Global Project Linking: Importing Translated Topics

[techwriter31]

Typically, our translated projects are a mirror of the English projects (folder structure, file names, etc.). Our printed quick start guides are a single document that contains the English text and all translations in a single PDF file. If we use global project linking to import the translated QSG text into the English project and generate the PDF, when imported, the translated files would reside in the same folder as the English file.

I believe I have the following options:

Option # 1- Append the language-specific abbreviation to the translated file name, and allow the file to reside in the same folder as the English.

Option # 2 – Flare tech support recommends not appending a language-specific abbreviation to the file name, and instead, storing the files in language-specific folders (DE, ES, FR, etc.). One potential problem if using GPL is that the folder structure of our translated projects would no longer mirror that of the English project. That said, it could simply be an additional directory level with the Topics folder (\Content\Topics\DE) for all files in the translated projects, so that when imported to the English project, they are separate and use the same file name without the language-specific abbreviation appended to the file name.

The QSGs have always been an exception to the standard workflow because the translations reside in the same document as the English, so I'm expecting that whatever method I choose will be a slight deviation, but I just need to figure out the most consistent workflow that will cause the least amount of confusion for my co-workers and the translation vendor.

[ChoccieMuffin]

What happens to your generated PDF? Is it sent to the printer or made available to the end user? If sent to the printer, can't your printer work with 7 or 8 PDFs with instructions telling them what order they have to be assembled in?

Do you have the full version of Acrobat? If so, you can join the generated PDFs before sending them wherever they need to go, it's a very quick (though manual) task.

[techwriter31]

Good point. I'll test it out and see what the output looks like.

[techwriter31]

Oops. Forgot about page numbering. I could manually change the page numbers in the PDF, but I don't think that's a feasible solution. Back to the drawing board.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Ah. Page numbers, you didn't mention page numbers!

I have often seen QGs where different language versions start at 1 each time, but if you don't want to do that, how about putting a prefix before each language version's page number, or modify the page layout for the language versions to include a coloured tab turned sideways to differentiate the language versions? I know it would mean a language-specific change, but would be achievable where re-numbering (manually) in the PDFs would be a pretty unworkable solution.

I am NOT an expert at all, but see if this would work for you:

1. Generate the first language, and make a note of the number of the last page.
2. In the Properties dialog from the TOC, in the Printed Output tab you can define the starting number, so in the first topic of your next language set that to the next odd number.
3. Generate, make a note of page numbers and do the same with subsequent languages.

I know that's a bit faffy, but more do-able than messing around inside the PDFs. Just an idea. (And one I'm going to have to scratch my own head about, so thanks for pointing it out to me!)

[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.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Ha! I thought I'd given that suggestion in another thread! I've just answered your "I've solved it" post, so sorry for the duplication.