Your design obeys English typographic rules. Your translation does not.
A translation can be accurate to the last word and still look wrong on the page. French sets a space before a colon and a question mark. German capitalises every noun, Spanish opens a question with an inverted mark, and Chinese and Japanese never hyphenate at all, breaking their lines by rules English has no equivalent for. Carry the English settings across and the punctuation crowds, the breaks fall in the wrong places, the emphasis is applied in a way the language does not use. Readers seldom identify the fault. They register a document that looks second-hand.
What that page needs is a typesetter who knows the rules of its new language and leaves the design you approved intact. Ours work inside your original InDesign or Illustrator file and set each language to its own conventions. What comes back is the design you signed off, ready for print or screen, reading as though it had been drawn up in that language from the start.
Set to the rules of each language
- Spacing, punctuation and emphasis applied as the target language uses them, not as English does
- Line breaking and hyphenation set by the language's own rules, or switched off where it has none
- Arabic and Hebrew mirrored in full, Chinese and Japanese set to their own breaking rules
Your design, kept intact
- Your own files worked in directly: InDesign, Illustrator, PowerPoint and Word
- Fonts checked for full script support, so nothing drops to a substitute that breaks the brand
- Text expansion and contraction handled in the layout, with your grid and colours held steady
Book a translation discovery call
The translation is signed off. Now the same document has to obey the rules of every language it appears in.
For marketing and design teams
You briefed the translation, approved it and now the artwork has to look as good as the original. That is where a clean design starts to break: a headline wraps to three lines, the French punctuation sits tight against the words because nobody set the spacing, a German compound splits across two lines in a place that shows nobody was thinking about the German. You need the copy set into the file you designed by someone who reads the layout as closely as the words, so the finished piece looks designed in every market and ready for publication.
For public sector and government teams
A public body has a duty to reach every resident, which means one document set into the languages a community actually speaks, sometimes ten or fifteen at once, to a fixed deadline and a set budget. Accessibility and legibility are the whole point, not the final polish. We have handled multilingual projects in languages including Somali, Bengali, Yoruba, Gujarati and Arabic, for electoral bodies, government publishing and city councils, setting each language cleanly within the approved design so the information reads as intended in every version.
Brochures & collateral
Translated text is rarely the same length as the English it replaces. In a brochure that means the copy no longer fits the space it was designed for. We adjust the layout inside your original file and set the spacing, punctuation and line breaks to the rules of the new language. You get the same brochure in another language, laid out properly.
- Spacing and punctuation set to the conventions of each language
- Headlines and pull quotes reset so they still lead the page
- Captions realigned to the images they belong to
- Consistent look across every page and every language.
- Supplied as publication-ready files
Annual & corporate reports
Reports are long and full of tables, charts and cross-references. When the translated text changes length, everything after it moves, so pagination and contents pages stop matching. Number formats change too: most of Europe writes a decimal comma where English writes a point. We reflow the whole document, reset the number formats for the target market, and return a report where the pages and references still line up.
- Full-document reflow that keeps pagination intact
- Number, date and decimal conventions set for the target market
- Contents pages and references kept in sync
- Multi-language versions matched page for page where possible
- Print and digital PDF outputs
Packaging & product labels
Packaging panels are a fixed size. Translated text is a different length, and regulatory copy has to appear in full, so cutting it is not an option. We set each language within the panel it is given, keep it legible at the size it prints, and tell you early if the text will not fit.
- Copy set to fixed panel dimensions
- Legibility held at small point sizes
- Right-to-left and character-based scripts set correctly on-pack
- Space conflicts flagged early, before print
- Artwork returned in your original format
Exhibition materials
Exhibition panels are a fixed size, and many carry two or three languages at once. Each translation is a different length, so the text has to fit the panel and still be readable from a distance. We set each language on the panel and tell you early if the text will not fit.
- Panel text fitted to a fixed size
- Two or three languages set on the same panel
- Type kept legible at viewing distance
- Right-to-left panels laid out correctly
- Supplied as publication-ready files
Presentations & decks
Slides give text a small, fixed space. When the translation runs longer, a bullet that fitted one line wraps to three and drops off the slide. We reset the text boxes, relabel the charts, and set the punctuation and line breaks to the rules of the target language. You get the same deck, readable, in every language.
- Text boxes and columns adjusted to the translated copy
- Bullets and callouts kept on their intended slide
- Charts and diagrams relabelled in the target language
- Consistent template applied across every language
- Returned in your original slide format
Right-to-left & Arabic
Arabic is cursive, so its letters join up and change shape depending on where they sit in a word. Software that is not set up for Arabic leaves them disconnected, and the text cannot be read at all. The page mirrors too: columns, images and reading order all run from the right. We set the script correctly and mirror your design, so the Arabic reads from the right exactly as your English reads from the left.
- Arabic and Hebrew pages mirrored in full: columns, images and reading order
- Arabic set with correct letter joining and shaping
- Mixed-direction content, such as Latin numerals in Arabic text, handled correctly
- Fonts checked for full script support before anything goes out
- Layout matched to the source in everything but direction
Every document type breaks in its own way when the language changes, and each has conventions of its own to answer to.
Supported
Languages
We support a wide range of languages, from major global markets to specialist regional languages.
Questions about technical translation
The most common questions about technical translation are answered here. If yours is not listed, get in touch and we will answer it directly.
Technical translation covers any content where subject knowledge is essential: user manuals, safety data sheets, engineering specifications and software documentation. It also covers technical marketing content, product brochures and promotional materials for specialist audiences, where the linguist needs to understand the subject and still produce copy that moves a specialist reader to act.
A technical manual needs to be precisely accurate. The reader will follow it. A technical marketing document, a product brochure or promotional piece written for a specialist audience, needs to be accurate and persuasive: a specialist reader will dismiss anything that misrepresents the subject, but will not act on content that fails to make a case. Getting both right simultaneously is what this content demands.
Every key term is agreed and locked in a project glossary before translation begins. Translation memory applies it consistently across every document. For ongoing clients, both carry forward into every future project automatically.
Engineering, manufacturing, automotive, electronics, life sciences, pharmaceutical, medical devices, software and technology, and many more. For regulated sectors like pharma and medtech, we also confirm our team understands the local rules around how products can be promoted in the target market.
Send the updated source file and we identify what has changed. Only new or modified content needs translating. Approved terminology carries through automatically, so revisions are faster, cheaper and consistent with every previous version.
