Technical side of localization - any pointers? Thread poster: Keren Applebaum
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Hi all,
I'm wondering if anyone can give me some pointers on this. A direct client has just asked me to localize their site, which seems to be pretty large (lots of pages, sections, etc). Until now all my localization projects came to me through agencies and I received them in Excel or Word files where all I had to do was translate them. Now I am wondering how exactly to go about this.
1. First, the pricing (word count). Can anyone advise me of a good way to get the wo... See more Hi all,
I'm wondering if anyone can give me some pointers on this. A direct client has just asked me to localize their site, which seems to be pretty large (lots of pages, sections, etc). Until now all my localization projects came to me through agencies and I received them in Excel or Word files where all I had to do was translate them. Now I am wondering how exactly to go about this.
1. First, the pricing (word count). Can anyone advise me of a good way to get the word count of the website? I looked through a bunch of different online services, but so far didn't find one that seemed useful in my case. I found one great web service that does a word count by just entering the URL there (http://www.webwordcount.com/), but unfortunately it did not seem to do so for Russian language sites, which is what I need. Also I know pricing varies for different languages and people, but what is reasonable? Should I charge per word? If the site is large enough, should I offer a discount?
2. The actual translation. Should I be doing it through some software / tool, or is it OK to just copy and paste each page into Word and translate it that way (including the link of each page on top, for example)? If I go with Word, I already seem to be facing the problem that some pages are too large to fit into Word and that I might miss some sections/pages. So far the only CAT tool I've used is MemSource, the free version. I don't want to invest in any expensive CAT tool now, but if there are any free or inexpensive ones that may be used for this, that might be a solution.
3. Assuming I've figured out the word count, pricing and translation method issues , is it acceptable for me to return the translation to the client as is (and in what form - Word? Excel? other?) and expect them to figure out how to replace all the Russian text with English on the site themselves / with the help of their technical team? Or is the translator localizing a site normally expected to do that as well? (Maybe this is a ridiculous question, I don't know, it's just that in the past I worked for a company that wanted me, besides creating content for sites, to actually execute it technically from the back-end of the site... but then I was working in-house and had the assistance of programmers who answered all my questions...)
I would really appreciate any input on any or all of the above 3 questions!
Keren Applebaum ▲ Collapse
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Hi Keren,
1) The easiest way is to ask your client to send you the sources files.
2) Use your Web browser, for instance Firefox, go to your client's Homepage, click on the down arrow, select Save Page As, this will save the htm file and folder with pics, .css, .js files to your computer but needs to be repeated for x number of pages
3) Use a CAT tool (Omega T is free) to import the htm files you'll thus get the word count
4) There's one drawbac... See more Hi Keren,
1) The easiest way is to ask your client to send you the sources files.
2) Use your Web browser, for instance Firefox, go to your client's Homepage, click on the down arrow, select Save Page As, this will save the htm file and folder with pics, .css, .js files to your computer but needs to be repeated for x number of pages
3) Use a CAT tool (Omega T is free) to import the htm files you'll thus get the word count
4) There's one drawback to 2-3 if the web site contains animations and/or text that is only visible under given conditions, the animation needs to be fixed once you've translated the files. With some browsers (MS IE) you'll get the animation but not the text, with others you'll get the text but not the animation.
5) You should also download a 30-day trial version of any CAT tool that suits your needs.
HTH,
Bernard
[Edited at 2013-05-02 17:14 GMT]
[Edited at 2013-05-02 17:30 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Sounds good - will try all of those! | May 2, 2013 |
Thank you Bernard, that sounds like great advice. I will try it out and keep this forum posted on the results.
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