Most companies ensure that the corporate design is complied with when issuing their publications. In addition to employee journals and marketing texts, it is now therefore frequently the case that company and product presentations, and in some cases also operating and maintenance instructions, are produced with the aid of modern desktop publishing (DTP) programs, as these offer significantly more freedom to designers.
You probably know already what desktop publishing is, but not how to define the term. With desktop publishing, or DTP for short, reproducible print templates are created on computers with the aid of special software. This includes the creation of a basic layout, as well as the preparation of texts and the selection of typography with its various fonts, font sizes, record types, bolding, spacing between lines and between letters, indexing and page numbering, and the integration of photos, graphics and tables into the layout template, together with text. At the centre of it all are a computer, the software for the visual creation of a layout, and the output of a digital print template. Printed products have been produced almost exclusively using DTP since 1992. DTP systems have the advantage of offering the complete software support package: DTP systems work with their own image capture, prepare the colour separation on the basis of predefined colour models, and contain tools for typography, image editing and layout creation.
It is not uncommon for creative agencies and marketing departments to use the program Adobe InDesign, the market leader in the field of desktop publishing, for the creation of high-quality graphic documents.
At Kocarek GmbH, we have the capability to open files from all InDesign versions, so that we can even process older files for our customers.
In order to prepare an InDesign file for translation, the following steps are required:
1. Visual quality control
This is performed by our experts examining the file. Paragraph marks, soft returns and tabs are removed from the layout, in order to ensure an optimal translation. We also check at this stage already whether all the fonts used in the document are linked correctly.
2. Preflight check
We check amongst other things that there is no overset text in the documents. Overset text is text that no longer fits into the text frame, and which is therefore not visible in the document.
We optionally offer our customers galley proof correction. Here a reference document is compared with the target document. Galley proof correction guarantees that a target text, which is ready for publication, has exactly the same layout as the source text and thus can be released for printing. Our customers thus receive a file exactly the way they want it, which can be passed on for further use immediately.
Many languages differ in their text length. This means that the text is longer in German than in English, which in turn is longer than in Chinese. Accordingly, this alters the appearance of the file. In order to nevertheless ensure that this dichotomy is harmoniously resolved, each document is individually checked, corrected, and if necessary edited by our trained employees.
This process can be transferred to other desktop publishing programs. We at Kocarek GmbH can process all conventional formats, including InDesign, Framemaker, Quicksilver and QuarkXPress, and upon request can supply print-ready documents or open files to your agency. We will be happy to then produce a galley proof correction using the PDF file provided by your agency. This means that the foreign-language print-setting is checked again before being released for printing.
At the same time, companies also use other formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, XML, etc. The uniform corporate language and terminology must therefore also be maintained across all formats. As a result of our professional editing, specified terminology and texts from the Translation Memory System are also incorporated into the translations in the case of DTP documents. For these purposes, we work with specially developed filters for the corresponding DTP programs. Your documents therefore all “speak” the same language, irrespective of the original format.
In addition, we offer our customers the option of online proofing. Here the customer is given access to the translations in the customer layout. With Kocarek Online Proofing, the customer can make the file available to their employees in various branch offices around the world for internal proofreading. This works completely without desktop publishing skills, and the employees require nothing more than a web browser. They can see the respective language version in the InDesign layout, and can edit the texts.
How can we help you? Contact us – we will be happy to advise you!
Desktop publishing (abbreviation DTP) is the computer-based print-setting of documents, which consist of texts and images and will subsequently be used as publications, e.g. brochures, magazines, books or catalogues.
Foreign-language print-setting is the term used for desktop publishing with texts in foreign languages and their special characters.
Galley proof correction guarantees a target text that is ready for publication, which has exactly the same layout as the source text, and can thus be released for printing. This is performed several times if required.
We will give you a free quotation, with no obligation on your part. Simply send us the text, or a description of the service required.
Are your files too large to send by email? Then you will get access to the secure in-house Kocarek Cloud.
We are certified under the international standard for translation services ISO 17100.
We are certified under the international quality management standard ISO 9001.