Translation Poll, Too

[kristil]

I'd like to get some suggestions for maintaining translated content in Flare alongside the English version.
I'm getting myself organized to import a legacy Word document and its translated counterpart, then update, then provide help files in each language. Since we acquired Flare fairly recently, my hinting around for Lingo has not been well received.

This is my plan so far:
1. Number each heading in the English doc, then apply matching numbering in translated doc.
2. Import each document, breaking into a new topic at each numbered heading.
3. Send a .chm to the translator to confirm I've matched the correct topics together.
4. Retain the numbering for future reference. Only send updated content in Word documents to the translator for updated translations.

I am interested to hear how others are doing this.

[RamonS]

I'd recommend Lingo, although you already said that you experience push back. There is a reason for applications like Lingo and a reason why there are entire companies specialized on translations for software applications. Your approach probably works, although I think you will get into a lot of trouble with the translated Word document since the translators may have forked around in it with styles. Besides that, the various half-baked Word document formats may cause some headache as well. But what about index and glossary and other portions you may have in your original help file that cannot be transferred to a Word document? Help is a bit more than just the bare content.
You may want to see if X-Edit is a suitable solution (http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/xedit/). At least this way you can keep the content in a format that is better understood by Flare. But still, it isn't the right tool for the job since translations would need to be inserted as annotations and I don't know if that would work out at all. You can take a look and try it out.
Lingo is the right tool. Depending on how often changes occur and how many projects need to be translated investing into Lingo is probably generating the better ROI than to have to deal with ugly Word documents. Maybe you can get in touch with MadCap Sales and have them provide some case studies and maybe even a web demo for the decision makers.

[KevinDAmery]

Another piece of ammo for your arsenal - time is money. If the translators and you can get the translation done X% sooner, the cost savings in labour probably more than offsets the cost of buying Lingo.

[kristil]

Okay, you've inspired me to better organize a comparison of the manual and Lingo translation methods so that I can make a case. I'm going to watch the demo, too. But if necessary, I'm thinking that I can get all the necessary files translated by providing the text in tables to the translator. Of course using this method time will be spent on data entry and correcting things last minute when the translator sees the translations in context, but I've got to be prepared to move ahead without Lingo.

[forfear]

we tried translating without a tool like lingo...we were on a budget as well....

its frustrating because you'll find its easy to accidentally break your HTML links, context sensitive links may not get translated, ...
if it was a word document it wouldn't have been a big issue...but because its help systems and all the dynamic linking that comes along with a project of this kind, the translation process requires even more ccare and attention to get decent quality...

it'll take you much much longer,
your translation process might take much longer than expected and the quality might not be the way you imagine....especially when you do maintainenace document updates to your source and need to get the translations updated again...
particularly if you imagine translation is gonna be a regular thing, itd be good to consider it...other wise its going to be a little bit more than frustrating, and a little more patience than usual...been there..

the cost benefit is pretty immediate, especially on project quality and time to deliver,

none theless give it a try and grab a flare project, and try out the workflow...as a translator would...then watch the demo video, and give lingo a try...