What is the best method for language translations?

[TomFrame]

I'm looking to translate an English document to other languages. Is there a way of creating layers in the same file or do I have to manage multiple files for each language?

Thanks,

Tom

[Arnis Gubins]

FM doesn't actually support layers per se, so you would have to use separate files.

[TomFrame]

Thanks for the quick response. As I continue to research this issue, Framemaker's description says it can handle multiple languages and it seems like it can do layering wich Framemaker calls conditional expressions that can be turned on of off as needed. Would this work?

[Bob_Niland]

Framemaker's description says it can handle multiple languages ...

Yep. You can write the document in any one language

... and it  seems like it can do layering which Framemaker calls conditional  expressions that can be turned on of off as needed. Would this work?

As it happens, I'm doing sort-of that right now. We need to generate two different versions of the English document depending on destination region. USA gets one. UK gets another. All the US customary units (often mis-named Imperial units) are switched off for the UK ed. But more in line with your problem, certain bits of industry jargon are conditionally tagged, so we can switch between US and UK nomenclature.

With "both versions" visible, this causes the document to have a larger flow (repagination issues), and causes some flows (in anchored frames) to flow-under (out of sight) during editing.

Also, unless you have FM10, you can't see which text is which, because you can't set visible indicators in the Condition Codes that are easy to switch off (you can use color if you can live with Print All Text as Black when pushing, which we can't). I think FM10 adds a CC feature that might handle this more elegantly.

We've also had to settle on just one spelling dictionary (UK), because it's not trivial to switch an entire document from one dict to another, as it's defined in each paragraph format (although a batch switch could be scripted).

In any case, we can live with the minor hassles, to avoid maintaining near-twin documents.

But I can't imagine interleaving whole sentences or paragraphs of entirely different languages, particularly if the writer doesn't speak them all.

Do text as insets? Probably won't work, due to Xrefs.

Most publishers probably give the single-language source files to a translator. There are some things you can do to make life easier for translators. It's surprising how seldom they ask. I suspect that in some cases here, they are translating from our PDFs, because I get so few requests to run my pre-translation scripts.

[Van Kurtz]

Also, unless you have FM10, you can't see which text is which, because you can't set visible indicators in the Condition Codes that are easy to switch off (you can use color if you can live with Print All Text as Black when pushing, which we can't). I think FM10 adds a CC feature that might handle this more elegantly.

This is not true. FrameMaker 9 and lower (not sure how much lower) all have the ability to apply color and text decoration (such as underlining) to each condition code, which can then be turned off or on as required. There is no need to print all as black.

[Bob_Niland]

>> ... that are easy to  switch off...

This is not true. FrameMaker 9 and lower (not sure how much lower) all  have the ability to apply color and text decoration (such as  underlining) to each condition code, which can then be turned off or on  as required.

Well, well. I had never noticed the "Hide Conditional Text Indicators" choice in the book View menu.

Apart from the stability issue you raise, this makes extensive use of CCs vastly more practical.

Thanks. This is why I come here.

[TomFrame]

If you don't mind me asking, how many pages did your catalog have and did it have a lot of artwork and images? I'm thinking of crating separate files on our catalog. Our catalog has is over 200 pages with multiple images and artwork on each page. The information provided is for industrial hardware so we use a lot of graphics and CAD artwork with dimensions. We're thinking of translating into 4 to 5 languages. Do you think on file can handle this as conditional text?

[Bob_Niland]

If you don't mind me asking, how many pages did your catalog have ...

You posted that as a reply to something I wrote, but I'm not doing catalogs. The conditional text scheme seems to be working well enough for switching between US and UK English in largish (<200 page) machinery operator manuals.

And to re-visit something I wrote earlier:

We've also had to settle on just one spelling dictionary (UK), because  it's not trivial to switch an entire document from one dict to another,  as it's defined in each paragraph format...

If the alternate texts are isolated to entire paragraghs, I suppose it is possible to define language-specific paragraph formats that differ only in Language:

So instead of having to decide which single spelling dictionary to use for:
Body

you could define formats:

Body.ENG

Body.FRA

Body.DEU

which would be identical except for having their Language: set to US (or UK) English, French, German, etc., and their Next Pgf. Tag: set to themselves or some other Name.ISO format. Tip: use ISO 639 codes for lang ID.

I can't do this for my US v. UK document because I'm switching dialects inside paragraphs.

______

Also, ISO 639 doesn't seem to have codes for dialects, but that's different problem.

[Van Kurtz]

If you are translating into languages that are NOT variants of you own, such as Canadian French and French, then I suggest creating new files for each language. Typically, one gives the translators the files in the native language, and the translators give you back the files in the translated language. The latter you will likely create PDFs and publish; rarely, if ever, will you need to edit or otherwise manage them. Your management of the translated files will be to store them someplace.

I would avoid using conditions to manage multiple languages in one set of files. I once managed eight different manuals (all English, no translations) with one set of master files, using conditional text in FrameMaker 9. I had a FrameMaker crash about once every two or three days. I think your case would be worse.

Van

[TomFrame]

In summary. It seems like conditional text may not be a good option for a full document translation since it may be more cumbersome to manage compared to the benefit of one single file to manage.

Everyone's responses where helpful and will definitely be taken into consideration in my decision of which method to use.

I would appreciate experiences from people that have actually worked in translations and how it worked out for them such as Error7103's response.

For Adobe, I do suggest implementing Layers in future releases since they are very helpful in many other programs they have.

Thank you all,

Tom

[Bob_Niland]

I would appreciate experiences from people that have actually worked in translations...

Another [beneficial] discovery of the Conditional Text approach:

For anchored frames or tables that need to be switched on and off, It turns out that the anchor glyph (the inverted "T") can have a condition code applied just to it.

In my case, this means that where the anchoring text need not change, but what is anchored to it does, I don't need to replicate any text adjacent to the anchor (or replicate the entire sentence or paragraph). I probably will anchor the two alternate frames at different places in the paragraph, so the anchors are more easily selected. Caveat: having both turned on is apt to be messy.

For Adobe, I do suggest implementing Layers in future releases since they are very helpful in many other programs they have.

Adobe Forums > FrameMaker > FrameMaker Feature Requests

Chances are layers aren't the ideal way to handle multi-lingual documents (or ideal for enough users to make it worthwhile).

You probably want a 2-up display, with the original language in one place on the screen, and the current translated language in another (rather than one on top of the other).

If your goal is 1:1 page content matching, you could get side-by-side authoring now, using conditional text and interleaving entire pages of content.

I note that in the real world, for short documents, they usually arrive with all the languages visible. Each language may be in its own "chapter", or it may be one of those hideous fold-ups with one lang per fold, but each language scattered across multiple folds.

[TomFrame]

Wow, that's a great suggestion! The 2-up idea for the different versions of the same file for side-by-side authoring would be the ideal way to work on any type of conditional expressions, be it language or variation of a product. Like the Photoshop save for the web output dialogue box. That would be an awesome feature for Adobe to implement.

Adobe, if you read this, this is a great suggestion.

As you say Error7103, that's why we come here.