Author: Drew Davis
Content Marketer, LanguageWire
LinkedIn
How to produce multilingual content in compliance with EU regulations in three easy steps
Author: Drew Davis
Content Marketer, LanguageWire
LinkedIn
This how-to guide walks you through a few quick and easy steps for managing multilingual content in the face of existing and upcoming regulatory changes.
At LanguageWire, we believe wholeheartedly in the power of multilingual content and how it connects enterprises with their audiences and goals. Recently, the EU has introduced several regulations aimed at the automotive and medical industries which have moved the needle on the need for creating multilingual content past what we consider great practice, and into something legally binding.
Fortunately, unlike many regulatory sea changes (which demand entirely new ways of working and excessive continuous effort to remain compliant) this trend of enterprises having to improve content accessibility in local markets can be a blessing in disguise. The right combination of technology and expertise can transform the preparation process for compliance with multilingual content regulations from an expensive, months-long headache into something far more manageable. Furthermore, bringing your legal, commercial and technical teams together to continue to produce content in more languages than ever, doesn’t have to be any more complicated than ticking a few extra boxes.
Let’s look at a simple, three-step process for tackling regulation-compliant content production and translation within our language management ecosystem.
It’s important to note that regulations like the ones mentioned above have little or no impact on the existing ways in which we all go about creating the content we need to document or publish. However, the added complexity of being confident that your content is compliant and available in all of the necessary languages may result in your having to expand the number of stakeholders involved, and much sooner than you planned.
Preparing quality desktop publishing (DTP) materials on the scale of an enterprise often requires a lot of back and forth. When the stakes are higher due to regulation and extra consideration is necessary, an already cumbersome process can move even slower. For this, we recommend using a shared DTP environment (Microsoft 365, Adobe Creative, etc.) where all of the stakeholders and teams can work in a single, cloud-based environment to expedite initial approval of your source documents. These tools allow you to cut down on the volume of emails, stand-up meetings and proofing rounds which would otherwise accompany the production of good content.
Our own InLayout Editor solution works with InDesign documents in this way to improve the efficiency by which your teams can finalise initial document creation, while protecting the design and privacy of your work.
With your source document prepared and in hand, you are ready to face the first hurdle of the new multilingual content paradigm. Your well-crafted technical manual looks great in English, but you aren’t sure how it reads in Czech, French or Polish. With an increase in the volume of languages you cater to, comes complexity in maintaining consistency in the purpose and layout of your content’s design. What if your original document’s usability is disrupted when viewed in another language?
This common issue is traditionally managed further along in the process, with additional expenditure on subsequent proofing after your initial translation purchase. Our instant translation solution, LanguageWire Translate, turns this process on its head in order to save you time and costs. It offers you and your local stakeholders an instant overview of the state of your documents, in the languages you need and at the touch of a button.
Simply drag and drop your documents into LanguageWire Translate’s familiar, easy-to-use interface, and it will translate them in their entirety, while preserving formatting and with enterprise-grade security adherence.
With final approval on content direction for all regions, you’re ready to translate. Our language management ecosystem can be adapted to the specific needs and language of your enterprise, including empowering you with the advanced AI technology and human expertise necessary to affordably translate complex documentation at scale. In the face of regulation and/or tight deadlines, your documents can be rapidly translated using neural machine translation and then be proofed by our team of experts from within your industry. In this way, technology and people work together to deliver the high-quality translations you deserve, when you need it.
Adding advanced AI to your translation process makes all the difference in bringing everything together more efficiently to cut costs and redundancies.
As with every step of your content management journey, you will enjoy full transparency and control over each phase of your project. You can customise the process based on individual needs, communicate openly with our team of experts who work with your documents and validate the final product smartly and efficiently within Smart Editor until you are completely satisfied.
When validating your documents post-translation, your ideal environment for doing so is the one where you can do more with less effort. Previewing translation edits in real time within the proper format has obvious time-saving benefits, and using something like Translation Memory can speed things up even more by automatically helping you to reuse pre-validated words, sentences or entire texts which have already been translated.
Validating your content with a dedicated tool for the job, like Smart Editor, means you can finish off your regulation-compliant translation journey as strongly and efficiently as when you started.
Just like that, your content is approved and ready to publish in all of the markets and languages where you operate. We work hard to make it easy for you to create high-quality content for your audience. So, whether you are aiming for compliance within the EU or wanting to streamline how you engage with your audience around the globe, LanguageWire is ready to support your success.
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