If you’ve ever ordered document tourism translation services, there’s a strong possibility you were quoted an additional fee for Desktop Publishing (DTP) services. But, what exactly is Desktop Publishing, and why is it so crucial for tourism translations?
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What is Desktop Publishing?
Desktop Publishing, or DTP, is the process of creating documents utilizing page layout skills. In a translation context, Desktop Publishing is the formatting of the translated text to match the source material following the translation, editing, and proofreading stages.
A file with truncations, layout problems, or even minor typos can drastically harm your brand’s image, regardless of how outstanding the translation quality is. This is especially true for high-visibility information like marketing brochures, packaging, user guides, and blogs.
DTP is now possible with various source files, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW files, Adobe Photoshop, and others.
What exactly does Desktop Publishing involve?
The DTP process can consist of the following steps, depending on the file format:
- Check the layout of the localized document to make sure it matches the styles, format, layout rules, typography, and other elements of the original language content.
- Look for untranslated text on images or in the main text.
- Check the document to ensure that the hyperlinks are working correctly.
- Ensure there are no cut-off translations or overlapping/hidden text behind photos.
- Change the layout to allow for text expansion and reduction.
- Check bullets, numbers, boxes, illustrations, and other formatting
- Localize graphics in the appropriate program, including translation and editing (e.g. Photoshop, etc.).
- The Table of Contents is being regenerated.
What is Linguistic Sign-Off (LSO)?
Another step frequently follows the DTP stage, depending on the document. This is the Linguistic Sign-Off (LSO), and it is at this point we ensure that the final localized and formatted file is double-checked for language and layout accuracy. After that, the file you’ve prepared is ready to print or utilize.
DTP by linguists vs. designers
You might be wondering why you should hire a skilled translation company to do your Desktop Publishing. My organization has an in-house design team, so why can’t they do it?
The solution is straightforward. Desktop Publishing specialists that work for translation organizations are used to dealing with multilingual material. They’ve learned how to work with a variety of platforms and file formats in various languages and fonts. They can efficiently handle European languages, Asian languages with double bytes, and right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew.
Although your designers may be hesitant to assign design work to a translation business, they must remember that not all designers are trained to work in other languages. Being unfamiliar with a language’s norms and customs might lead to enormous confusion and misunderstandings. Instead of saving time and money, your organization may incur additional costs due to this.
Furthermore, as previously said, after the Desktop Publishing process, the translation service provider will send the file to a translator for a last linguistic review, known as the LSO, to ensure that the finished file looks and feels as though it was written specifically for the aimed language market.
Choose GTE Localize
Because Desktop Publishing and tourism translation go hand in hand, it plays an essential part in the industry. This is also why it is usual for translation companies to provide Desktop Publishing services as well. Having both processed by a single supplier ensures that translation projects are more uniform, compliant, and high-quality in both textual and graphical aspects.
Working with GTE Localize, you will be served by a team of experts and experienced linguists who have worked in the Desktop Publishing field for many years. With long-term experience in localization for business, GTE Localize provides you with a high-quality Desktop Publishing service for a wide range of languages.
As a professional translation company, GTE Localize provides multilingual Desktop Publishing services to ensure that each client’s translated files are perfectly matched with the target language’s visual layout and design requirements.
Every detail must be replicated when given in the target language, including formatting, punctuation, hyphenation, captions, pictures, and graphic design components. Our desktop Publishing services reflect local cultural norms effectively, give accurate text-to-white-space ratios, and ensure that order forms, feedback forms, customer contact forms, and hyperlinks work correctly in the tourism industry.
Do you want to learn more about DTP (Desktop Publishing) in the tourism industry? We’d be delighted to go through every detail of this topic with you! Please do not hesitate to contact us here if you have any questions.
