8 Replies Latest reply: Nov 5, 2009 11:22 PM by Sim467 RSS

    InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?

    Talyianna Community Member
      Hi everyone,

      Pls. can you refer to my last thread about working with InDesign documents in Japanese and Arabic at http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b707dc
      It was also suggested in that thread that perhaps different versions can be installed in separate user accounts on a Mac system.

      We now have a lot more languages that we are working with and I am trying to figure out the MAXIMUM no. of InDesign versions that we can work with. There are NOT many times we will need to work in all of these languages so we are trying to keep costs down as much as possible. Do you think we could get by with just ONE version of InDesign and a few scripts? See this thread at http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b7cd5a/0 where there are links to some workarounds. I have not been able to access those links tho'.

      Any advice you can give will be much appreciated!!! :)

      Here are the languages we need to work in (as you can see...there are a BUNCH):
      Dutch
      English
      German
      Italian
      Spanish
      French
      Hungarian
      Polish
      Portuguese
      Turkish
      Arabic
      Bosnian
      Croatian
      Czech
      Serbian
      Slovak
      Slovenian
      Greek
      Hindi
      Japanese
      Swedish
      Danish
      Finnish
      Norwegian
      Russian

      Thanks a lot for your help:)

      Best regards,
      Christine
        • 1. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
          Nini Tjäder Community Member
          When you say "working in", what exactly do you mean? If you only need the dictionaries/spellchecker for the mentioned languages, then the number of versions is very different from if you need the application to be in those languages (that is having the menus and such in the actual language).
          • 2. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
            Talyianna Community Member
            Nini,
            Let me be more specific...

            We have one document a user manual that is going to be printed in several different languages... all of those languages that I specified above.

            We are having a translation company translate the information for us into all of those languages, and then they sending all of those translations to us so that we can place them into the current InDesign document that we have, that is the original master document for the user manual.

            If I can get by with JUST ONE InDesign CS4 US version, and be able to place all of the translated content into the document, then that would work perfectly and be the ideal solution.
            I am just trying to figure out the best workflow, and the most economical one, so that we can decide how to proceed with this.
            What concerns me greatly are those languages that run from right to left, for example.

            Any advice would be much appreciated!

            Thanks a lot :)
            Christine
            • 3. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
              Mr. Met Community Member
              If the language flows left to right, you can use your version of ID. If it runs left to right, you'll need PDF back from translator and/or you'll need to give translator a template or rough guide showing head, subheads, pull quotes, side bars and any other special text boxes.

              If you want, click through my name and send me an email and I can reply with name/email of the translation company I use which not only does straight translations but will layout or assist client with page layout in ID. Talking to someone directly will probably get you clearer answers faster.

              Also found this script. My apologies if it's been mentioned earlier.

              Script for left to right Hebrew/Arabic. I think Bob Levine came up with the tip.
              • 4. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
                Thomas Phinney Community Member
                You might be able to get by with just one copy of InDesign CS4, English. Almost all the languages are decently and directly supported by this version, though you may have an issue with spell check and hyphenation. The gotchas are for Japanese, Arabic and Hindi.

                For Japanese, you could buy the Japanese version of InDesign, or see:
                http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc0375e

                For Arabic, you could buy the ME version of InDesign, but first see my blog on the topic:
                http://www.thomasphinney.com/2009/01/adobe-world-ready-composer/

                For Hindi, see the blog post above.

                Cheers,

                T
                • 5. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
                  Talyianna Community Member
                  Richard & Thomas,
                  Thank you so much for your help! This info has been a HUGE help!!

                  Christine
                  • 6. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
                    Thomas Phinney Community Member
                    No problem.

                    BTW, if you need more extensive languages covered by spell-check, you might check out "MindSpell": http://www.mindsteam.com/products/mindspell/languages.html

                    I am not recommending this product, as I haven't used it or anything, but it looks like it covers some more languages you might need for spell-check.

                    Cheers,

                    T
                    • 7. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
                      Talyianna Community Member

                      Just came back to give an update...

                       

                      Basically, what we finally ended up using was a $50 "World Tools" plugin for InDesign available from http://www.in-tools.com/plugin.php?p=8

                      along with a few extra fonts I had to search for, for some of the languages...they were free fonts.

                       

                      This worked for us and was exactly what we needed:) (We first had a translation company translate the document for us and hand it back to us in a Word file and a PDF file. The PDF was especially helpful in showing us the exact direction things needed to be going in.

                      I must say that working in languages going in the opposite direction is one of the most difficult things I have ever done... the mind is so trained to think "from left to right" and not the other way around!

                       

                      Thank you again for all of your help!

                       

                      Christine

                      • 8. Re: InDesign Documents in several different languages... how many versions InDesign do we need?
                        Sim467

                        Hello
                        I have been working on Adobe Indesign CS2/CS3 from so many years and was so frustrated by it’s minimum support for Indian Languages.I intalled IndiPlus And SpellPlus Plugin provided by Metadesign Solutions. Indicplus Plug-in is capable to render complex scripts (Indian Languages and others) without error using Unicode fonts. This is the first plugin which supports typing in both Indian and Other languages using complex script in Indesign.
                        SpellPlus delivers the much needed spell check feature to Adobe Indesign in various Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil and Bengali etc. SpellPlus enhances the potential of Indesign by augmenting the language and spelling options available to the user It just saved me.

                        IndicPlus – Helps type in any Indian Language with Unicode fonts

                        SpellPlus – Spell Checker for various Indian Languages

                        Site:

                        http://www.metadesignsolutions.com/index-3.html

                        Never had any problems with it. Awesome tool for Indian Languages. Has one tool for Adobe Indesign CS4 also. I will highly recommend it.
                        Cheers
                        SA