Our customer is a global life sciences company specializing in next-generation gene sequencing technologies and producing sequencing lab equipment. User manuals and technical documentation were initially created in English and needed to be translated into seven languages. The original and translated content were both handled as PDF files. At first, this seemed the obvious solution, as everyone knows PDFs, right?
PDFs for managing multilingual content?
It is always about the costs. And if you stick to using PDF source files to feed your CAT tool, you’re guaranteed to incur additional expenses. You will need to put up with some of the most costly and time-consuming tasks when preparing PDF source files, and then do that again when you post-process translations to recreate your high-quality PDFs in each of the target languages.
Pre-production optimization of texts extracted from PDFs and post-production adjustments of the PDF deliverables demand very significant resources.
The customer soon realized that they needed to streamline the process, as it was not efficient, and they had to cut costs. So they asked espell to find a better solution.
Solution discovery with espell
Our tech staff knows well that for a sound process, we need to know exactly what happens at the source, i.e. on the customer side. Our thinking was: First, we must find out why the client uses PDFs. Let’s take a look at the content repository they use to create and maintain their manuals! If we can identify another format in which the content can be extracted that is more suitable for translation, then we can be on track.
We found out that the content source was Confluence. So the challenge was to export translatable content, and then deliver translations back in a format that could be easily re-imported into Confluence. All this to be achieved with minimal effort from the customer!
Initially, we experimented with standard XML or HTML formats without success. Then our pathfinding led us to discovering the Scroll Translations Confluence plugin, which exports content for translation in XLIFF, an XML-based industry-standard localization interchange file format supported by nearly all CAT tools.
Thinking end to end
After thorough testing and tweaking involving both sides, we finally established a workflow that allowed a seamless upload of translations back into Confluence. From there, the customer could effortlessly publish the translations in the desired PDF format, while also extending version control to the translated content. Furthermore, identifying and extracting only new and changed text for partial updates became straightforward with the combination of XLIFF and a CAT tool.
The customer was impressed with the new process, which integrated smoothly into their Confluence environment and eliminated the costs associated with fixing the layout via DTP. This innovative approach not only proved espell’s expertise in multilingual content management but also highlighted our competitive edge in delivering efficient and cost-effective solutions.
