Translating in ADOBE using ADOBE PRO
Thread poster: zaczac84
zaczac84
zaczac84
United States
Oct 21, 2022

Hi,

We have a project to translate 200 technical drawings from English into Spanish. These are original files so they can be edited in ADOBE. However, it is taking extremely long to edit using ADOBE Pro. Has anyone had experience with this and any ideas for a faster way to translate?

I am also curious that if I do use ADOBE Pro, how much more time should I budget than a standard translation on a WORD document. Keep in mind these files have only 100-200 words on them. ... See more
Hi,

We have a project to translate 200 technical drawings from English into Spanish. These are original files so they can be edited in ADOBE. However, it is taking extremely long to edit using ADOBE Pro. Has anyone had experience with this and any ideas for a faster way to translate?

I am also curious that if I do use ADOBE Pro, how much more time should I budget than a standard translation on a WORD document. Keep in mind these files have only 100-200 words on them.

MT
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Joakim Braun
Joakim Braun  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 19:10
German to Swedish
+ ...
What Oct 22, 2022

What is "ADOBE Pro"?

If this refers to Adobe Acrobat Pro, it would be a terrible tool for translation. The editing functions are only intended for quick fixes of typos, printing-related technical errors and the like. The extra time required entirely depends on how many different fields the 100-200 words are located in and how much tinkering is required to make the copy fit the space.


These are original files so they can be edited in ADOBE.


What does "original files" mean? PDF files? PDFs are never original files, they're always created from other editable formats (Indesign, Illustrator, Word etc). In that case you should be translating Indesign/Illustrator/Word files, which are CAT friendly. In the case of technical drawings the originating application might be some more arcane CAD software.

Several CAT tools can work with PDF, but the results would vary wildly from perfect to unusable, depending on the PDF structure and the relative text length of the translation.


Jorge Payan
 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:10
English to Russian
Infix or text boxes Oct 22, 2022

PDF is a secondary format. You can't create a new document directly in Adobe Acrobat. There is always a source file be it docx, dwg, jpeg or idml. Therefore, one way is to use the source file for translation. I guess it is dwg in your case.
Also, you can use a PDF editor like Infix or Foxit to add text boxes over the original text. However, using this app is hardly faster than Adobe Acrobat until you get hand in it.

The simplest way (in my opinion, though still not simple) is to add textboxes directly in Adobe Acrobat with white background and transparent borders. Here is a short video of the workflow. It is in Russian, but probably you can catch the idea. Once you manage to create one text box with all desired properties (ink color, background, frame, etc.), then you can copy and paste the same box for every next translatable caption.

[Edited at 2022-10-22 19:49 GMT]
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Jorge Payan
Juan Carlos Postigo Ríos
 
Jorge Payan
Jorge Payan  Identity Verified
Colombia
Local time: 12:10
Member (2002)
German to Spanish
+ ...
Try to get the very original files Oct 22, 2022

As other participants in this thread say, you can die several times while trying to edit in Acrobat. Open the file in Acrobat, go to File -> Properties, look at Advanced -> PDF producer (or alike, as my Acrobat DC is in Spanish) and you will find which program created the PDF file you have. I guess it should be AutoCad (dwf).

Ask your
... See more
As other participants in this thread say, you can die several times while trying to edit in Acrobat. Open the file in Acrobat, go to File -> Properties, look at Advanced -> PDF producer (or alike, as my Acrobat DC is in Spanish) and you will find which program created the PDF file you have. I guess it should be AutoCad (dwf).

Ask your customer for the orginal files. I use https://www.translatortools.net/docs/transtools/autocad-translation for translating the texts in the drawings.
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Translating in ADOBE using ADOBE PRO






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