MULTILINGUAL DESKTOP PUBLISHING SERVICES
Multilingual desktop publishing (DTP) requires much more than simple cut and paste operations, and more often than not, the process will require redesigning and recreation of the original layout.
When translating from English to other languages, the final word count may expand considerably. Depending on the target language and subject matter, this “swelling factor” may roughly vary from 15% to 35%. In other cases, such as when translating from English to Chinese, the opposite will occur and the final word or character count will shrink, resulting in final layouts with more white space than the designer intended. In other languages, such as in German or Dutch, where compound words are a common characteristic, the per-word character expansion is another factor that will dramatically affect the layout. In Middle Eastern languages that are written from right-to-left, such as Arabic and Hebrew, the general order of the layout will need to be inverted.
Our page-layout and desktop publisher specialists can handle any language and most desktop publishing platforms.
Multilingual desktop publishing projects involve several parties and teams working together, thus excellent coordination and an organized work-flow are paramount to maintaining costs down whilst complying with tight deadlines and achieving press-ready results.
Multilingual Desktop Publishing Workflow