Tag Archives: translators

“Liar, liar! Pants on fire!” Who can afford to tell the truth about translation quality… and who can’t?

Posted on January 27, 2013 by

When everyone else is shouting that they deliver “quality”, is there some trick translators can use to get paid more for doing a better job? Is there some realistic way for customers to figure out if you are telling the … Continue reading →

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Is OpenBorder just another translation job board – or will it offer something fundamentally more valuable?

Posted on August 1, 2011 by

Bridging the gap What is OpenBorder? Is it just another translation job board trying to catch a middleman’s fee for putting buyers and sellers together? Or does it offer something tantalizingly different? Online translation marketplaces and job boards have been … Continue reading →

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“I want to translate a web page… but using Word!” Converting HTML to Word format

Posted on July 24, 2011 by

I was chatting with Danielle Gehrmann (@danielletrans), friend and Italian to English translator from just ‘across the ditch’ (the Tasman Sea) in Sydney, and the conversation turned to translating website content… Danielle: Sometimes my clients want their web pages translated, but … Continue reading →

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Short report: What Twitter hashtags do translators use?

Posted on May 26, 2011 by

Someone asked what hashtags were most commonly used by translators. I have my own favourites, but I decided to have a closer look… I downloaded the last 1,000 tweets from an archive of my timeline [1]. This included my own … Continue reading →

Posted in OpenBorder | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Easy! Easy! How to copy a table from a PDF into Word… for beginners

Posted on May 2, 2011 by

So the source document for your translation is a PDF – and it contains some complex tables! You just want to copy and paste them directly into your Word document so you can overtype the text with your translation… Right? … Continue reading →

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How to put a PDF cleanly into Word or into your TM tool using really (really!) simple skills

Posted on April 18, 2011 by

I have often observed that while many translators and project managers may be skilled users of a number of sophisticated software tools, they sometimes lack some really simple skills in Word. Like for instance knowing how to find and replace tabs or paragraph and … Continue reading →

Posted in OpenBorder, Tips 'n tricks | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Oh, no! My translation just won’t fit into that table! More super squeezing for translators.

Posted on April 1, 2011 by

What translator hasn’t had the exasperating experience of trying to squeeze text into a table that was created for a completely different language? Narrow columns for words that are now too long and wide columns for words that are now very short. … Continue reading →

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Squeezing a translation that’s too long into a space that’s too small – a cheat sheet for beginners

Posted on March 28, 2011 by

So you’ve overtyped the original Word document, but your translation is longer than the original text - and it won’t fit neatly into the available space. What can you do? The most common trick is to drop the point size until the translation … Continue reading →

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Translators! Let Stephen Hawking help boost your proofreading productivity

Posted on March 21, 2011 by

Translation can be a wonderfully creative and intellectually stimulating process – but it has its dreary moments too. Pity the poor reviser or proofreader who regularly gets the task of admiring some other translator’s skill after all the inventive fun is over… Such has … Continue reading →

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