Multilingual or Foreign Language Typesetting and Desktop Publishing

Accent marks or diacriticals are rare in English but are a common occurrence in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other languages. Learn how to use these marks.

Foreign language typesetting can be very challenging - even when using the right software and platform, or having the help of a very experienced typesetter

Follow these guidelines to insure that documents designed in one language will retain the same look and feel yet be properly tailored for the differences that come from using a different language.

Discover ways to save money when printing variations of a job, such as when doing the same brochure in multiple languages or tailored to slightly different audiences.

When designing a piece for translation or other variata data, the main trick is to keep anything that changes on the black plate, or key plate only.

Yes, you do have restrictions when designing a piece for translation or other variata data while also saving money. But, you can still do nice designs even if you have to abide by these restrictions.

QuarkXPress Passport is the multi-language version of the standard or single language QuarkXPress. It contains all the features of the standard QuarkXPress plus additional support for multi-language publishing, including multiple dictionaries and a user interface that can be set for any of the languages supported by Passport.

The Language Center describes a few translation issues such as all caps, hyphenation, quotation marks, and call-outs. They also run down the foreign language typesetting capabilities of several popular desktop publishing programs.

Heed this advice when you need to hire someone else to handle translations for your work.

Diane Burns provides a PDF file that explains "why InDesign is the right application for the global marketplace."