1. Open standards in use in localisation - an engineering approach Andrés Vega, LRC XIII Localisation4All, Dublin, Ireland 2 nd October 2008

2. About the Author About the Author - Andrés Vega 8+ years of experience as a Localisation Engineer with Tek Translation International. Specializing in complex project engineering with special focus on CMS, encodings and complex scripts. Previous work as a programming languages teacher: OO programming, C and Java. Background in Chemistry and Healthcare.

3. AgendaAgenda  Why Standards?  Unicode  OpenType Fonts  XML  CMS  TMX  XLIFF  TBX and SRX  Final thoughts and Q&A

4. Why Standards?  Allow faster technology development  Assembling standard components  Concentrating effort on specialisation  Increase competence, focused on features (not compatibility)  Facilitate inter-operability  Open standards allow information to be shared (Not locked on proprietary standards)  Complementary tools may be developed  Choose tool/resource for each job  Guarantee future compatibility  Provide conformance validation mechanisms  Standard verification serves as QA procedure

5. UnicodeUnicode  Challenges  Too Many Character sets: Three great ‘families’ (ANSI, DBCS, BiDi): three application types  Multilingual data (storage, display, processing)  Cross-platform and character set inter-conversion issues  What Unicode is  Universal character encoding standard by the Unicode Consortium  21-bit character set with 3 main encoding forms (UTF-32, UTF-16, UTF-8)  Not just the character set  Character properties (Name, Category, Casing, Decomposition, …)  Annexes, Technical Reports: ( Comparison, Sorting, Hyphenation, …)  What Unicode is not  Glyph repertoire: glyphs provided are examples, not canonical!  Unicode alone does not provide language support!

6. Unicode (Benefits and Issues)  Unicode benefits  One vendor neutral encoding standard for all languages  Stable, but it keeps evolving  Multilingual rendering/storage/transfer (No conversion - No corruption)  Unified content processes (Globalized, Web enabled)  Internationalisation  Easy conversion from/to/between legacy codepages  Issues or drawbacks with Unicode  Size (ANSI: 1byte, DBCS: 2byte, UTF-8 1-4 byte, UTF-16 2-4 byte)  UniHan related (Font dependence, ‘Gaiji’ and variants)  Inconsistencies on implementation choices across scripts  Several ways to generate pre-composed characters  Implementation issues  Script Enabling requires: Input, Display, Storage, Retrieval, Output  Bidirectional support, Complex Scripts issues  Implementation status

7. Unicode (Transition Issues)  Transition issues  Mixed content: legacy and UTF8 (FrameMaker) FM7 FM8 + update Import old corrupted Filter version English seen OK vars & template variables corrupts ANSI  Localisation tools, filters, etc not fully adapted or tested Example: Style names containing extended characters New filter for FrameMaker 8: English names are OK (UTF-8 = ASCII) German designed file: Filter does not accept UTF-8 Style names  Backwards conversions: Unicode version saved as non-Unicode version ANSI Content ANSI Variables ANSI Template TTX UTF-8 Content ANSI Variables ANSI Template UTF-8 Content ANSI Variables ANSI Template UTF-8 Content Corrupt Vars ANSI Template

8.  Pre-Unicode Workflow (FrameMaker) Character corruption risks in all orange (middle 3 groups) steps Final document presents issues in TOC and index generation and in searches  Unicode Workflow: Unicode Unicode Workflow EnglishFrameMakerWith DesignFonts Western RTF and fonts CE RTF and fonts Cyrillic RTF and fonts Turkish RTF and fonts Greek RTF and fonts Baltic RTF and fonts File PreparationTranslation & ReviewDTP and MergeFiles to localize Western RTFCE RTFCyrillic RTFTurkish RTFGreek RTFBaltic RTF MultilingualTargetDocumentWith severalANSI fonts Back Conversion FM (Design font)FM (CE font)FM (Cyrillic font)FM (Turkish font)FM (Greek font)FM (Baltic font) EnglishFrameMakerDesign Fonts UTF-16 TTX and fonts UTF-8 XML MultilingualDocument &Design Fonts UTF-8 FM withoriginal designfonts

9. OpenType fonts  Challenges  Two font families (TrueType and PostScript), two font technologies  Inter-platform issues  Benefits of Open Type  Support large character sets (Unicode, multiscript)  Glyph variants supported: Solves Unicode UniHan ambiguities  Supports advanced typography  Font embedding control  Features  Contain both TrueType and PostScript outline data  Glyph substitution  Glyph positioning  Script and language information

10. XMLXML  eXtensible Markup Language (Meta-language for markup languages)  Used to define, share and validate information (data and structure)  An XML document contains  XML declaration :  Document Type declaration(s)  Elements Content or  Other: comments, entities/NCRs, instructions, conditional sections  Specific Syntax (well-formed XML)  Only one root element  Tags in nested open/close pairs:  Element names obey certain conventions  Elements may contain attributes  DTD (Valid XML)  Defines rules on structure, valid tags and attributes and valid data  Guarantees reliable data exchange between different systems  Can be included in each XML, but is normally external

11. XML (Benefits)  Benefits  Simple (XML is plain text) but can embed any content type  Platform independent, Unicode encoded  Content is easily validated cross-platform: data transfer is safer  Structured (defines structural relationships within data)  Open and Extensible well supported standard  Metadata and version control capable  Format independent  Powerful data transformation tools (XSL): Multiple outputs

12. XML (Localisation benefits and issues)  Localisation benefits  Structured: Content detached & merged (updates handling)  XML support easily implemented on Localisation processes/tools  Easy validation versus DTD  Extensible: XML based localisation standards: XLIFF, TMX, TBX,...  Metadata (s ource/target version control, updates, element status)  Format independent  Single-sourcing (localized once, published into many formats)  Source content and formatting changes are not inter-dependant  Content localisation and proofreading before formatting (DTP)  Issues  Transition needs to be well planned and performed  Segmentation issues (DTD needs to be multilingual aware)

13. CMSCMS  What are Content Management Systems?  Set of tools configured around a data repository (database)  Designed to manage information in small meaningful bits  Information is isolated from format  Have workflow capabilities, version control and change tracking  Store localized content layers (as other alternative content layers)  General benefits  Granularity (no redundancy)  Reuse (content reuse and multi output)  Improved Quality and Consistency  Single-source and multi-publishing  Easy rebranding/reformatting  Metadata info and version control  Workflow and Automation  Localisation benefits  Workflow status control features  Localisation of updates via content deltas: improved time-to-market  Localisation independent from output format (better matching)

14. CMS (Issues)  Issues  Authoring for reuse (topic model, single-source, cross-reference)  Segmentation issues LF Chars ( 0A ) No Validation! Segmentation issue  Localisation readiness  CMS must be multilingual enabled (storage, I/O, processing)  Localisation workflow support  Strong version control and version rollback  Capability to export up-to-date paired TM content  Integration with LQA tools  Not to increase ROI in the short run (DTP is still needed!!) CMS Translation in XML LF not visible Broken segmentation LF also formats lists Quark Xxxx Xxxx xxxx Solution Remove meaningless LF Export remaining as tags Workaround LF converted to tag Meaningful tags internal

15. CMS Localisation Workflow Client CMS Select only delta contentTranslation (TTX format) Revision (TTX format) Prepared for Proofreading (Colour-coded RTF format) Content Validation in Tracked-changes RTF Insertion of Validation changes (TTX & TMs) Full document in XML Layout & Consistence Validation in PDF file DTP in FrameMaker Preprocessing of XML Import to FrameMaker Delivery in FrameMaker XML Tek Client Validators

16. TMXTMX  What is TMX?  Translation Memory eXchange  Standard by LISA (Localisation Standards Industry Association)  Provides a standard method for TM data description  XML-compliant (validated against its TMX DTD)  Uses other ISO standards for date, time, lang, country  Consists of  Container format specification  Translation unit elements  Optional format description elements (font change,...)  Subflows (footnotes, index entries)  Low-level meta-markup format for segment content  Segment element

17. TMX (Benefits and Drawbacks)  Benefits  Transfer TM assets across tools/vendors  Provides clients with control over their translated assets  Non-proprietary and vendor neutral  Can be integrated with LQA tools  Provides Translators/Vendors with freedom of tool choice  Specialized tools share TM assets  Tools may be outdated, assets will not  Facilitates work distribution/outsourcing  Issues  Tag handling  TMX DTD cannot validate inline codes  TMX compliance level  Segmentation issues

18. XLIFFXLIFF  Xml Localisation Inter-exchange File Format  Standard by LISA Special Interest Group OSCAR  Tool-neutral XML-based standard localisation resource container format  To store/transfer/manipulate localizable content, context and other info  Has Built-in support for CAT tools and related standards (TBX, TMX)  Features:  Translation suggestions (TM, Glossary, MT) to approve or edit  Metadata: Translate, notes, context info, version  Hierarchical data structures  Abstraction of formatting and inline codes:  Structural formatting stored in the skeleton file  Inline formatting can be dealt with two ways Replaced by g (paired) and x (isolated) tags ( OpenTag style) Encapsulated into bpt, ept (paired), it or ph (isolated) tags

19. XLIFF (Description)  Separates localizable and non-localizable content  Non-localisable: Skeleton (separate or embedded)  Localizable 'file' Elements with Header (metadata) and Body  Body can contain 'trans-unit' and 'bin-unit' elements  Each trans-unit can have unique id, resource id, resource type, translate yes/no Translatable content. Translatable content source and language Traducción. Currently validated translation Translatable content. Contenido traducible. alt-trans translation suggestion(s) (closing tag)

20. XLIFF (Benefits and Drawbacks)  Benefits: For the translation process  One common format on which to translate  Control on Translatable/Non-translatable content  Better information handling (context, notes, metadata)  Better TM matching due to formatting abstraction  Concurrent tool processing visible at review stage  Support for all localisation phases  Supports metrics info on each trans-unit  Benefits: For localisation tool developers  Common platform for tool developers to write to  Easy adoption of new formats (new filters to XLIFF)  All generic XML processing benefits  Drawbacks  Conversion tools needed into XLIFF and back  Many XLIFF features are not implemented by most tools  Segmentation is inherent to XLIFF file generation  As opposed to tailored tools, WYSIWYG is difficult to attain

21. XLIFF Workflow  No XLIFF Scenario  XLIFF Scenario Many Formats!.xml.mif.dl l.rc.ht m.rtf.resx SGML Editor Software Editor Reviewer A Translator A Reviewer B Translator B Many Filters!.xml.mif.dl l.rc.ht m.rtf.resx SGML Editor Software Editor Reviewer A Translator A Reviewer B Translator B XLIFF

22. Other LISA standards: TBX, SRX TBX  What is TBX?  Term Base eXchange standard by LISA  XML based, vendor-neutral, open standard  Benefits  Better control of terminology (source consistency)  Reduced glossarisation effort (localisation phase)  Platform and tool independent glossaries (global consistency)  Current status  TBX Basic (Lighter approach)  TBX Checker SRX  What is SRX?  Segmentation Rules eXchange format  Describes how localisation tools segment text for processing  Benefits  Standardises segmentation process (avoid segmentation issues)

23. Final Thoughts Unicode  Use Always: If tool does not support it, convert at end stage XML  Powerful for single-source, multi-output requirements CMS  Costly. Depends on volume. First consider XML model, then migrate TMX  Use for safe TM tool to tool transfer, specially software into doc XLIFF  Not fully implemented. Good alternative for Java or Web content.  Use it to unify side processes (LQA) TBX  Use to exchange glossary info. Good for clients SRX  Very much need but lacks implementation.

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25. Thank You Q & A Andrés Vega Muñoz Localisation Engineer Tek Translation International Email: av@tektrans.com www.tektrans.com