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I'm helping a friend of mine out with this right now (he runs a translation
shop in my area). You can convert your Frame manuals to RTF for the purpose
of translation and then convert them back for final proofing/conversion.
WWP should allow you to handle the translated material with ease. However
you should be careful what medium you convert to, as some (WWHelp for
example) of these formats contain navigational elements that need to be
translated as well.
As for "spot translation", wrap some conditions into your templates. You can
then copy the items that need translation into a new file, convert it to RTF
and ship it to the translators (perhaps with a bit of context). When you get
the translation back, port it to Frame and then cut and paste the
translation as needed.
<snip>
Task at hand:
I have 4 manuals to write for a new product - an installation guide, a
user's manual, and two system administrator manuals.
Issue:
All of these manuals must be translated into other languages. I am trying to
come up with a way of writing/organizing the manuals such that when
something changes or is updated, only that paragraph/section needs to be
re-translated, not the entire manual or chapter (for translation cost
reasons). Right now the plan is to have these manuals in HTML format. The
easiest solution to me would be to write them in FrameMaker, and convert
them to nice, clean, pretty HTML using WebWorks Publisher. However, the
catch is that the translators use Word, not FrameMaker. HTML converted from
Word is ugly. Another catch is that Word hard-codes its links, so if/when I
need to update cross-references, links will break.
Question:
Anyone have any ideas as to a tool or method for constructing these manuals
so that only a paragraph at a time will have to be re-translated?
<snip>
Bill Swallow
Technical Writer
Aptis Inc.
a subsidiary of Billing Concepts
phone: 518.433.7698
fax: 518.433.7680
<mailto:william -dot- swallow -at- aptissoftware -dot- com>
<http://www.aptissoftware.com>
"The places I hiked to! - The roads that I rambled
To find the best eggs - that have ever been scrambled!
If you want to get eggs - you can't buy at a store,
You have to do things - never thought of before."
from: "Scrambled Eggs Super!" by Dr. Seuss
