Translation Services for Commercial Printers
Commercial printers are a main category of client for professional translation services. Printing companies frequently call on translation companies for help with developing printed versions of a materials (e.g., small brochures, product sheets, to larger catalogs and manuals) in languages other than English.
In addition to translation services, printers often need document design services since formatting text and graphic elements in a foreign language can be non-intuitive to document design personnel that mostly work in only English. Translation and document formatting, although related, are two separate skill sets performed by separate specialist personnel. Our company’s document design specialists are accustomed to working with non-English language documents.
Affinity Translation regularly works with commercial printing companies to professionally translate and format (formatting most often in InDesign) non-English documents. For a printing company that has not worked with us before the interaction might progress something like the following:
- The prospective new client contacts us for basic information. We confirm that we provide the service.
- The client then sends us a file for quoting translation and formatting into a target language (or languages). At the quote stage we usually receive a PDF file.
- We prepare a quote and email the quote to the prospective new client. Fees are determined based on the number of words. Discounts apply for volume and repetition. InDesign formatting is priced on a per page basis.
- If the client approves our quote then we request the full InDesign source file set in English. The project then begins.
- On completion all translated files are electronically delivered to the client. The client has an opportunity to request adjustments, although for most projects no adjustment is needed.
