Tageditor and Framemaker, any special rules

[Wim Hooghwinkel - idtp]

Hello Verner,

Tag Editor has an option to move markers to the start of a segment, you
don't need to do that manually.

For your other questions: the 'normal' procedure for translating FrameMaker
books is indeed to use the source folder structure as base, first translate
the FrameMaker files and then copy the folder structure for each language
and put the translated FrameMaker files in that structure. When using Trados
(Tag Editor) or similar systems, you shouldn't worry about naming,
references etc - because only the content (text) will be localized. This
also counts for Japanese, Chinesed and Korean (although you might need a
system that supports CKJ languages to be able to correctly format and
process the target FM files; same counts for CE and Eastern European
languages). Even the content of variables can be translated. You may run
into font-issues, normally the Trados target output has the correct font
encoding but you will stil need a compatble font. We used a (perl) script to
add the correct fontnames to the MIF. When using OpenType fonts there should
be no issue. Starting from version 7.2 FrameMaker even supports all CE
characters.
Be sure to work with an exeprienced TagEditor and Trados vendor, because the
settings used for converting the MIF to Trados STF (or tag editoe STX) and
back are critical. Cross reference content, for example, should be excluded
from translation. Also, the right target language should be set on creating
translated MIF. Trados can't translate text on Reference pages, if you use
text on reference pages put it in a separate (text)file and manually replace
for each language.

If you don't need to localize illustrations, you should set up the folder
structure in such way that you don't need to copy the illustrations folder
for each language. For illustrations to be localized, create a subfolder in
the language folder structure that goes with the FRameMaker folder.

On the content: try to avoid all kinds of local formatting. Any hard break
(line break) will break up a segment for trados as well. Variables,
character formats, index markers, cross refs etc won't break a segment (will
be treated as internal tags), nor will frame anchors or table anchors.

Be aware that most language take up to 140% of the space of source English
(or Danish) text. So better leave some space for flow out, especially in
tables.

If you need more advise, don't hesitate to contact me directly.


Vriendelijke groet,

Wim Hooghwinkel

Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in FrameMaker

iDTP

International DTP and Documentation Consultancy
 
tel. +31652036811
info at idtp.eu 
www.idtp.eu