We do a lot of translation, but I have never encountered this - thanks for the warning of something to watch for.
As we were recently acquired and my translation will now be managed through the documentation department at our Danish "sister" company, it's definitely something I'll follow up on with them. Alison Craig | Technical Documentation Lead Ultrasonix Medical Corporation | #130 - 4311 Viking Way, BC, Canada V6V2K9 T 604-279-8550 ext. 127 | F 604-279-8559 | TF 1-866-437-9508 | www.ultrasonix.com -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Shaked Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 12:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Variables based on paragraph tags at the book level > Document titles, product names, and version numbers are exactly the > sorts of things for which you should define user variables. > And use them not just in the footer, but on the title page and throughout. When marketing decides to change the product name, > you'll be glad it's a variable. I couldn't agree more. This is especially important when the vendor has partners who market the product under their own name. The same document might be released with multiple product names. But I have experienced some grammatical issues when using variables. For example: - The first letter of the original product name was a consonant. The first letter of the partner's proposed name was a vowel. We would have had to change "a" to "an" throughout, or insert "a" and "an" as variables. - The original product name was masculine in French. The partner's proposed name was feminine. The grammar of the existing French translation would have been corrupted. We persuaded marketing to give the partners some naming guidelines. They could select any product name they like, provided that it begins with a consonant and it is masculine in all relevant languages. The partners accepted this, and it worked out fine. I'm curious: Have others experienced this kind of issue with variables? How did you handle it? David Shaked (Wernick) AlmondWeb Ltd. http://www.almondweb.com Technical Documentation * Web Development * Word and WebWorks Consultants _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to framers as [email protected]. Send list messages to [email protected]. To unsubscribe send a blank email to [email protected] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/alison.craig%40ultrasonix.com Send administrative questions to [email protected]. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to framers as [email protected]. Send list messages to [email protected]. To unsubscribe send a blank email to [email protected] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [email protected]. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
