word or rtf

[obair]

I should have added:
We have to go from frame to word because frame does not support our 
target language.

We can go from frame to rtf or frame to word using mif2go. We had 
planned to use mif2go to create a word file that matched the frame 
file's appearance. That will hopefully remove the need for a lot of 
DTP.

Paul

On 1 Meith 2006, at 10:50 am, Johnson, Tom wrote:

> Hi Paul,
>
> In my experience, roughly a dozen medium size projects, most 
> translation houses/agencies are happy enough to work with Frame. We 
> did one project where we had to port things over to Word or RTF. In 
> that case we bypassed the agency because we had direct access to 
> translators and a bilingual SME. That turned out to be a royal pain in 
> the butt and we found out quickly where agencies add value. Yes, we 
> saved money, but I'm not sure it turned out any better. Where agencies 
> add value is in the process of coordinating everything between the 
> translators and the production people who actually dump the stuff back 
> into Frame. More recently, houses are using more sophisticated 
> software that somehow maps between the Frame document and the .doc or 
> .rtf files.
>
> Typically, agencies use in-country translators who often work solely 
> with Word/RTF or text files. They receive an RTF and return the same 
> type of translated file. The agency does all the layout and formatting 
> work along with manually changing captions and text within the 
> graphics. That's how it has worked with the handful of agencies I've 
> worked with.
>
> The translation agency is much more aware than you or I would probably 
> be with hyphenation issues and some other subtle stuff that varies by 
> language. That's their job. So, unless you're working day in and day 
> out with translation projects, I think an agency adds value. Stuff you 
> and I might not think of. It would probably be about the same as an 
> engineer with good writing skills writing a manual. They might do an 
> okay or even respectable job, but is that the best use of their time. 
> So, I'd find a translation agency that will do all the RTF conversion 
> for you.
>
> Tom Johnson
> Technical Writer
> tjohnson at starcutter.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+tjohnson=starcutter.com at lists.techwr-l.com
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+tjohnson=starcutter.com at lists.techwr-l.com]On
> Behalf Of obair81 at comcast.net
> Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 1:32 PM
> To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.c
> Subject: word or rtf
>
>
> It has been suggested to me by a translation agency that, coming out 
> of Frame, providing an agency with an RTF instead of a Word file might 
> lessen some issues tied to some formatting and foreign language 
> issues.
>
> Can anyone tell me, is this something they have seen?
>
> Thanks.
>
> best,
> Paul
>