This post is part of the Five Phases of the Translation Workflow series.
The translation workflow consists of five distinct phases:
This post discusses sending files to translation.
The process of sending content to your translation company has its own series of steps. I know what you’re thinking: “How hard can it be? I take the files and get them to the Language Services Provider (LSP).” It’s the words “get them” that you need to determine.
Here are some things to think about:
- At what point in the process does content go to translation?
- Where are the files physically located before they are sent to the LSP?
- Does the location of the source files change after they are sent to the LSP?
- How are the files delivered to the LSP?
- What types of files are delivered to LSP?
- Does the LSP provide a receipt when they get the files?
- Does any additional information go to the LSP with the files?
- What information?
- When does it go to the LSP?
- How does it travel with the files?
- Who in your organization supplies the additional information?
The answers to many of these questions will be very different depending on whether or not you are using a Content Management System (CMS). Using a CMS can streamline a great deal of the workflow to transmit source content, and receive, store and version the translations. If you do a lot of translation and you are not using a CMS, consider this one of the many reasons you should purchase a CMS soon.
In the next post, we cover the workflow during the translation process.
- This post is part of the “Five Phases of Translation Workflow” series. You can download the free ebook all about the translation workflow here or check out the links to the entire series of blog posts below.
For more information about global content strategy, see my book Global Content Strategy: A Primer, available in a bundle of eBook formats (PDF, Kindle, ePub) from XML Press and in print or Kindle from Amazon.
Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
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