Managing multi-language project

[patrickooi]

Hi everyone!

So my query is more about managing a project through Indesign rather than the functionality but it may well overlap.

Anyway I've created a core (English) version of a brochure, 24 pages or more, with graphics and saparate text boxes for headings, sub-headings, paragraphs, footers, etc. My problem is that the client will be supplying up to 26 different translations of this document in Word.

Is the easiest option to just copy and paste the text in? Some languages will flow from right to left (Arabic/Mandarin) so that means I will have to chnage the layout.

Is there a more efficient way of managing this? Can I output "something" from Indesign to allow my client to input the translations and I input that back in? Am i expecting too much for something InDesign can't handle? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

[Laubender]

"the client will be supplying up to 26 different translations of this document in Word"

"Is the easiest option to just copy and paste the text in?"

Hi,

look into the InDesign plug-in WordsFlow by EM Software.

http://emsoftware.com/products/wordsflow/

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[patrickooi]

Thanks for your reply. It seems like somethign similar that can be done with importing word but I think my main issue might be that the text boxes in InDesign isn't just one large text box, there will be several text boxes on a page and some are in tables. I've put together a rough layout attached to this comment, hopefully this would help.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

InDesign can handle natively a multilingual project, however as you mentioned when it comes to bi-directional text such as English/Arabic, and especially if the Arabic text will be flowing into many pages, I would then suggest you download another copy of InDesign named Middle Easter version to handle Arabic/Farsi/Urdu/Kurdish and few other Right-to-Left languages that are mixed with a Latin language.

This way you will have two Indesign copies on your machine to handle certain tasks.

[patrickooi]

Cheers, good tip!

[Laubender]

Hi,

I do not think that WordsFlow is the solution to all of your workflow issues and obstacles that will come up. It could be one part of the solution if the customer is willing and able to work in a structured way. A way you have to craft together with the customer.

"My problem is that the client will be supplying up to 26 different translations of this document in Word."

Why is that a problem for you?

Work yourself into Microsoft Word to understand how the supplied files are built and how you can either benefit of a given structure with used styles or how you avoid terrible things when all styles in every paragraph of the text have style overrides for example. There is no "magic bullet" to handle those things.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[patrickooi]

My apologies, "problem" is probably not the right word... I was trying to convey the amout of work involved because there will be four separate documents that will need 26 translations incorporated, so basically I'll end up with 104 InD documents. 😓

[Laubender]

Another tool in your toolbox to handle things with Word files could be a script by Marc Autret if you have to copy/paste text from Word to InDesign because of issues with unstructred formatting in Word documents:

RichPaste | Copy and Paste with Minimal Formatting [UPDATE]
Marc Autret, April 06, 2016

https://www.indiscripts.com/post/2015/10/richpaste-copy-and-paste-with-minimal-formatting

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Joel Cherney]

I am somewhat surprised to hear that you're getting so many Word documents for layout. If I were setting up any multilingual workflow involving InDesign, I'd want to see translators working in translation environments that could consume IDML. If you're not familiar with it, IDML is basically an XML markup format exported by InDesign that can be consumed by pretty much any translation management tool of the last decade.  IDML is exactly what you're asking for.

Your client must not be involved in the language industry, as this InDesign -> IDML -> TM -> DTP layout is bog-standard, and has been for maybe fifteen years, maybe more.  I would be leery of any translation supplier who did not offer it to you. Since it's your client, not your "language services provider," I might suggest to you that you ask them to ask their LSP. I sure hope they have one; 26-language jobs with no one involved who says "Um, maybe IDML?  Industry standard workflow pls?" is the kind of project that I would personally avoid. (Unless they were paying me hourly, without a not-to-exceed dollar amount specified; a Word-doc-based workflow might take 2-4 times as long to finalize as an IDML-based workflow.)

Let me know how much you want to know; I have a great deal to say about good translation workflow and multilingual project management. But I'm reluctant to type out a few megabytes of raw text ranting about it without knowing more about how your project. It probably wouldn't help, and I should probably go back to my own twelve-language job instead of posting about other people's projects. But if I knew more about how much input you had into your client's document management strategies, I might be able to post just a few kilobytes' worth of raw-text good advice, instead of ranting with a poor wheat-to-chaff ratio. 🙂

[patrickooi]

Hi Joel,

Thank you for your post. I work for a consultancy firm that deals with the pharma industry. Despite being in the cutting edge of medical advances, their working practice is rather archaic, as you can imagine, lost of bureaucracy. On top of that, I am dealing with individual affiliates in individual countries (East/West Europe, Asia, Australasia...), most if not all do not have access to deal with IDML as they write their own translations, and only sometimes use an external translator, but eben then they have to make edits because not all external translators are familiar with the medical terminologies. In addition to having an internal review, where several stakeholders have to approve the translated content, they will have have to be submitted to their local health authorities, another archaic organisations who only deals in Word documents before sending the approved Word documents to me. So basically I have zero input on my client's owkring practices.