Reply To: Sending INDD files to someone else for translation

Many professional translators (I’m one) will have a CAT (computer-aided translation) tool that will handle IDML round trips perfectly. Names to look for are Trados, Wordfast, MemoQ, DejaVu and others.
Preparation is important to reduce the potential pain level (on both sides – some designer decisions are painful for the translator too!):
– check your preferred fonts have a repertoire that can handle the target languages
– expect text block lengths to change by as much as 25%, so leave space for expansion, especially if the source language is English
– take out any new lines or returns that were only added for text wrap purposes, as the CAT tools use them to break up the text into manageable segments, and segments that actually belong together might be translated as if they do not belong together
– sort out tabbed text properly, as if you’re not careful, you’ll end up with disconnected sentence fragments.
– send them a low res PDF, so that they can see the visual context of the text*
– give them some background to what the project is about

Good luck,
Chris.

PS
How many translators does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
It depends on the context.