5 Tips for selecting fonts for your documents that will be translated

Font choice for your source documents is critical as it will need to be used by a foreign language translator and graphic designer.  Keep these five items in mind when you choose a font for translation projects to avoid hiccups in your final translated project.

1. Try to simplify the total number of fonts used in the document.
2. Ideally select fonts that are available on both Mac and PC.
3. Avoid custom and proprietary fonts that can add extra expense to the project.
4. Remember, character styles used in Western Europe or US English layouts are not always transferable to Asian languages (e.g., bold and italic, upper and lower case).
5. Decorative fonts can be make accents and special foreign language characters difficult to read or illegible.

There are ways to work around these issues, by sending over your fonts or by converting files to a foreign language font that is similar.  We are used to working in these situations but your forethought is greatly appreciated.