Translation tips for desktop publishing translated documents

Often times when our customers look to translate their documents, they do not think how they are going to get the translated text into their English layout.  An English layout can look fabulous on paper but when desktop publishing of the translation happens it can cause many issues.

IteroText has lots of experience placing translated text into the original source layout, however, there are many things to think about.

1.  Foreign language translations expand when coming from English – typically 20% or more.  This means the English text fit perfectly, but now how do you fit 20% more text in that same layout?  Often times we can reset the document entirely or shrink the point size and the leading.  However, by shrinking translated text, the finished product looks crammed and your message may get lost in the crowd.

2.  Leave plenty of white space when you know your documents will be translated.  This way there will be room for the expanded translated text.  Narrow columns may not work with languages such as German as their words are much longer and hyphenation could be in appropriate.  How we hyphenate in English can be very different in other languages, as the rules vary.

By thinking ahead you can save yourself the pain of an awkward layout and crammed text.