Technical Translation: A Practical Guide for Manufacturers

Successful translation of technical manuals of industrial products and services

Technical translation of records

Let us continue our informative reading of the Council of Europe Resolution on translations.

We have highlighted in our previous article how good best practice in the design of technical user manuals advocates structured authoring systems.

What about content management to translate?

Do multilingual technical notices again?

Textbook language

Consumers have easy access to the user manuals established at least in their own official language of the Community, in a readable and easy to understand way for them. For the sake of clarity and ease of use, the different language versions are presented separately from each other.

Multilingual Translation: Technical translation must be clear, personalized, easy to read

Too often we still see multilingual manuals, sometimes with up to twenty languages in one medium! Two arguments are put forward to justify this:

• "practical" reasons. A single medium, a single diagram then legended in all languages;

• logistical reasons. At the time of packaging, we do not know the nationality of the reader...).

However, it is desirable that these practices cease! Two main reasons:

• good environmental practice, to limit the unnecessary wasteful paper that goes directly to the trash to unpack...

• a better user experience (UX). Even in this area, marketing recommendations should not be overlooked. Be simpler, faster, more direct, more practical: so many key elements of user comfort that contributes to product differentiation and a certain competitive advantage, regardless of the type of product...

Smartphone manufacturers, for example, have a clear understanding of the complementarity of multiple media. They have reduced their printed documentation to its simplest expression and send the user back to documentation available online, directly in the right language and sometimes multimedia.

Focus on simple technical writing

Reporting

The communication of information shall preferably meet the following requirements:

• ensure sufficient clarity and accuracy,

• correct spelling and grammar,

• use understandable terms,

• use, wherever possible, verbs in the active form instead of verbs in the passive form,

• avoid the use of unnecessary specialised terms,

• use common expressions,

• be consistent in the use of terms (i.e. the same term should always be used to designate the same object or action),

• use fonts that avoid confusion between lowercase, uppercase and digits,

• explain the abbreviations and accompany them with plain text,

• ensure that, when illustrations are used, they correspond exactly to what consumers see, concern only the necessary information and represent only one new element of information by illustration,

• ensure that, when symbols are used, they correspond to common use pictograms, are easily recognizable and always have the same meaning,

• When using a combination of text and illustrations, choose one of the two to always represent the main information medium,

• do not stick to images without text, as this does not guarantee clarity, since images alone are not always sufficiently explicit.

Most of these recommendations do not include comments. Good sense... But we should not neglect it. While this clarity is often too little sought for or respected!

Simultaneous management of images and text: an XML tool like Calenco to rescue!

The last point, however, would have deserved further consideration:do not stick to images without text. It is always problematic to manage images with text or associated text, when they need to be translated.

Based on XML, a current tool like Calenco Fortunately, it separates the processing of the content from its layout, such as images and their legend.

Key Advantage: the management of multilingual content, which comes to explain or caption the visuals, is done not only in a way fasterbut also more reliableHey!

Conclusion: Structured authoring at the service of technical writers... Like users!

This Council Resolution [of Europe] is therefore an excellent way of using the user manuals! A summary of the technical writer's best practices.

While in 1998 its implementation might seem tricky, a structured authoring tool such as Calenco now allows all editors to easily implement all of these recommendations.

For over 12 years,Neodoc Through its software platform dedicated to the structured technical writing of tailor-made solutions to facilitate, optimize and secure the writing and translation of technical notices. The solutions are based on the fundamentals of technical writing and structured authoring by putting the user at the heart of the writing. Because facilitating access to the right information for users is also about valuing the product and sustaining the customer relationship.

Discover the features of Calenco. Software for multi-channel writing, translation and dissemination of corporate policy documents

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