paradigm is completely different. Might be worth a look, though.

    H
    hogooeAuthor
    Participant
    May 17, 2010

    Thanks a lot for all the answers.

    I will check out this classical text editor.

    In FM7.2 I created two colums with different textflow (A and B). All pictures are fixed to column A. When there is a picture over both column I did spaces in the background of column B. That I get the same level for title -> spaces. It's not very comfortable to create it but the print-out is okay.

    Best Regards

    hogooe

    M
    Mike Wickham
    Inspiring
    April 14, 2010

    I think you could do this with a borderless two-column table. Put the

    original language in a left cell and the translation language in a right

    cell. Where you want a 2-column wide picture, just set two cells to straddle

    and put the picture in the combined cell.

    Michael_Müller-Hillebrand
    Michael_Müller-Hillebrand
    Legend
    April 14, 2010

    "hogooe",

    I know of no program that supports your request out of the box. And a programming/slash scripting solution is always very individual.

    Having said so, most people trying to maintain multi-language documents regret this decision sooner or later. A common reason mentioned is to save the paper for repeated printing of language-independent images. But compare that to the total loss of possible automation...

    It is just not recommended.

    - Michael Müller-Hillebrand

    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    April 14, 2010

    Michael,

    Unfortunately, that type of layout is often times a requirement for the deliverable, such as Canadian bilingual mil-spec documents, so even with regrets, this has to get accomplished.

    @hogooe, having said that, there is nothing in the native FM functions that will allow you to easily maintain the parallelism of titles for such a two-flow layout. Howevcer (and without resorting to custom scripting), you can use a "dummy" spacer paratag that inserts empty lines. Then copious insertions of these spacers in either flow as required,  *as the very last step* of the publishing process, will force the flow headings to align. You can also easily strip these out if you ever need to transform the content to a structured FM form or with post-processing if saving to something like XML.

    The issue of a common spanning graphic can be handled using a Custom master page layout that has the location for the graphic pre-defined. You can then use the Master Page mapping table approach to automatically apply the correct master page based upon the paratag(s) used for the figure titling. The trick is to assign the graphic anchored frame to be outside the text flow and have the location corresponding to the area on the master page for the graphic. This may be more of an issue if there is no specific size and location requirements for the graphics in your specification.

    An alternative approach is to have a FrameScript (or FDK custom plug-in) developed that will automatically add the spacers as required to align the respective headings.

    Michael_Müller-Hillebrand
    Michael_Müller-Hillebrand
    Legend
    April 14, 2010

    Am 14.04.2010 um 17:51 schrieb Arnis Gubins:

    Unfortunately, that type of layout is often times a requirement for the deliverable, such as Canadian bilingual mil-spec documents, so even with regrets, this has to get accomplished.

    Accepted!

    As you mentioned, and since the interdependencies between layout and language are so many, like you I would also recommend to use a single-language approach during editing; this would allow to use the usual tool chain for writing, translation and other tasks. Creation of a bilingual document should then be automated as much as possible, to allow for very quick production of review versions etc.

    A possible side effect of such a design would allow you to create any two languages.

    With a proper process design this seems feasible. Even with XML-based source documents, I would say.

    - Michael

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