Topics translated but index and TOC not translated

[techcom56]

I have an English help project that contains 996 topics. I "inherited" the project, which was created by several other technical writers who no longer work at the company. And, I am new to the company and the only tech writer with very little history on how the project was created and maintained. My task is to have the English help project translated into Italian. Our project coordinator, who works directly with the translator, sent the source files to the translator. The translator, who used Composer to translate the files, did not translate the index or the table of contents, assuming that the index and table of contents would automatically update -- that did not happen when I overwrote my help project files with the translated files. The topic contents are now in Italian, the topic titles are in Italian; however the TOC and index are not. My question: Is there an efficient way to translate the the TOC and index that is NOT done manually. Is there a RoboHelp file that can be edited to translate the hhk and hhc into Italian. I am using RoboHelp 7. The translator is using a trial copy of RoboHelp 8. The language barrier is significant. My translation project is due 03/09/2009.

[Guest]

Welcome to the forums.

The structure of the TOC and index files was changed in RH8, so it won't really help you for the translator to translate in the RH8 interface and send you the files back. You'd have to copy and paste from the new file to a file in the old format.

I don't know anything about Composer (such as how it qualifies as an efficient translation tool), but can the translator just open copies of the .hhc and .hhk files in a text editor and translate what is inside the tags into Italian? In those files, anywhere you see <param name="Name" value="something">, you want the "something" translated. I don't know how this would be much different than using a secondary program, other than the translator would have to go through the file looking for right places in the tags.

Hope this helps,

Ben

[techcom56]

Ben -

Thanks for welcoming me to the forum.

I had thought about opening the hhc and hhk files and editing them, but I thought that there must be an easier way to perform the translation. At this time, the translator is going through the index (using the RoboHelp interface) and translating each keyword/phrase. Based on your reply, I should have the translator open these two files in a text editor and translate as you've described? Will the keywords that have already been translated using the RH interface display as translated keywords in the hhc and hhk files? When I overwrite these files into my project the index and TOC will display as translated. True?

[Guest]

The main problem here is that the translator is working in RH8 and you're working in RH7. Come to think of it, have you already imported or dropped the translated topics in? When RH8 upgrades a project from earlier versions, it rewrites the HTML, and the project becomes incompatible with earlier versions of RH. I wonder if you have had / will have any problems with your topics.

Anyway, as soon as the translator opened the RH7 project in RH8, the project would have been updated with the underlying code of the files rewritten. This means that any translation done of the TOC and index directly in RH8 needs to be redone.

Let me illustrate the difference between how these files are structured.

A TOC item in RH7:

<li><object type="text/sitemap">
<param name="Name" value="Introduction">
<param name="Local" value="start\intro.htm">
</object>

The same item in RH8:

<item name="Introduction" link="start\intro.htm">
</item>

Basically, I don't think RH7 will be able to read the RH8 file structures, so you'd probably see a blank TOC and index. At this point, you'll need to resubmit the .hhc and .hhk files to the translator and have him do the translations of these files directly and entirely in a text editor.

After that, yes, the TOC and index should show up properly in RH7.

[techcom56]

I've already dropped the translated topics into the help project and have not had any problems. Here was my method: In Explorer view, I overwrote the project's English folders/files with the translated folders/files. I opened the project and all topics displayed properly. The TOC and index were there (not blank) but displayed in English and not Italian. I've already sent the translator instructions for opening these files in a text editor and translating based on your original reply. I have not heard back from the translator - there's a 5-hour time difference. I'll let you know how this plays out . . .

Thanks again Ben for your valuable feedback.