The process
How Our Technical Translation Process Works
Every project runs through the same six stages, from the moment your files reach us to the memory we hand back at the end. This page walks the technical translation process from a buyer's seat, with honest timelines and the points where we need something from you.
Files in before 5pm Central get an itemized price and a delivery date the same working hour.
The same person handles your kickoff, your questions and your delivery. No ticket queue.
IDML returns as IDML, DWG as DWG, string files with their placeholders intact.
The Six Stages at a Glance
Before the detail, here is the shape of a typical engagement. Most clients spend real time only on stages 1, 2 and 6.
- Quote. You send files, we analyze volume and repetition, you get an itemized price within one business hour.
- Kickoff. We agree the language variant, gather reference material, name a technical contact and fix the deadline.
- Translation. A sector specialist works the files and sends batched questions through a query sheet.
- Review. A second linguist and a set of automated checks go over the bilingual file.
- Layout. If you asked for it, the target text is put back into your page design and proofed.
- Delivery. Files, optional certificate of accuracy, updated memory, and a correction window after handover.
Stage 1. Getting a Price and a Date
Send the material however suits you: email attachments, a link to your cloud folder, or an upload through our transfer form. Zipped folders are fine. If the files are confidential, ask for our mutual NDA before you send anything and we will have it back to you signed the same day.
What happens next is mechanical. The files go through our analysis tool, which counts source words, measures internal repetition, and compares everything against any memory we already hold for your account. That analysis produces a quote broken out by line: translation, independent review, desktop publishing if needed, terminology work, and any certification. You see what each element costs rather than a single opaque figure. The page on what technical translation costs explains how those lines are calculated and which factors move them.
Turnaround on the quote is one business hour, counted between 8am and 6pm Central Time, Monday to Friday. A 40-file CAD package may take longer to scope and we will tell you so in the first reply rather than going quiet. Nothing about the quote commits you to anything.
Stage 2. Kickoff and Project Setup
Once you approve the quote, a project manager takes ownership of the job and stays with it. Kickoff is usually a short email exchange, occasionally a 20-minute call for larger programs. Four things get settled:
- Target variant. Mexican or European Spanish, Brazilian or European Portuguese, Canadian or metropolitan French, Simplified or Traditional Chinese. This choice affects vocabulary, units and regulatory references, and changing it later means redoing work.
- Reference material. Previous translations, product photos, an existing glossary, your style guide, a link to the machine in operation. Anything that shows a linguist what the words point at.
- Your technical contact. One named engineer or documentation owner who can answer questions during the project. This matters more than most clients expect.
- Schedule. Final deadline, plus intermediate deliveries if you want to start reviewing before the whole set is finished.
The project manager then assembles the team and prepares the language assets. Where a program will run for months or spans several document families, we set up structured term management for the account at this point, and your engineers get a term list to approve before anyone starts translating.
Stage 3. Translation by a Sector Specialist
Assignment goes by subject first, language second. A press brake manual does not go to whoever is free; it goes to a linguist who has stood next to a press brake. Our named technical translators carry engineering degrees or industrial careers behind their language credentials, and each one covers a defined set of sectors. For pairs outside the eight profiles we publish, we draw on a wider network recruited against the same bar.
The translator works in Trados Studio or memoQ, connected to your memory and term list. As they go, ambiguities in your source get collected instead of guessed at. Those become the query sheet.
A translator asking questions is a translator reading closely. Our query sheets arrive on a fixed rhythm, twice a week on long projects, once at midpoint on short ones. Each row carries the segment number, the source text, the specific ambiguity, and a proposed answer. Your engineer replies with a yes or a correction, usually in under fifteen minutes for the whole batch. Vendors who never ask anything are not finding your source perfect. They are guessing.
Stage 4. Review Before Anything Reaches You
The finished draft goes to a second qualified linguist who compares it against your source, then through automated checking software that verifies figures, tags, spacing and term compliance. Nothing is required from you during this stage, and it is where the buffer in your schedule lives: roughly a third of the production time on a typical project sits here. The mechanics of each control, what gets flagged, and what happens to a defect that slips through are set out on our quality assurance page.
Stage 5. Putting the Text Back Into Your Layout
Translated text rarely fits the space the English occupied. If you ordered technical desktop publishing, this is where a production specialist rebuilds the document in InDesign, FrameMaker, AutoCAD or Word, adjusting column widths, redrawing callout leaders, regenerating the contents list and index, and fixing cross-references that shifted. Screenshots with embedded text get recreated when you supply the interface in the target language, or annotated with a translated caption when you cannot.
You receive a PDF proof at this point, before final files. Mark it up like you would mark up a proof from your own design team. If layout work is outside the scope, files simply come back in the working format with the same structure they arrived in, ready for your own production team.
Stage 6. Delivery, Certificate and What Stays Behind
The handover package includes the target files in their original format, a PDF proof where DTP applied, and a bilingual review file if your in-country colleagues want to comment segment by segment. A signed certificate of accuracy on company letterhead is available on request at no extra charge for work we translated, which covers most regulatory and audit submissions our clients face.
After delivery, three things persist. Your translation memory is updated with everything approved on the project and belongs to you, so the next revision of a manual costs less than the first. Your term list carries forward. And the file stays under a correction window: report anything that reads wrong within 30 days and it is fixed at no charge. Source files are deleted from our working storage on request at any point.
What We Need From You
Projects that run smoothly tend to have the same six things in place at the start. None of them takes long, and each one saves days later.
- A frozen source. Send the version you intend to publish, not the draft still moving.
- Editable files where they exist. A native InDesign or Word file beats an exported PDF every time.
- Any glossary or previous translation you already own, even a rough spreadsheet.
- One contact who can answer product questions inside a day or two.
- The target market, not only the language. Chile and Spain read differently.
- The real driver behind the deadline, whether it is an audit date, a shipment or a trade show.
If you are unsure how to package a messy document set, browse the the documents we translate most often and send us what you have. Sorting it out is part of stage 1.
How Long a Technical Translation Project Takes
One translator sustains 2,000–2,500 words of technical text per working day. Add revision time, plus roughly a day at each end for preparation and final checks, and you can estimate most jobs yourself. The table gives working ranges rather than promises, because file condition and layout scope move them.
| Volume | Single linguist | Parallel team |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 2,000 words | 1–2 business days | Not applicable |
| 2,000–10,000 words | 4–7 business days | 2–3 business days |
| 10,000–40,000 words | 2–4 weeks | 8–12 business days |
| Above 40,000 words | Phased weekly batches | Phased, scoped at quote |
Desktop publishing adds time proportional to page count and complexity, typically 1–3 days for a 60-page manual. Multi-language launches run in parallel rather than in sequence, so ten languages take about as long as the slowest one.
When the Date Cannot Move
Sometimes the audit is Thursday. Splitting a document across several linguists is possible and we do it regularly, with three conditions: the term list is locked before anyone starts, all translators work against a shared memory updated live, and one reviser reads the entire output end to end so the seams between sections disappear. That last part is what most low-cost vendors skip, and it is why split jobs from elsewhere often read like four different manuals.
Splitting costs more per word and works better on some documents than others. A parts catalog divides cleanly. A safety manual with heavy internal cross-referencing does not. Our rush translation service covers the scheduling side, and the honest answer on a truly impossible date is that we will say so rather than take the order. More practical questions are collected in the general questions section if you want to keep reading.
Common Questions About Working With Us
How long will my project take?
Use 2,000–2,500 words per translator per day as your baseline, then add a day at the start for preparation and a day at the end for checks and packaging. A 10,000-word manual with no layout work typically lands in 5 to 7 business days. Your quote carries a firm delivery date rather than an estimate, and that date accounts for file condition and desktop publishing.
How do I send you large or sensitive files?
Attach anything under 20 MB to an email. Above that, use the upload form on our quote page or share a link from your own cloud folder, whichever your IT policy prefers. Transfers are encrypted and files sit in restricted storage that only the assigned team can reach. We sign your NDA or provide ours before you send a single document, if that is your process.
Who answers my questions during the project?
Your project manager, by name, by direct email and phone. They coordinate the linguists, compile the query sheet, and give you a status answer the same day you ask. Questions about a specific term or passage go through them to the translator and come back with the reasoning attached, so you are never guessing why a choice was made.
What file formats do I get back?
Whatever you sent, in the same structure. InDesign comes back as IDML plus a PDF proof, AutoCAD as DWG with translated title blocks and annotations, XLIFF and PO files with placeholders and variables untouched, Word with styles and numbering intact. If you need an additional output such as a print-ready PDF or an XML export, ask at quote stage and it goes into the scope.
What if my document changes mid-project?
Tell your project manager as soon as you know. If the change lands early, we swap the file and requote the difference. Later on, we translate the delta as a separate mini-project and merge it, which costs less than restarting. Send a comparison document or track changes if you have them, because identifying what moved is most of the work.
Can I test you before committing to a large project?
Yes. Send 300 to 500 words of representative content, ideally the hardest passage you have, and we will translate it at no charge in your target language. Have your in-country engineer read it. A sample tells you more about a vendor than any brochure, and it lets us calibrate terminology before a real deadline is at stake.