Anyone aiming for global success must be very familiar with and observe the special cultural and linguistic conditions in the respective countries. To ensure that your texts can be understood at an international level, we will adjust metaphors and idiomatic expressions to each country, and the same applies to colour symbolism, date and time formats, as well as volume and measurement units.

Particularly in the World Wide Web, first good impressions are very important. For this reason, when localising websites (in HTML, XML, TYPO3 etc.), we not only focus on the translation itself, but will also adjust existing HTML, Flash, graphics files and scripts to provide the optimum alignment with target markets.

We analyse contents and check whether this information or codes address the expectations of the target group. This includes, among others, the selection of colours, typesets, currency and number formats, contact information, text alignment, background, symbols, graphics, date and address formats as well as possible audio and video files.

TYPO3 is one of the best-known content management systems (CMS). It is ideal for managing multi-lingual contents, although it can create some difficulties when localising contents. For this reason we use a specially aligned workflow for localising TYPO3 websites:

• During the export process, the contents of your website which are to be translated will be exported in the form of an XML file, which means that structure and contents are separated. Hidden contents are ignored and protected. They cannot be changed during the localisation process.
• We use modern translation memory systems with quality assurance tools and company-specific terminology databases for localising content elements.
• When the localised XML file is re-imported, the target language pages are automatically set up in the same tree structure.

This procedure using XML exports is recommended for very large websites and/or if the website will be translated into other languages at a later time.

Your advantages:

• The cumbersome process of importing and formatting contents in the system is no longer required
• In most cases, there is no need for subsequent formatting
• Translation and terminology are consistent
• The quality of your Internet presence increases
• Lead-times significantly decrease
• The ability to re-use translated contents lowers costs for subsequent projects