Egils Turks mentioned
charge per hour.
I don't really like my clients to know how much I make per hour.
Some would be resent paying me that much.
Egils Turks suggested
scanner and OCR
This is just more work for the translator, whose job is to translate.
The agency's duty to the translator is to supply easily translatable materials.
If you OCR, you have a nasty proofreading problem. It is
much easier to do those kinds of tasks in an office where two
people are available, one to read aloud and the other to visually check.
Egils Turks hit the nail on the head
just ask agency to supply you with translatable files
eurolanguagesPt wrote:
When it comes to translating JPEG image files with tables, values and multi-coloured layouts how should a translator respond?
There is no need to respond beyond saying "Sorry, I'm too busy."
Translation is one task and document production is another.
There is no reason that you should feel bad about not being able to reproduce a document.
When I first started in translation, the coordinator would send
marked up hard copy. If it was a table or graphic,
each item would be numbered.
Usually, the non-linguistic data content was not required: it is cheaper to
get a typist to do it, or for one person in an office to read aloud to another.
Somewhere during the computer revolution,
this kind of work got pushed on to the translator.
In fact, many agencies whose viability also depended
on doing layout, went out of business.
The issue you mention is on of the new unreasonable expectations.
As long as there are translators willing to accede, the unreasonableness will continue.
If you want to just translate, be upfront and businesslike with the client:
"I can reproduce the tables in MS-Word for another
$NN for this type of table and $nn for that.
These will only be plain tables. If you want them coloured,
that's extra.
Do you want me to enter the values in the table?
They will be charged at my usual translation rate."
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