By Diego Leotta*

In recent years, we translators have had to adapt ourselves to the market and learn to work with increasingly complex formats that require a deal of work in layout or DTP.

The number of programs we have had to learn to use has not stopped growing. Until a few years ago, we received almost all our texts in formats such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Today, however, we receive them in a great variety of formats: Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Flash, Quark, etc.

It is therefore no surprise that, over time, translation and DTP have become two sides of the same coin to such a point that a team of translators, such as ours, needs to possess internal DPT skills.

With regard to the different tasks involved in translations with these programs, five general categories can be distinguished:

-        The preparation of documents for translation.

-        The correction of formats (indices, styles, automatic fields, hyperlinks, tables, bullet points, repairing animations, etc.).

-        General editing and preparation of images: text extraction and insertion.

-        Optical and design adjustments, final format checks.

-        Integrating translations into online interfaces.

For most translators, DTP work can be rather dull and tedious.  It does, however, play a part in the overall quality of a translation, be it good or bad; as such it must be done precisely and rigorously.

*Diego takes care of Intexto’s technological back office. As well as carrying out the DTP work mentioned above, he is also in charge of managing the different CAT tools: reference text alignments, memory configuration, memory maintenance, etc.