Managing translated images

[katiewalker]

We just bought Flare and Lingo and I’m in the planning stage. We have several user guides that will need to be translated into multiple languages. We’ve already translated our product UI into multiple languages so we can take screen shots in various languages. I’m trying to figure out the workflow for integrating the translated screen shots into the translated documents. When we get the translations back, we understand we'll need to create a new Flare project for each translation. Then, I presume I would need to go into each new project and replace the English images with the translated images, correct? Or, is there a way to associate the translated images with the original image in the master Flare project (the English version) and then automatically output the correct translated image when I export to Lingo before sending to the translator? Or, is there another approach I haven’t thought of?

[RamonS]

As far as I know you'd need to replace the images in each of the projects. If you name them the same and keep the same dimensions then you could just drop them in, even after building the output if it is WebHelp. You do know that each time the UI changes you need to redo all the screen shots, that means waiting until you got the resources translated, a new build compiled, etc. Take a look at this post from Andy Robertson
http://techwritetips.wordpress.com/2006 ... portraits/
You may find that using screen portraits might work out better. Also, you could limit screen shots to only very specific items such as expanded drop-downs / combo box lists. Taking a screen shot of an entire screen/page/form is typically not adding much value because the users already see that on their monitors anyway. That only applies to online help. If you create printed/printable docs then adding those screen shots in is likely important for reference.

[Nita Beck]

Then, I presume I would need to go into each new project and replace the English images with the translated images, correct?

I occasonally assist as a "Flare operator" for a translation company when they need some extra hands on deck. This is exactly what we do. We overwrite the English images with the localized images. Ramon mentioned something about sizes and resolutions. Yes, the localized screen images are identical to the English screen images in size and resolution, so the task is purely a "drop in here" one.

BTW, my observation is that the Flare authors used a minimal number of screen images in Help output. I think we never had more than 10 or so localized screen images to swap in.

[Mohinda]

We have used the process that you described i.e., replace the English screenshots with the translated ones in each Flare project. The issue arises when you do next round of translations. When you update Lingo Project for each language using the Master Flare English project to pick up new changes, all screenshots are replaced with English ones. We spend a lot of time replacing the images again in Flare projects to build the localized help. MadCap Support told us to replace images in Lingo not in Flare before we export to Flare.

[RamonS]

As I suggested earlier, make use of screen portraits and all these issues go away.