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What is DTP in the Translation Industry?

August 19, 2011 2 Comments »

Have you ever contacted a Translation Agency to get a quote for a translation and the started mentioning costs besides the per word? What does DTP stand for and when is this Service actually necessary?

DTP stands for and it refers to the creation of documents using page layout software. Typically, this includes the combining and rearranging of text and imagery (in case there are any images) through computer software, using Fonts and Graphics of your choice, to produce documents such as Newsletters, Brochures, Manuals, Slide shows, Books, etc.

In today´s world there are many different types of documents used, such as in the following formats: Word, Excel, Power point, Pdf, Adobe , Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe PageMaker, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, Corel Ventura, QuarkXPress and many more.

When a contacts a Translation Agency to receive a quote for a certain document, any Account Manager typically will ask for the source file, which is the document in which the text had originally been created in. This is important, so that the document does not have to be recreated, which can be very expensive sometimes, depending obviously on the format used.

In a specific example: the prospect has a of Industrial Machinery and would like that Manual translated from English into , as the prospect would like to penetrate the Latin American Market. The Manual itself is in an Adobe InDesign format. In order to keep the DTP cost as low as possible, and to assure that the translated Manual looks as similar as possible to the original English Manual, the prospect would have to send the Account Manager the source InDesign file/s, all Fonts and Links to the Images that are contained within the Manual.


2 Responses to “What is DTP in the Translation Industry?”

  • Commented on August 21, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    This is just an extra edit on the text. The real issue is to obtain good quality translation of the document. But, nevertheless it is useful to have an option of DTP

  • Commented on August 22, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    You are absolutely right.