Our Software Application Translation Services
Localizing software products for multiple markets requires specialized expertise that extends beyond traditional translation services. That’s why so many companies rely on us to manage all their software translations projects. We can localize your software into any major European, Asian, Middle Eastern, African or Latin American language.
How is Localization Different from Translation?
Localization is the process of adapting a product to a specific market and language including translating the user interface, resizing dialogs and testing the results to ensure that the program still works. This parallels the process for creating the source language original, and includes translating the text, as well as reformatting and testing the final product for the target language environment. Localization encompasses the entire product including software, help files, documentation, packaging and marketing material.
Localization hence involves more than just translation of User Interface (UI) and documentation. Software may need to be adapted for dealing with:
- Local APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), operating systems, search engines, or even currency and accounting standards
- Double-byte characters used in Asian languages, such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean
- Right-to-left writing systems of Arabic, Hebrew, or Farsi
- Culture-dependent meanings of icons and underlying connotations of color schemes
- Enabling various input methods
- Locale-dependent variations, such as date formats (dd-mm-yyyy vs. mm-dd-yyyy), calendar systems (e.g., Japanese use an Imperial Calendar, Muslim and Hebrew calendars are based on lunar months), currency, address formats, etc.
We ensure that your software products, applications, and content meet the language and locale-specific requirements of all your target markets. We provide software translation services for a wide range of software and its related materials including:
- Software applications
- Marketing materials
- User Interfaces (UI)
- Multimedia
- Firmware
- Training materials
- Online help
- eLearning content
- Documentation
- Product packing
- Web sites
Internationalization
Internationalization is the process of designing software to support users in other locales and markets. This includes separating text from code, supporting local standards, such as date, time and currency, and handling Unicode or other character encoding standards for input, storage and display for the target locale. Software internationalization creates a global product that is independent of any specific language and locale elements and is engineered to facilitate the localization process.
Before embarking on a localization program, it is important to verify that your software is adequately Internationalized. Internationalization is a process of making software ready for rapid and cost-effective localization into (practically) any language and for any locale. Internationalization does not involve any translation at all. It is simply making changes to the software to make both localization and maintenance of international versions easier.
Ideally, Internationalization is a fundamental part of the product design and development process. In general, a vast majority of software needs further internationalization work after it is released in a specific market. Internationalization involves, among other things:
- Enabling software installation and operation with foreign characters sets, platforms and other localized programs (I18N Enablement)
- Enabling software to be easily translated, maintained, and supported after it is localized
- Externalizing translatable resources from executable binaries and creating resource-only libraries
- Moving button and graphics text into string variables
- Adopting single-source materials for documentation management
Benefits of Upfront Internationalization
In general, it is rare to see software that has been one hundred percent internationalized, but doing as much Internationalization upfront as possible before starting the localization and translation processes has benefits that tend to far outweigh the costs.
Internationalization can:
- Facilitate smooth translation processes and tracking of future updates
- Allow for increasing product language set — easily!
- Reduce support costs (one set of binaries, not unique product versions)
- Enable bug fixes to apply to all languages, and the same bug fixes can be delivered to worldwide customer base
The more thorough the Internationalization process is, the better the outcome of the whole software development process in terms of:
- Stronger code integrity
- Faster turnaround
- Better quality of the code
- Reduced overall costs
- Consistency
- Satisfied international customer base
- Efficient software updates
Internationalization saves money and prevents many problems!