Once the translation has been completed, checked, amended and validated, the translator may need to re-assemble or rebuild a document. This may mean getting the manuscript ready for print or dissemination: reincorporating graphics, images, screen captures, image arrays, etc. either into the paper version or the electronic files.

Once this first-stage integration is effective, it may so happen that the translator has to transfer the translated material – together with its support if the case so happens – to the medium used for dissemination. This may mean printing the document or burning a CD-ROM or returning translated (localised) files to a Web site.

In most cases, though, the formatting, integration and publishing process will of course be carried out by experts in those fields rather than by the translator. This is usually the case in translation companies, which employ in-house specialists. It is also the case if the work provider has its own document production and printing and/or publishing division, webmaster, or post-production department, to mention just a few possibilities. However, where the work provider does not have the necessary resources, more and more translators are now including this type of extras in the overall service they provide … and often forgetting to claim the extra money they should be getting.

Delivery of the translated material does not necessarily mean the end of the translator’s work. As a matter of fact, the translator must take great care to file the translation and translation memory, to consolidate and update resources, and finally to analyse the project and its outcome with a view to:

– making sure anything that might be reused will be readily available and ‘certified’;

– eliminating the sources of any defects or problems and improving the processes.

Though the techniques and types of materials concerned are specific, the flowchart is basically the same for subtitling/overtitling, dubbing, and localisation (of software, Web sites and video games). It is just that some of the stages are rather more complex.

Pre-translation includes all the groundwork leading up to the translation itself; i.e. understanding the source document, finding all the relevant information as well as the terminology and phraseology and translation memories needed to carry out the translation, and making the source material ready for translation.

Applicable tasks vary according to whether the translation will be carried out by a translation engine or by a human translator, and according to applicable work organisation patterns.

In a broad sense, pre-translation includes all of the commercial negotiations and technical operations prior to receiving the material for translation. In a more restricted sense, it starts once the material that has to be translated has become available.

In all cases, pre-translation includes:

– receiving the material for translation; duplicating and saving it as need be;

– receiving and checking the translation kit;

– upgrading the material if need be;

– compiling or receiving the terminology and phraseology (and translation memories) that the translators will or must use, and integrating these resources into the source material or the translation memory, as the case maybe;

– checking that the material to be translatedis actually ‘readyand fit for translation’ and making any necessary corrections and amendments;

– looking for specific documentation relevant to the translation and forwarding this to the translator(s);

– dispatching the material to the relevant translators according to their specialist expertise and special skills.

If an automatic translation system (translation engine) is being used, pre-translation means making the material ‘machine-ready’, through:

– converting the source material to a format that the translation system is able to read (by digitisation or format conversion, etc.),

– identifying likely sources of ambiguity for the system – unless the translation engine has the capacity to automatically list all ambiguous items;

– identifying all likely obstacles to translation – unless the system automatically lists all the items it cannot translate as a matter of course;

– identifying all the language elements the system will likely not recognise – unless the system has an automatic recognition function,

– feeding into the system all the resources it needs to carry out the translation (e.g. creating or updating dictionaries, integrating terminology and phraseology, clarifying meaning),

– rationalising the material by deleting all the items that are likely to cause problems for the system because it won’t recognise them or be able to interpret them.

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