Translating Help

[Guest]

Hi,

My company is currently preparing to rollout a new version of our product in several languages, including German, Spanish, Korean, Turkish, French, Dutch, and Slavic. To do this, we need to translate our help system, which is done in RoboHelp. We have the US version of RoboHelp X5. Do we need to purchase the RoboHelp X5 International version in order to support these character sets for our translation or will the US version work for this? What is the difference in the US and international versions? Thanks for your help!

Regards,
Hughes Hilton

[---Dirk_Bock]

Hi,

with the list of languages you have given, RH is out of the race; it works only with languages using the Western character set..

As you didn't tell us about your output format, I can only relate a way for compiled HTML help. Our procedure looks like this:

1. Finish your project in your source language.

2. Give all the HTML files - and, depending on the translator's technical aptitude, possibly the table of contents (.hhc) and index (.hhk), too.

3. Make a complete copy of your project in the source language.

4. Copy the translated files into the new project.

5. Modify the copy's project file (.hhp) using HTML Help Workshop or FAR to set language, font sets and character sets.

6. Compile the translated project, again using HTML Help Workshop or FAR.

This procedure works quite well, although you have to do some thorough checking, especially when using double-byte languages.

One more note: in order for everything to work correctly, you'll have to do the final compilation on a machine running a windows version of the desired target language. Mulit-language windows works most of the time, but not in every case.

Regards

---Dirk Bock