| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Translating a scanned pdf document Thread poster: Sara Ferreira
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Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 17:07
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| First recreate the source document in MS Word, then translate it | May 24, 2014 |
Sara Ferreira wrote:
I'm supposed to translate the text parts, but keeping the page exactly as it is, with the other elements. Is this possible?
You can't keep the page "exactly" as it is, but you can create a version of it that looks very similar.
Your first task is to recreate the source document in MS Word format, and to type all of the source text into the MS Word document as well. Then you must carefully proofread the MS Word file to make sure that it contains everything that is present in the original file. Then you translate the MS Word file. If you use a CAT program, you can give the unformatted translation to a proofreader to check. Your or the agency should also get a proofreader to compare your translated version against the original PDF version. As you can see, this sort of thing would require a lot of work and time, so your rate should reflect that. If you're concerned that clients will shy away from your higher rate, simply quote for each task individually so that the client can see what this task involves.
There is software that can help you with part of the recreation task, but ultimately you will have to be an expert in MS Word formatting yourself, so that you can receate the original file.
What I often do is to type all of the text into a text editor, then take a screenshot of the PDF file, and then in MS Word use that screenshot as a "background" image (watermark), so that I can see what text must go where and roughly what font size to use to fit everything on the page. When I'm done, I remove the background image again.
| | | | | Why doing difficult, that is.... | May 27, 2014 |
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if you got SDL?
I also prefer clean editable files, but the other day I received a PDF and translated it with my Studio 2011. Worked fine, only the delivery was a bit of a hassle, but that was because of my inexperience delivering files in this format.
Before everybody starts shouting, I do understand that more CAT-tools are being used, I just give a possible solution.
[Edited at 2014-05... See more ...
if you got SDL?
I also prefer clean editable files, but the other day I received a PDF and translated it with my Studio 2011. Worked fine, only the delivery was a bit of a hassle, but that was because of my inexperience delivering files in this format.
Before everybody starts shouting, I do understand that more CAT-tools are being used, I just give a possible solution.
[Edited at 2014-05-27 21:37 GMT]
PS) By the way, converted PDF files, for example in Word, are impossible to work with, the result (layout) is terrible, takes more time to edit them than to translate.
[Edited at 2014-05-27 21:41 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-05-27 21:42 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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