You may already be familiar with how to create localization-ready templates in MS Word from our previous post.

A lot of the same principles apply to InDesign files, but InDesign files are more complex and require additional preparation to be translation-ready.

InDesign is capable of a higher level of design than MS Word, and you may have an on-staff or contracted graphic designer who has designed the publication for you.

Similarly, it is important to have experienced, professional multilingual desktop publishing (DTP) specialists work on your translations so your carefully curated design is maintained in the translated versions.

Here are 23 things to consider when preparing an InDesign file for translation.

Getting Started

1. Files

Keep your InDesign package all in one location for easy transfer to your Language Service Provider (LSP).

An InDesign package includes:

• InDesign file (.indd format and/or .idml format)
• Fonts used in your project
• Links (Images used in the InDesign file)
• PDF proof of the final publication

Here is some helpful information on how to prepare and export an InDesign package.

2. Versioning

Create an organized system for tracking versions of your files. Use it consistently across all languages, including English.

Do not delete old versions! Your LSP may need to refer to a past version of the file when making updates to translations in the future.

Fonts

3. Font Selection

One of the most appealing features of InDesign is its seemingly limitless options for fonts. It is a designer’s dream!

But don’t get too invested in a particular font, because many fonts are made with English in mind, and do not support other languages.

Use basic Unicode fonts to increase compatibility across languages.

4. Font Size

Oftentimes, translated text takes up more physical space than its English equivalent.

Use a font size which is 1-2 points larger than the minimum size you can accept.

This will enable the DTP team to decrease the size in the translation to allow for text expansion without making the text too small to read.

This is especially important in footers, where font sizes are often at their smallest.

5. Outlines

Do not convert text to outline format. This makes the text uneditable and difficult to work with.

Links (AKA images used in your InDesign file)

6. Text

Instead of embedding text into your images, making it uneditable, incorporate text in your images as layers on top of the image.

Uneditable text in an image is difficult (and more expensive!) to translate + format.

Don’t forget to allow space for text expansion!

7. PDFs

If your publication includes links to PDFs, don’t forget to provide the source files for those too.

Otherwise, they behave like uneditable images.

8. Culturally appropriate images

Give some thought to your target audience which you’re trying to reach with your translations.

You may want to prepare images to swap out in order to be culturally appropriate for your target audience, or you can carefully pick images that are universally acceptable across cultures.

9. Image quality

Make sure that the images (links) you use are of the desired resolution.

If you plan to print, high resolution images are key to good quality.

10. Rights

Whether your images are proprietary, stock photos, or other, make sure you have the rights to use them in your publication.

Formatting

11. Clean files

Do not leave extra text in the gray space outside of the main document space.

Clean up your file before sending to your LSP so those extra words don’t sneak into your billable word count when you don’t need them translated.

12. White space

Leave enough blank space around text to allow for text expansion in the translated text, as well as leaving ample room between lines for accents above and below the characters.

13. Right-to-left languages

If translating into a right-to-left language, consider that your text and formatting will be flipped in the translations.

If your translation is a printed book, for example, you need to have enough margin space on both sides of the text for binding so it works in left-to-right and right-to-left texts.

14. Color palettes

Use color palettes so the DTP team can easily find your preferred colors.

Also, keep in mind that RBG palettes are recommended for online use only, while CMYK colors can be used for online and printing.

When in doubt, use CMYK!

15. Arrows

If possible, avoid arrows pointing to/from text.

During translation, due to text expansion, words/paragraphs will move, which will impact the placement of the arrow, making DTP more difficult.

16. Style sheets

Using style sheets may be beneficial for creating similar future content in English, but it is great for translation, too, because it ensures that formatting is consistent and manual formatting overrides are not lost.

17. Table packages

If your publication requires tables to impart information, you should consider using the InDesign tables package to create your tables, instead of using individual text frames to manually create the appearance of a table.

If you use the tables package, the cells in your table will automatically adjust to allow for text expansion in the translated text, leading to decreased DTP time and saved costs!

Segmentation

18. Threading

Use the threading feature to create a flowing text segment even when parts of the phrase end up on different lines. This often happens in headings, slogans, or titles.

Leaving them separate will mean that the translation memory tool will treat them as individual strings, and when they’re put back together in the final translation, they may not make sense together, because they were translated separately.

19. Formatting + alignment tools

Use margins, soft returns, and alignment to format your text instead of a paragraph or line break.

20. Indents and lists

Use lists and paragraph styles to create indents and bulleted lists instead of tabs and spaces.

Preferences

21. Printing requirements

Let your LSP know if you have special printing requirements so they can customize your print-ready PDF proofs with the bleeds and crops you need.

22. Text expansion

When accommodating text expansion in translations, if not enough white space has been left, your multilingual DTP team will have to choose how to make room for the translated text.

They can decrease font size, decrease margins, or increase the number of pages.

Let your LSP know your first choice so they can get it right the first time.

23. Font swaps

Let your LSP know your font preferences for non-Latin scripts, or be prepared for them to substitute with their default standard.

Need assistance with InDesign translation?

Let’s discuss your specific needs. Contact us.

Conclusion

Working with InDesign files for your translation project requires planning, preparation, and some know-how.

But the extra effort is worth it in the end to ensure that your project goes smoothly and looks great.

Understanding InDesign and desktop publishing from a translation standpoint is an acquired skill.

We hope that this article has been helpful starting you on your way.

I have been working closely with public health professionals for over ten years now. My experience includes working with various state and county public health departments, with a specific focus on multicultural communication.

With the APHA Annual Meeting & Expo about to start, I thought this would be a great time to share my experiences with you about the best practices I have learned and implemented over the years doing language translation for public health clients.

One of your goals as a public health professional is to ensure health equity for the people you serve. One way to do that is to offer content in their native language. Here are the 5 best practices for public health language translation you can apply immediately in your field of work.

1. Understand the Target Audience

Prior to having your public health materials translated, you must first understand your target audience. Is the target audience LEP (limited-English proficient) persons that immigrated to the United States, or do they still reside in their native countries? For this article, let’s assume you are targeting LEP populations in the United States.

The next step is to identify the languages of LEP persons you are targeting. You can do this in person by using I-SPEAK cards available at www.lep.gov. Once the language is identified, it should be stored in the respective LEP person’s health record. This information can then be aggregated and used to determine the most commonly-requested languages in your public health district to ensure meaningful access to services.

Another source you can use to determine the languages in your area are various demographic surveys. Using this method will give you a high-level view of the languages in your area. It’s not as precise as the first method I mentioned above.

Your takeaway: Know and understand your LEP target audience before translating your public health content.

2. Translate for the Appropriate Reading Level

MedlinePlus.gov recommends writing your health content for the 7th or 8th-grade reading level. This is perfectly fine for a native English-speaking audience. When you are ready to translate your English public health content into other languages, I recommend targeting the 5th or 6th-grade reading level.

The reason behind this is that the education level of certain immigrant populations may not be as high as your typical native English speaker. In fact, I’ve personally observed persons in certain communities who can speak their native language, but have a tough time reading.

If a person can’t read in English, let alone their native language, you will have a tough time communicating with him or her. To help ensure better understanding, target a lower reading level and follow the plain language guidelines.

Your takeaway: Instruct your translation vendor to translate for the 5th or 6th-grade reading level.

3. Create a Glossary and Style Guide

Every industry has specific terminology and jargon. Public health is not an exception to this rule.

For example, terms such as assurance, benchmarks, cultural competence, evidence, risk assessment and vector can mean different things in different contexts. To avoid misunderstandings, you probably already have an English public health glossary such as this one.

Many states have their public health glossaries available in languages such as Spanish. For other languages, especially those of rare diffusion, have your translation vendor assist you with creating one. The benefits of having approved bilingual glossaries is improved consistency in public health communication.

A style guide is just as important for the look and feel of the public health materials as a glossary is for the content and context of the translated text. The style guide should address abbreviations, acronyms, units, and terms that should be transliterated or kept in English, among other things.

Here is a great example of an English style guide for public health communication.

Your takeaway: Create and utilize bilingual glossaries and style guides for your translated public health material.

4. Localize Photos and Graphics

Adapting a piece of content into another language typically requires more than translating the text. A publication laid out in InDesign will have text, along with visual elements such as photos and images. Some of those images may contain text within them!

In most cases, it is recommended that you have the photos and images localized for the target audience. This means that you may decide to replace images of people with photos of people who look more like a typical speaker of that language. Having localized photos and images will create a better end-user experience. It will help the person relate to the translated piece of content.

It’s also important to consider cultural factors when localizing photos and images, so you don’t offend your target audience. Here are some things to avoid: hand symbols and gestures, religious symbols, and animal symbols that could have emotional meanings.

Conversely, here are some visual elements you can include: images of nature, abstract shapes, inanimate objects, globally recognized public health symbols and other standardized images that particular cultures won’t find offensive.

Your takeaway: Think beyond text translation. Make sure all photos and images are localized properly.

5. Involve Local Communities

For your public health communication to be successful, you must first build trust with your target audience. This is true regardless of the language you’re communicating in. If your target audience doesn’t have trust in you, your communication will not be as effective as it could be.

Most public health agencies being government entities must build trust with the local immigrant communities in their districts. The reason behind this is that in some countries, government agencies are viewed as corrupt entities that are out to extort people. This is especially true in developing countries that are torn by war and other conflicts.

How do you build trust?

By involving your local communities before, during and after translating your public health content. The best way to do this is through community meetings and workgroups. You will be getting the communities involved, with the help of language interpreters, and build trust.

By doing this you will emphasize that government is not a threat. This will help focus more on the public health issues you’re addressing to begin with.

Your takeaway: Communicate and build trust with the local immigrant communities for your public health communication to be successful.

Need assistance with your public health content translation?

Let’s discuss your specific needs. Contact us.

Conclusion

Language translation plays a big part in ensuring health equity in public health. You can define the success of your public health communication by understanding your target audience, their cultural and educational background, creating a glossary and style guide, localizing photos and images, and building trust.

Following these best practices and working with language translation vendors who can help you execute them is essential to successful communications. It’s also time and money well spent.

Please share other best practices you’ve come across as a public health professional working with diverse communities in the comments.

Let’s say you’re planning to get some materials translated. You’re prepared to pay for professional translation services, because you understand the benefits. You’ve even found a language service company (LSC) that you trust, and you’re ready to get a quote.

However, you’re still hesitant, because you want to know with 100% certainty that you’ve received a quality translation, but you don’t personally speak the languages your content is being translated into.

How do you know the translations will be good quality?

Here’s how you can ensure your quality expectations are met.

Work as a Team

Getting quality translations is a team effort.

Your team should be made up of the following parties:

YOU!

Your translation vendor and linguistic team.

Your internal reviewers (this one is optional).

Now that your team is in place, here are the ways teamwork will help you get quality translations.

What You Can Do

You may be wondering how you can aid in the translation process, when you don’t even speak the languages in question.

Well, your role is actually in the preparation – what you send your translation vendor can set them up for success. Alternatively, if you do not prepare, your translation vendor may be fighting an uphill battle.

So what can you do?

Spell-check and proofread the source file.

Make sure it is actually the final version before you send it to your translation vendor!

Allow white space for text expansion.

Different languages take different amounts of space to say the same thing. Spanish, for example, takes 25% more space when compared to English. Whereas Chinese actually takes less space than English.

When in doubt, extra white space is your friend. If you jam every inch of the page with English text, your translation vendor will have no room to maneuver, and the translations may end up too small to read!

Eliminate extra spaces and unnecessary line-breaks.

Any qualified translation vendor will use a translation memory (TM) software program to aid with the translation process and ensure consistency in translation. These TM tools break the text into segments for translation (words, phrases, sentences, etc.).

If a line break is inserted in the middle of a sentence, that sentence will become two incomplete segments in the TM program. This can create confusion during the translation process.

Write the source file using the tone, formality, and reading level you would like your translations delivered in.

In the absence of special instructions, the translators will take their style cues from the source document. If it is written informally in English, the translators will mirror that in their translation. If you want the translations done differently than the original English document, you may need to provide special instructions.

Provide specific instructions about any expectations you have for the final product.

These instructions can include anything from export settings for print-ready PDFs, to reading levels, to fonts, etc.

Provide a glossary and style guide.

If you have translations done regularly, consider developing a glossary and style guide for your translation vendor to use. Glossaries can be monolingual (terms + definitions) to help the linguists with understanding industry-specific terms, or they can be bilingual (English term + translated term) so your linguistic team knows what your preferred translations are for specific terminology.

A style guide can help your linguistic team understand how to handle things like measurements, addresses, department names and other items in the translations.

Let your vendor know who to contact with questions.

And make sure that person is available for the duration of the project in the event that questions arise.

What Your Translation Vendor & Linguistic Team Should Do

You know that you want your translation vendor and translators to be thorough.

But if you’re unfamiliar with the translation process, you may not know what “thorough” means!

What can you expect?

File preparation.

In order to ensure compatibility with their translation memory software and compliance with your expectations, the translation vendor will check and prepare the file before sending it to the linguistic team.

Detailed project instructions.

Project instructions will be compiled and organized before being provided to the linguistic team. They should understand clearly what the expectations are prior to the project launch.

Translation, Editing & Proofreading (TEP).

Translations are translated, edited and proofread by a team of at least two native speakers.

Translation memory (TM).

A TM software program is used to help maintain consistency in the translations.

Typesetting/Desktop Publishing (DTP).

The typesetting portion is performed by a design team experienced in multilingual DTP. Formatting of the translations will match the original source file as closely as possible.

Post-DTP review.

The typeset files are returned to the linguistic team and a quality assurance review is performed by a native speaker.

In-house Quality Assurance (QA).

The translation vendor will perform a final in-house QA review, checking that nothing is missing, and the formatting matches.

What Your Internal Reviewers Should Do

After the translations are complete and delivered to you, you have the option to do an internal review.

If you have bilingual staff, or a community panel, you may choose to have the translations checked to make sure they work for your specific audience.

How can you and your translation vendor work together?

Check with your translation vendor.

Consult with your translation vendor ahead of time. Client internal review may be included in their pricing!

Provide feedback.

Compile your reviewers’ feedback. This can be submitted either by using track-changes in MS Word, or by using the editing/comments features in a PDF version of the translation.

Client suggestions are reviewed.

The suggested changes will be reviewed by the original linguistic team.

Responses to feedback.

The changes may be implemented right away without question if the linguists find no issue with them. However, if the changes are preferential or not advisable, you will be provided with responses and justification for the linguists’ recommendations.

Final decision.

After receiving the feedback, you will make the final decision regarding what changes to implement and which ones should be ignored.

Re-delivery.

Your translation vendor will implement the changes according to your preference.

Conclusion

Ensuring quality translations is not just the job of your translation vendor. It is a team effort from the beginning. If everyone does their part, a satisfactory translation can be delivered every time.

Remember that you are an important part of the team. To ensure translation quality of your content, you must work closely with the translation vendor, your assigned linguistic team and your internal reviewers.

Now you know the key roles each member of the team plays in the quality assurance process.

Share your questions and thoughts in the comments.

There is a technical side when it comes to creating & managing content. This is nothing new to you, since you already create great content in English, right? You also know that the tools you create your content with play a big role in your overall content strategy.

You’re now ready to take your English content and translate it into another language. Or perhaps you’re looking to create multilingual content from scratch. As with any project, you need the right tools for the job to make your life easier.

If you already have access to these tools in your organization, that’s terrific! If not, you should consider getting them if you plan on taking your English content and making it available in other languages.

What I will do is provide you with a list of the best tools you can use for creating & managing multilingual content – from basic to advanced – along with tips to help you in your business process.

10 Best Tools for Creating & Managing Multilingual Content

As a busy professional, you can’t waste time. This is why you should learn about the best tools for creating multilingual content and implement them in your organization. Here are the tools:

1. Email

You need to communicate with your translation vendor and email is by far the best way to do this. You can send your English content as an attachment and specify all of the project details in the body of the email. Once translated, the content will be delivered back to you by email.

This makes email by far the most essential tool you will need for creating and managing your multilingual content, as it allows you to communicate with your project team quickly and efficiently.

Outlook is a great email tool. I use it on a daily basis.

Additionally, written communication is vital for project record keeping. If a question ever comes up about project instructions or the project needs to be revisited for updating or revisions in the future, written communication is the best and clearest way to retrace the project’s life cycle.

However, as great as it is, email is not meant for all communication. If you need to transmit files that are large in size or contain confidential information, email is not the best way to do it. Use FTP or secure email in such cases.

Pro Tip: Many email servers block ZIP file attachments. To avoid having your attachment blocked, change the ZIP file extension to something else that won’t get blocked or filtered out, like ABC. Then let the recipient know to rename the ABC extension back to ZIP in order to open the file.

2. FTP

FTP, also known as File Transfer Protocol, is a great way to transmit large files that cannot be sent by email due to size restrictions. It’s also great for secure file transfer. If you don’t have one set up on your end, don’t worry. Most translation vendors know how to use FTP and can set you up with an account on their end.

FileZilla FTP can be used to transmit files that are too large for email.

Once you finish transmitting and receiving all the files via FTP, don’t forget to delete them from the server. This will free up hard drive space for more files to be transmitted later.

Pro Tip: You can now set up cloud-based portals to transmit files securely. While they’re not true FTP sites, they pretty much accomplish the same thing by allowing you to transmit large files. ShareFile does just that for a small monthly fee.

3. Notepad

Notepad is one of my personal favorites. It’s a very simple tool that can open just about any file out there and display its contents. If you just need to view and edit plain text without any fancy formatting, Notepad is the way to go. You can basically view and edit files in their raw form without worrying about losing markup. Very basic, easy to use and comes standard with almost every operating system out there.

I also use Notepad for real-time project notes as I am working and as a copy/paste staging area. There are other practical uses you can find for Notepad since it’s doesn’t consume many computing resources and is very minimalistic in functionality. I’d be curious to hear how you use it.

Traditional Chinese characters inside an HTML file opened in Notepad++

Pro Tip: For advanced file editing, opt for Notepad++. What you get with Notepad++ is usability and readability of files that you don’t get with a standard Notepad application. There are also many options, including encoding for foreign language fonts.

4. Unicode Fonts

If you’re going create any multilingual content, stick with Unicode fonts. When you’re creating content in English, you probably won’t think twice about the technical aspect of the fonts you’re using. You’re more concerned with their appearance and how your target audience will perceive them, right?

The good news is that many common fonts are Unicode, so you are in good shape! You can find an extensive list of Unicode fonts here.

Here is why it’s important that you use Unicode fonts for multilingual content: Each font character has a unique number associated with it which conforms to an international standard for all systems. This makes it easy to distribute all sorts of content across different platforms, programs and languages. Whereas with non-Unicode fonts, you don’t have this flexibility.

Table of Various Unicode Characters

Pro Tip: A Unicode number follows this syntax: U+####, where #s are replaced with variable digits and letters associated with a specific character. Here is a cross-reference table you can use. It shows various characters and their corresponding Unicode numbers, and HTML equivalents.

5. Microsoft Office

Word, Excel and PowerPoint are the premier applications of the Microsoft Office suite and have been for decades. The chances are good that you already have them installed.

When you’re ready to create your content, just like I did with this blog article, you are most likely to do it in Word. You will then have the ability to export the text to another application if needed.

Almost all translators and language translation companies work with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. These applications are also designed with other languages in mind, so font compatibility and usage is rarely an issue.

Perhaps the most critical part of all is that the files you save in these applications can be edited.

It’s much easier to translate content when you can easily edit it. If your content can’t be edited (such as a scanned PDF file), it has to be recreated from scratch in an editable format, adding unnecessary costs to the project.

Word, Excel & PowerPoint can all be used to create and edit multilingual content.
Image Source: Office.com

Pro Tip: If you feel confident you can make edits to translated content yourself, you can do so by enabling multilingual keyboard support in Windows. Although, I’d recommend you have your translation vendor with handle this part.

6. PDF Reader/Creator

Portable Document Format (PDF) files are used everywhere in business to present documents and other content in a quick and efficient matter. What makes PDF great is that, like Unicode fonts, it’s cross-compatible across different platforms and operating systems.

There is no doubt you or someone you know “printed a document to a PDF” before. It’s very easy to do with Adobe Acrobat, perhaps the most popular PDF Reader/Creator software on the market.

PDF files are great for showcasing your multilingual documents once they’re created. Content created in Word, for example, might be difficult to share with a U.S.-based audience.

How many people do you know who have fonts for Amharic or Khmer installed on their computers?

I bet not many.

But if you save your multilingual content in PDF format, even readers who don’t have a specific font installed on their computer can usually see the text displayed correctly, as it is generally preserved in PDF format.

PDF is a good way to save costs as well. Instead of printing thousands of user manuals in different languages, you can now provide digital copies to your customers in PDF format.

Apple iPhone User Manual displayed in Adobe Acrobat. When was the last time you saw a printed copy of one?

Pro Tip: In case you do end up having trouble viewing non-English text in a PDF file, there’s a way to fix that. You can do so by embedding the fonts in a PDF file upon creating it. Just ask your translation vendor to do this for you.

7. Adobe Creative Cloud

If you’re thinking of creating great visual content and anything that requires advanced formatting, Adobe InDesign and Illustrator are a must. These two applications are now more accessible than ever before, through the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

They’re also great when it comes to supporting different languages and character sets, which is why you’re here, right?

A brochure that was translated into Japanese and typeset in Adobe InDesign

For your next brochure or user manual, I’d recommend skipping Microsoft Publisher – and I’m a fan of Microsoft. It’s simply not robust enough to handle the needs of multilingual content. Go with Adobe InDesign for publishing and layout, and Illustrator for graphics.

Pro Tip: When working on lengthy content, write it in MS Word and then import it into InDesign. Here is a tutorial on how to do that. Also, be prepared to provide the entire InDesign package to your translation vendor. The package includes all fonts and linked files.

8. Translation Memory

Unless you work in a large organization with its own localization department, you probably won’t need to have a translation memory system (TMS) in-house.

However, when you engage a translation vendor to work on your translation project, make sure they’re using a TMS.

Translated content exported from memoQ TMS in a bilingual table.

Since quality is important to you, a TMS is a must-have tool in your multilingual content creation process. It tracks and leverages previously translated material, and helps to maintain quality and consistency throughout your content. Inconsistencies in translation can lead to customer confusion, and it goes downhill from there.

Pro Tip: If you decide to implement a TMS in your organization’s localization department, give memoQ a try. This tool is easy enough to use for beginners and has capabilities for most advanced users.

9. WordPress

As of January 2015, WordPress is by far the most popular content management system in the world. And it’s one of the best ways to showcase your digital content on the web.

You already learned about Unicode fonts in this article. WordPress leverages the Unicode standard to make multilingual content creation as easy as possible.

This blog and website are both powered by WordPress.

There are plenty of other great content management systems out there, such as Joomla and Drupal. From the ease-of-use perspective and ongoing support, WordPress is the way to go.

Pro Tip: Avoid free translation plugins for WordPress. Always have a professional linguist translate your content. Here is what happens when you play it cheap.

10. Social Media

Your multilingual content won’t do you any good if your target audience is not exposed to it. Social media is a great way to spread the word about your content and engage your audience. But before you use Facebook, Twitter or any other social networks, make sure they’re right for you.

Don’t waste your time promoting multilingual content on random social networks if you are not certain people will get your message. Communicating via social media with your audience is important, but must be done right.

Pro Tip: Create dedicated social media communities for specific languages and cultures, like McDonald’s did here. Be prepared to communicate with your customers in their languages.

Conclusion

You’ve now learned about the tools you need to create and manage multilingual content, and some practical use cases associated with them. Depending on the size of your business and the type of content you create, it may not be critical you have access to all of them, but I highly recommend you use at least some.

For project communication, you have email and FTP. For multilingual content creation, you have Notepad, Unicode Fonts, Microsoft Office, PDF Reader/Creator and Adobe Creative Cloud. If you can live without one tool, it’s the TMS, since your translation vendor should be using one on their end. You are now ready to use WordPress and Social Media to publish your multilingual content and share it with your multicultural audience.

Now that you know which 10 tools to use for creating multilingual content, you can apply them in practice within your organization.

What are your experiences with these tools? Do you have more to add to the list?

Share your thoughts in the comments.