To answer, DTP is still useful, it’s even necessary for the translation and localization purposes. And yes, you really do need it. But, is it worth your money to have a DTP provider do it for you, especially now, in the age of fast-growing pool of tools at your disposal? Let’s see.
You receive, for instance, a technical documentation translation. You have your project set up, your resources assigned and thee begins your race with time. Not only you handle your translators, your translation quality checks, but you also juggle between your resources and those of your client’s to make sure all the files they send your way are in the right format, that they provide you with the DTP specific requirements and so on.
When everything is set up, you have the DTP matters to think about as well. Desktop publishing is not a one-click on a tool thing. There is a whole pool of aspects to consider that will significantly impact the quality of translation that you will send to your customer.
It’s All About Your Business Needs
When you deliver translated technical documentation or a video content localized to multiple languages, you can rest assured, that your clients will sing praises and come back to you. And this is not in a perfect world. That’s just business. They want to sell their services or products globally and your translation or localization services equip them to do so. Have they translated their website on their own? Have they localized their multimedia content? No, they trusted you. They decided to invest a
certain amount of money, which is not, let’s be honest’ that small, because they knew that in the end, their investment will pay off double, or more. Isn’t that right?
Why not invest in proper, professional and experienced team of DTP professionals, trusting them with your project so that you can also benefit and use the time and resources you saved to book more projects for your company? All you need is to take a closer look at whether you really want to take care of all the DTP aspects instead of making sure your translation and localization tasks are delivered on time.
You Need the Time to Adjust the Text Length
As you most certainly know, the text length vary depending on the language. Let’s take English and German, the stars of the memes nowadays:
speed limit
erlaubte Höchstgeschwindigkeit
Playing with the text to adjust its length and finding that the changes suddenly cause the whole content structure break, may be frustrating. Emotions aside, though, this also may cost you time and money. Because you know, deadlines do not shrink or extend like the content’s text.
Fonts – The Small Masters of Potential Disasters
When talking about the text expanding or shrinking to make the layout consistent regardless of the language, you should never underestimate the relevance of fonts. This may seem as a small, meaningless aspect at first. But it’s not. It isn’t just about branding and making sure all the company materials follow the same pattern of colors and fonts. It’s also about the very foundation of what localization is. Making sure that the content you translate and deliver meets all the linguistic and geographical, as well as cultural requirements of the target language is your responsibility as the localization provider.
Pro tip: usually the source fonts do not support CE, CYR, Greek or Asian languages.
Assuming you have a DTP professional in your team and they can handle multiple documents and projects at the same time, it’s not worth your money to hire a desktop publishing company to handle it for you. In case, however, that your team does not have such professional, consider turning to a DTP provider. They will know exactly how to handle your translated content when it comes to fonts. Save your energy and time as well as your teams’ on the proper translation tasks.
After all, what matters is that your customers want it all, want it on time and they want it consistent.
Your Client Judges You by the Layout’s Quality
Your translation and localization team is responsible for delivering fully localized content to the customer, right? Whether it is a document translation, a website translation, or video content localization, what they will assess is not only connected to language per se. It is also, if not mostly, connected to the visual side of the translation, the layout.
Is the translated content’s layout consistent with your customer’s branding requirements? Does it fit in well on their website, without any glitches? Is the text perfectly adjusted to the target language? Are the subtitles well adapted to their video content? Or, does the voice-over added to their e-learning materials sound professional enough and enhance the overall experience for the soon-to-be their website users?
These are some of the questions that your team will have to answer before you deliver the translation to your customers. Assuming you want them to come back with new projects, of course.
Do you have the people, the tools and the time to ensure these questions have the one right answer? If not, why not turning to a DTP professional provider that has all that, the tools, the time and the resources to share with you?
It’s All About the Deadlines
Your translation projects, whether multimedia localization or technical translation, they all have one thing in common: deadlines. And as you know, delays happen. In the perfect world there would be no delays, the projects would run themselves smoothly and you would only hit deliver when the time comes. Since it is not a perfect world, why not come as close to perfection as possible?
When it comes to deadlines, the factor that contributes to delays is usually the human factor. When you manage a team of multiple professionals, who deal with different tasks each day and various responsibilities, delays are bound to happen. This is why you need at your side a team of absolute pros when it comes to DTP to make sure, that when your translators deliver the translated texts later than expected, the DTP team pushes it to the limits and still delivers layout or video content fully adjusted to the target language’s requirements.
Your deadlines matter, but what matters most is that your clients expect you to deliver on time so that they can grow their businesses globally without any harm to their branding. Find your partners that will help you deliver on that.
It’s All About the Tools
How much do you spend on your translation and localization tools? Apart from that, how much do you spend on other tools and software that is necessary for your business to thrive?
According to different sources, there are at least 21 desktop publishing tools. Some of them are free, some are paid. And the number is, of course, growing to match the changes in modern technology. When you receive a translation project, do you want to invest in yet another tool with the risk of never having to use it again?
A desktop publishing provider, as the name indicates, is focused on having it all at their clients’ disposal. Why invest in something they already have? Make a wise business decision to not spend money you don’t need to spend. Instead of spending $1000 for a tool you will hardly ever use, why not invest significantly less and have someone else deliver to you the ready-to-release content?
It’s All About Your Customer
Your customers’ business needs are the focus of your projects. Their primary need is to grow globally, hit the markets with their products or services without any competition. And you hold the keys to their success. Literally. You hold their content and it depends on you and your team, what this content will do, help them grow or finish them.
A professionally translated and localized website, with a consistent content on every landing page and perfectly adjusted and accessible video content is a powerful tool for every business all over the world.
Technical documentation, that is adjusted to a target language and locale, is a label for a company that releases it. People judge books by their covers as much as they judge companies by their content, not just products. That’s why commercials and adverts still exist.
What Do You Get from a DTP Provider?
- You will build your reputation as they ensure the layout is consistent throughout the whole content and your customers grow their business. They grow, you grow, it’s simple as that.
- You will save your time, energy and money to use them on what you do best, as they spend the time on fonts, visuals and so on.
- You will save your resources frustration letting them do what they were hired to do, as the DTP pros will adjust the text length to fit the language.
- You will be praised as the multimedia localization go-to company as your desktop publishing provider will adapt the voice-over to video and match subtitles to the actual voices in the video materials.
- You will save money not having to spend it on unnecessary tools, as they will have the tools you don’t need to have,
- You will meet your deadlines without the stress and frustration as they will make sure you get the content ready even though your translators were late.
And there’s a tip for you on top of all that:
Choose your DTP provider basing on three criteria:
1. Responsiveness.
There probably are times, when your projects are delayed because of the translators slip-ups or any other reasons. Make sure you collaborate with a desktop publishing company that will respond immediately and without hesitation. This is the kind of partners you need on your side.
2. Availability.
When you work with freelancers or inexperienced DTP providers, there is a risk, that they will be overloaded with projects and unable to handle your request as quickly as you need. Choose a DTP company that has inhouse team and experienced professionals, who will be able to take on your projects, even the “last minute” ones.
3. Tools.
When you talk to DTP providers, make sure they do not tell you “we don’t work in this tool”. The ones you need are the ones who will say “yes, this can be done”. You don’t need the stress of “maybe it will be done”. You need the comfort of “definitely yes, it will be done on time”.
Check who is out there, check what they offer and decide. After all, you already know what you need.
