A client sends a product brochure as a flattened image file exported from a design package. It is twenty pages, heavily laid out, with text inside graphics.
The translation itself is a day. Extracting the text, translating it, and reproducing the layout with text that expands considerably in the target language is a week, and none of it was in the quotation.
1. Ask for the working file, always
The original editable file rather than an export. This single request removes most of the preparation work from most projects.
2. Explain why the format matters
Clients think of a document as its content. The format determines whether the content can be extracted, replaced and reassembled, which is most of the effort.
3. Handle scanned documents as a separate stage
Extraction or retyping, quoted as its own line. This is common with certificates, contracts and older material and it always surprises the client.
4. Deal with locked and protected files
Protected documents cannot be processed and the client needs to supply an unlocked version. Discovering this after accepting a deadline is avoidable.
5. Raise the text expansion problem early
Text in many target languages is considerably longer than the source, which breaks fixed layouts, buttons and tables. Designers need warning before anything is laid out.
6. Agree who does the layout work
You, a specialist, or the client's designer. Naming the owner at quotation stage is what prevents the project stalling after translation is finished.
7. Cover text embedded in images
Diagrams, screenshots and graphics with text inside them. These require the original assets and are invisible in a word count.
8. Ask about the platform for digital content
Website exports, application strings, subtitle files and help systems all have their own formats and constraints, which shape the whole approach.
9. Check the character set and font support
Some scripts require fonts the client's design does not include, and a beautifully translated document rendered in boxes is a real outcome.
10. Handle tracked changes and comments
Clients send working documents full of them, and deciding what to do with them before starting prevents translating something that was deleted.
11. Agree the delivery format
Matching the source, a clean document, or a bilingual file. Clients assume it matches the source and occasionally need something else entirely.
11b. Ask whether anything must not be translated
Product names, trademarks, code samples, legal citations and addresses frequently need leaving exactly as they are. Agreeing a do not translate list before work starts prevents a careful correction pass through a document where somebody has helpfully rendered every brand name into another language.
12. Set out the version control expectation
What happens when the source changes mid project, which is one of the most common causes of cost disputes.
13. Keep the specialism questions attached
Technical material with complex formatting needs both, which is the ground covered in subject specialism and technical translation questions.
14. Handle certified documents carefully
These have presentation requirements of their own, as set out in certified and urgent translation questions.
15. Borrow the discipline from print
The same file problems, asked in the same order, are covered in artwork and file questions printers answer daily.
16. Collect the files properly at enquiry
An assistant that asks for the actual file, the format, whether it is editable, whether there is text in images and who will handle layout produces a quotable project. Where documents are confidential, the care described in how to handle sensitive questions in your chatbot applies. See features, start at try, and the sector view sits under agencies.