by Jen O Neill
Buy many products in Europe and inside the box you’ll probably find a printed multilingual manual. The manual could contain over a dozen languages. They can often elicit a groan from readers as they can initially be overwhelmed by all the languages in front of them.
This type of document is widely used in Europe, particularly for lower-cost hardware products. Its advantage is that the product can be packaged without knowing the eventual country to which it will be shipped, simplifying shipping and reducing costs.
These manuals are usually printed as a large folded sheet or as a small booklet. Due to space demands, page and font sizes tend be on the small side. They are often thrown out after use. As a result the cost of production can be an important issue.
In spite of their widespread use, we don’t often hear much about how they’re produced. Unlike the larger monolingual user manuals we all work on, these manuals are often more exposed to the cold realities of cost and size restrictions. So when planning a multilingual manual you should consider the following points:
Purpose
Will it be the only printed manual shipped with the product or is it intended as a quick installation guide with the full user guide to be include, for example, on a CD?
This will help you decide the type and extent of information required in the multilingual manual.
Space
How much space is available in the box for the printed manual when packed with the product and any other accompanying accessories and documents (such as WEEE and/or Battery Directive information sheets and CDs)?
This will determine the size and thickness of the printed manual with all required languages included, which in turn will impact how information can be presented.
Graphics
Do you have access to high quality graphics?
Usually these manuals communicate information in a very visual manner to reduce the amount of text needed. So the graphics need to be well drawn, descriptive and clear. They will often be describing hardware. If you can’t draw the graphics yourself, you’ll need the services of someone who can. To facilitate translation, graphics should only include text that doesn’t need to be translated such as measurements.
One way to save space is to present all the graphics in the front pages of the manual and then refer to them in the text of each language that follow after the graphics. Not always best in terms of usability but a compromise that at least ensures the information is provide in all the required languages in a limited space.
This type of documentation can reveal some of the cultural issues involved with producing international documentation. Europeans are more familiar than Americans with working from pictures. Europe is not (yet) as litigious a market as America so there may not always be the same legal demands for information to be explained in text format rather than split between graphics and text.
Budget
Are there budget limitations for producing and printing this manual?
Know what the printing budget will be since this document type is often used for lower cost products. As a result you may not be able to print in colour or use higher quality paper. Multilingual manuals tend to be printed in large print runs (perhaps several thousand at a time) so mistakes can be expensive to correct if they produce a lot of scrap documents. Don’t start writing this manual without knowing your production and cost restrictions.
How many languages will be included in a multilingual manual?
If you need to ship many languages with the product, the languages could be included in a single manual or split between two or more manuals. Including only a few languages in a manual makes it less intimidating and easier to use. However, printing two or more multilingual manuals to be shipped with a product will increase production costs, for which the budget may not always be available. There can sometimes be pressure to keep the number of items on the bill of materials for a product to a minimum.
Use the internationally recognised ISO language or country codes to identify the languages in a multilingual manual. Language codes are preferable to country codes as many countries share the same language. For the same reason, don’t use national flags to identify languages.
Love or hate them multilingual manuals will not be disappearing anytime soon. There’s a business need for them. So it’s important that we understand what makes them tick. I’ve done dozens over the years and enjoy the challenge each presents.
And you?
What’s been your experience of writing them? As a reader, which ones did you particularly like or dislike?
Tags: Language, manuals, multilingual, planning
Over the years I’ve managed the translation of a great many manuals of this type, and have seen examples where clearly no though was ever given to the logistics of producing the multi-lingual version. You make some valid points regarding the printing costs, and one of the crucial elements is to ensure that when laid up for print the translated document has the optimum (i.e. the least) number of pages. This may sound straightforward but in the DTP desk top publishing process following translation certain languages are particularly problematic where text has to be postitioned around graphics – notably German translations for example where the use of compound words means that it can be almost impossible to keep to the original layout without the use of hyphenation or reduced font size. (Both of which I can’t abide)
As a translation business we find it frustrating when the author of a technical text creates needless problems through poor layout in this way. There is a strong economic and environmental case for getting this right. If you can keep the number of pages under control (we advise really bad offenders on optimisation for print)then you save cost in print and transport weight as well as trees and fuel.
Ben,
We both clearly have had to deal too often with unplanned multilingualism in documentation. As you say, the serious impact of text expansion really becomes apparent when dealing with limited space and small page sizes. Although my company style guide alerts writers to this issue, it doesn’t seem to help much. Many of our writers have difficulty visualising their writing when it expands 30% or more and how that can impact layout. The breathing space in single language manuals often just isn’t there.
Developing templates for multilingual manuals has been a challenge for us at times as editors who do the templates may not always understand just how serious it is to:
- design the layout so that the page count is as low as possible so the the translated printed manual still fits in the box with the product
- plan for a small page size. It isn’t the same as working with US letter/A4. I’ve had to deal with a template for a 4.5 x 7.2in pocket guide designed just like our US letter user manual (monolingual & PDF distribution) but which had to accommodate 6+ languages when printed.
- plan for how much small blocks of text can expand (often over 100%). As you say, this can be a challenge when dealing with text associated with graphics. The longest word I’ve even had to handle was in Estonian; “fire control panel” became a single word with over 30 characters!
Multilingual manuals are often low cost and many writers may not consider the cost impact of their work. What seems fine in one language may become nearly unusable without major rework when more languages are added.
Do your writers work in partnership with your translation team?
I’ve found the best way to manage the process is to get our translators to feed back to the writers whenever they use strange terminology or bad layout.
For example – a few years ago a major mobile phone company we were translating for suddenly introduced the term “Longhorn Data” into their manuals with no explanation is to what they meant by “Longhorn”.
When we asked them for clarification they said – “oh we just meant large chunks of data.” (we never did quite understand the need for th oblique reference to beef cattle) We then had to politely explain that whilst in America there was a slim chance users would catch the meaning, once translated this was going to be impossible to interpret. After reflection they changed the phrase to “large packet data” and everyone was happy.
My firm only does technical translations, and most of our translators are in fact technical writers themselves so we’ve got a wealth of experience to offer to clients when they are prepared to work with us as part of their team in this way.
I am the technical writer in our department who oversees the translations with our translation agency. I check all document source files before sending them out for potential localisation issues and work closely with the agency and in-country reviewers. I need to ensure that the multilingual guides will work for the languages and fit in the box when printed.
I worked with the editors on the templates to ensure that they facilitate localisation but it took a long time to get agreement on the templates to be used for the multilingual guides. Understanding the impact of text expansion on a small page was a frequent issue and my need for a simpler layout. Eventually we got there!