Help needed in formatting Thread poster: amanda55
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I am hopeless with formatting and converting pdf files. Hubby does all that for me, from the original source so he doesn't know what I am translating. I am not breaking any confidentiality rules here, he just does the formatting work. Now that we are going to live apart for work reasons, I am lost. These days I get very complicated jobs with lots of tables, graphs and columns and because of poor original formatting, when overtyping, the original formats remain and because the sentence struct... See more I am hopeless with formatting and converting pdf files. Hubby does all that for me, from the original source so he doesn't know what I am translating. I am not breaking any confidentiality rules here, he just does the formatting work. Now that we are going to live apart for work reasons, I am lost. These days I get very complicated jobs with lots of tables, graphs and columns and because of poor original formatting, when overtyping, the original formats remain and because the sentence structure and length are different, I am stuck. When I do "undo formattin" I then lose the rest of the formatting, correct or not. I have been on various word courses but every time I forget. I can create formatting but trying to work on somebody else's poor quality gives me a headache. I have just finished a job where hubby spent a whole day formatting and he is an expert. I just about made the deadline despite working a total of 15 hours on it, plus hubby's time. Ideas anyone? ▲ Collapse
| | | | pcovs
Denmark
Local time: 15:43
English to Danish
| Insist on getting the original source document | Mar 14, 2010 |
I usually refuse to work from a pdf file for these exact reasons, and most likely the client will have the original document that the pdf was created from - this is the document you should insist on getting.
Sometimes the client says that it doesn't exist, but when I quote my surcharge for handling pdf files the original document most often appears miraculously
| | | | | Two types of PDF files | Mar 14, 2010 |
There are two types of PDF files.
One type is scanned, i.e. the letter "O" there is a circle somewhere in a large drawing. If you want to use that as source electronic text, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) must be done first.
The other type is distilled as Adobe named it, which is obtained by distilling th... See more There are two types of PDF files.
One type is scanned, i.e. the letter "O" there is a circle somewhere in a large drawing. If you want to use that as source electronic text, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) must be done first.
The other type is distilled as Adobe named it, which is obtained by distilling the PDF from whatever program used to originally create it. Any software capable of printing to a PostScript (it's a specification, not a brand or model) printer is equally capable of distilling its files into PDF. All data is in there, editable to some extent.
Translation is all about text. If the client needs a scanned PDF translated and formatted to resemble its original, this requires translation and DTP (Desktop Publishing). Either you do the DTP yourself (and Microsoft Word is the worst tool to do it), or you hire someone to do it, but this is separate work that should be charged.
If the original is a distilled PDF, there are some tools that allow you to edit it, though there may be several encumbrances on the way. One possible method is using InFix Pro (from http://www.iceni.com) to export the text from a distilled PDF to a XML file, translate it using Word plus watever CAT tool you like, and then import it back to the PDF. Most likely you'll have to make some usually minor layout adjustments on the PDF (which should be charged too), but these are relatively easy using InFix. ▲ Collapse
| | | | amanda55
English to Finnish
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TOPIC STARTER | Thank you both | Mar 14, 2010 |
Jose's solution sounds far too complicated to me, I think I will just insist on them converting into a word file. i didn't know I should charge extra for converting into word, thanks for that info. I think I am a proper divvy, charging-wise. Doh!
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pcovs
Denmark
Local time: 15:43
English to Danish
| Extra hazzle = surcharge ;o) | Mar 14, 2010 |
I charge a surcharge because I have learnt that there is very often quite some work trying to keep the formatting and ensuring that everything has actually been converted from the pdf, and as this takes time it should cost the client something.
One client actually refused once saying that it was a piece of cake converting the file, and he wanted to convert the file himself - he returned the file in question 4 hours later with an extended deadline for delivery, because it had taken h... See more I charge a surcharge because I have learnt that there is very often quite some work trying to keep the formatting and ensuring that everything has actually been converted from the pdf, and as this takes time it should cost the client something.
One client actually refused once saying that it was a piece of cake converting the file, and he wanted to convert the file himself - he returned the file in question 4 hours later with an extended deadline for delivery, because it had taken him so long ;o) ▲ Collapse
| | | | amanda55
English to Finnish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | You are right | Mar 14, 2010 |
Hi PCov, you are right and I will start doing that, too, now that you mentioned it. I cannot convert pdf so when I return home, I will only accept proofreading jobs as I will be busy being a care worker anyway.
| | | | | Conversion is not the issue | Mar 14, 2010 |
amanda55 wrote:
Jose's solution sounds far too complicated to me, I think I will just insist on them converting into a word file. i didn't know I should charge extra for converting into word, thanks for that info. I think I am a proper divvy, charging-wise. Doh!
It's not a matter of charging for the conversion. If you get a PDF file and deliver a translation in plain, unformatted TXT, it's up to you if you'll print it out and translate in the good ol'way, or if you'll convert it to Word to use CAT tools.
What you should charge is for formatting, if required, depending on the complexity of the layout.
| | | | amanda55
English to Finnish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Thank you Jose | Mar 14, 2010 |
for this info, never thought of it. A colleague and I share the same agency and they say exactly the same about them.
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