LocaTran Translations helps our clients increase revenues by making their software products linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target markets. Our localization engineers use advanced tools and methodology to localize the Graphic User Interface (GUI), documentation and online help files for use in the target country.

We work closely with your developers to determine the most efficient way to manage the software localization project. We know that your developers are busy with the core development work and that localization is a time-consuming effort best left to software localization experts (us). That's why we gear our turnkey service to minimize their involvement and time investment in the localization process.

We have provided software localization services in the following languages: English, Chinese (both Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Hindi, Khmer, Lao, Burmese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Estonian, Czech, Turkish, Bulgarian, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu, Polish, Hungarian, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Greek. All translations are done by native language professionals that have experience in localizing software for use in the target country and have working knowledge of current terminology standards. Stringent QA and testing ensures translation quality and cultural consistency.

Services include:

Internationalization/Double-byte enabling.

Localization of all source code resource files.

User-interface localization (look and feel, layout, colors, etc.).

Online help localization including screen-shot generation.

Testing and ensuring accuracy of online help links.

Testing the final localized product.

Software Interface

The software resource files are usually the first to be localized. When provided, glossaries from previous versions of the software are used and updated with new terms. Otherwise, new project glossaries are generated from the resource files with the aid of term extraction software.

The glossary maintenance process sometimes continues even after the resources localization. When this is the case, all changes are tracked and applied to the other components of the project - typically the help and documentation files.

Then, the software is re-built with all its localized resources and elements, using the same build environment and tools as the source language version. The localized software is thoroughly tested, dialog boxes and other interface elements are resized as needed, and any key assignment conflicts are corrected.

Online Help System

The source help files are prepared for translation by means of a translation memory software tool. Besides allowing the use of approved translations from previous versions or related projects, this valuable tool also ensures consistency of style and terminology throughout the translation process.

In order to eliminate the risk of corrupting the original formatting and styles of the help RTF files, the translators and reviewers do not work on the original RTF files. During the preparation stage, alternate files are generated, including all the contents and a look that resembles the original document formatting, but with delimited fields for source and target strings, and comments.

Besides preventing inadvertent changes to the document formatting, this process also frees the linguistic team from undue learning curves and the hassle of working in an unfamiliar environment.

Separate files are created for the topic titles and keywords, avoiding the risky and tough task of editing them as footnotes and allowing the use of the same translation memory tool mentioned above.

When the translation of the RTF files is done, the translated text strings are transferred back to the original files, localized graphics and artwork (if any) are inserted and the help system is recompiled. Thorough tests are performed in order to ensure the help functionality is preserved (although the jumps and links are inherently left intact during the translation/editing phase).

Documentation

The translations of the software documentation follow roughly the same procedures as the help files. The doc files are prepared for translation by the translation memory tool and, to avoid accidental changes to the document formatting (styles, templates, layout, etc.), the linguistic team do not work on the original files, but on alternate files generated by the software tool.

When the translation is completed, the translated text strings are transferred to the original files, thereby retaining all the source formatting. Where applicable, formatting changes are applied. Localized pictures and artwork (if any) are then inserted and the documentation goes into the final DTP stage. Finally, a thorough editing/proofreading of the final documentation is performed in order to ensure everything is correct.