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Thomson Legal and Regulatory Equipment Manuals
THE CHALLENGE
A patent licensing unit of Thomson Legal and Regulatory regularly sends Chinese, Japanese or Korean electronic equipment manuals for translation. Typically a project contains multiple manufacturers with several related models for each product. Only hardcopy is available, there is some duplication among each manufacturer's group of manuals and only selected portions of some manuals are to be translated. Since the purpose of the translation is legal rather than marketing, Thomson doesn't need exact replications of the manuals which would add to cost and turn time.
One of McElroy's solutions for clients who need to "know what it says" but are not going to publish the translation is to scan graphics within a document, and insert numbered keys on the graphics followed by the translated text key. In this case, with up to 60 or 70 items of text per page, a keyed translation would be a less than ideal solution. So, what custom format would provide Thomson with the best value of readability, short turn time and reasonable cost?
THE SOLUTION
The project timeline is similar to a construction timeline where several processes are occurring simultaneously at each stage. This allows for a smooth and constant flow between all project members. For example, in the most recent project, the following staff participated: Thomson's account manager, a project manager, two translation coordinators, five translators, two editors, four publishers and word processors, three proofers and two quality control staff.
At the height of these projects there are files in every stage of production, from translation to final quality control. Following are a few highlights of the process:
• Project instructions are developed for all team members to insure consistent terminology and layout.
• Hardcopy is scanned to PDF and the PDFs are electronically keyed in preparation for translation.
• Files are reviewed for duplication and relevant translation memory is provided to translators.
• Production begins creating layout of templates that will be the deliverables for translated content.
• Graphics are lifted from the PDFs, electronically cleaned of source text and inserted into template files.
• Translated content is placed into the template files prior to editing to allow review in context.
THE BENEFITS
Project coordination and overlapping stages of the timeline process reduce turn time by half. Efficient file analysis, noting all possible duplication, reduces Thomson's translation costs significantly. A customized format saves Thomson considerable desktop publishing expense while providing them electronic files that recreate text-containing graphics.
We worked with Thomson to establish parameters for these projects—a cost, format and turn time balance that ensures these deliverables meet their expectations. In this example, the smooth workflow process allowed us to turn 360 pages in 19 electronics manuals by 6 manufacturers in 8 days. Did we mention the very reasonable cost?
