Best Method for Generating Multi-Language Docs

[techwriter31]

Hi all! I'm in the process of setting up global project linking for our English projects and translated projects and I'm stumped on how to best set up these projects for both our internal documentation team and the translation vendors. Any help is appreciated!

Our printed quick start guides are a single document that contains the English text and all translations in a single PDF file. We were previously using InDesign to generate these docs. I believe we have two options for this scenario:

Option #1 - Port all of the translations to the English project and generate the PDF from there.

Option #2 - Keep the 9 languages in their own language-specific Flare projects and use global project linking to import the translations into the English project and generate the PDF output from there. That way, the QSGs would use the same process as all of our other translations (a single English project and corresponding projects for each language).

Which method would be the easiest to manage?

[ChoccieMuffin]

Firstly I would suggest you speak to your vendors to get their advice - they will understand their own processes a lot better than a bunch of strangers - though I suspect they will go for Option 2.

I would have thought it would be easier to keep track of that way, as you will be able to track the status of each language separately, they will most likely be ready at different times. Also, if you use snippets and text bits for auto-numbers, if you have them all in the one project you would have to label them differently - manually - which is not ideal. Lots of other reasons for keeping the languages as separate projects, those are just

My two penn'orth, for what it's worth.

[techwriter31]

We've decided to simply output the translations from their own project, rather than import them into the English project for PDF creation. We do have the page numbering limitation, but we can live with that. The translation vendor will manually combine the individual PDFs as part of their formatting process.

This is the criteria we used to make our decision:

Option 1: Use Global Project Linking to Import the QSG translations into the English Project and Generate the PDF
Pros:
- Can automatically generate the PDF from a single location.
- Continuous page numbering.
Cons:
- Directory structure of translated projects would differ from English projects.
- Importing across ClearCase VOBs (translated content is in its own VOB).
- Conditionally tagging translated graphics files (required for import to English project) creates a “.props” file for each graphic.
- Importing graphics that don’t require translation.
- CSS importing (we have a translated .CSS for each language, in addition to our standard .CSS)
- Have to create a separate Import file in the English project for each language

Option 2: Generate individual PDFs for each language and manually combine the PDF using Adobe Acrobat.
Pros:
- Directory structure of translated projects mirrors that of the English project.
- Potentially less complicated because we won’t have to import files from the translation projects into the English project.
Cons:
- Manual process for combining individual PDFs (higher possibility of human error).
- Page numbering starts over for every language.

[ChoccieMuffin]

You can solve the page numbering reasonably easily, although it is a manual iterative job.

Generate the English and make a note of the number of the last page. (Let's imagine it finishes on page 32.)
Open the TOC in the project for the next language. On the first topic, right-click and select Properties.
On the Printed Output tab, in the Page Number section at the bottom, select the first radio button and instead of 1, type 33.
Generate the PDF and make a note of the last page. This time it may be page 66 (languages expand).
Open the TOC in the project for the 3rd language and change the starting page number for the first topic 67.
Carry on until you've done all the languages.

If the localisation company is going to create your PDFs, pass on this little tip to them, though they'll probably have worked it out themselves.

So now one of the Cons for your chosen method is that the continuous page numbering is semi-manual, not that it just can't be done.

If you're doing it this way, I also suggest you sort your images into different folders, so that your localisers (or whoever's going to produce the localised graphics) don't have to go digging through loads of graphics they don't have to change in order to find the ones they do. I have a folder called "Screenshots Universal" for those screengrabs that don't change between languages, another called "Screenshots Language" for those that do, and another one called "Line drawings" that contains pretty language-independent pictures of the product that have nothing to do with the software. The last one is unlikely to change (and the bloke who does those drawings for me is only interested in that lot) while the software screenshots are more likely to change, and the language ones will definitely have to be taken for each language.

This approach does mean that you would have duplication of your graphics, another Con. I don't know if it's possible to put the language-independent graphics in a folder higher up the structure that all the languages can link to, I'm too new with the program to have worked that one out, but if you can then that would solve the duplication of graphics problem as well.

Hope that's of some use.

[alt_jennifer]

I know this is a little late, but I believe there's a simple solution to your problem.

If you have all the translated Flare projects, you can create a TOC in your main English project that links to these other projects. You would not be importing the translated content into your English project. Rather, at the end of the English content, you setup a link to another Flare project. When you setup that link, you can specify the target of that project that should be used. So, if you already have a Quick Start Guide target in each of the translated projects, you would select that target here.

Then, in the Properties of that link, you can start a new section or chapter, choose the page layout, AND set page numbering how you want it. That way the page numbers can continue to increase automatically (no manual rework!)

You just create one link for each language, so if you have 5 languages besides English, you'll have 5 Flare project links at the end of your global Quick Start Guide TOC. (And you could add Conditional Tags to them, so you can exclude Translated sections easily if you want to create an English only QSG.)

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions about this process I described. I think you'll find it much easier than other options, and more satisfying!

Jennifer

[techwriter31]

Thanks for the recommendation! Unfortunately, I think this method only works for DotNet help, HTML Help and Webhelp outputs. Bummer! That would have been perfect!