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it's been close to 10 years since I did a "first time" translation,
i.e., the localization vendor has no translation memory established
for the client company's reused content, so I can't help you there.
But I recently (last year) ran some localization for a client company
that had an established relationship with an existing vendor, and the
cost was 20 cents a word plus some hourly labor for DTP and review for
each language. A document of roughly 1000 words with text-free
illustrations was translated into 10 different languages at a cost of
about $3000.
Localization cost is primarily based on the number of words. The
number of topics is not relevant unless you're also expecting the
localization vendor to configure mapping. Ideally, your source
material will be in XML so that translated text can be swapped into
existing structure. And try to revise the source content to get the
embedded text out of your graphics before you send it in, because
localized graphics work is billed by the hour and one picture can
easily be worth 1000 words.
Gene Kim-Eng
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 11:59 AM, McLauchlan, Kevin
<Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> QUESTION: What might be a ball-park guesstimate of the cost to have (say) a 1000-topic WebHelp system translated to one other language, from English?
> Assume a European language or Japanese. Only a few illustrations have text embedded.
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