itsmedtt
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Translate Website from English to Spanish
Greetings,
We currently have a website built in Dreamweaver. We would like to have a mirrored site in Spanish for the Mexican market. The site is constantly being updated and revised so I would like a solution that updates in the English site are reflected on the Spanish site, if that is possible. Our Web Mistress is not bi-lingual however, we have several Hispanic employees that are bi-lingual and can assist in cleaning up grammatical errors. Using the Babelfish and Google translators generate CSS errors on the page.
What is the best way to translate Dreamweaver constructed website to Spanish?
We currently have a website built in Dreamweaver. We would like to have a mirrored site in Spanish for the Mexican market. The site is constantly being updated and revised so I would like a solution that updates in the English site are reflected on the Spanish site, if that is possible. Our Web Mistress is not bi-lingual however, we have several Hispanic employees that are bi-lingual and can assist in cleaning up grammatical errors. Using the Babelfish and Google translators generate CSS errors on the page.
What is the best way to translate Dreamweaver constructed website to Spanish?
It may be because you're trying to use characters not part of the character set. The easiest thing would be to substitute words so you can use the ANSI character set. There's more info at http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/ and http://www.unicode.org/unicode/standard/standard.html but my experience is that automated translations do a terrible job (since they're a word by word translation) so I think you'll have problems with the wording itself.
ASKER
Greetings KenAdney,
I agree that word-by-word translation software solutions are not precise enough to stand alone has a solution. However, our website has several hundred pages and we are hoping to find a translator that is compatible with Dreamweaver so that we can translate the bulk of the information and then have a bi-lingual employee assist the web designer in correcting grammatical errors created in the translation. In addition, we think you are on to something with the character set creating the CSS errors but before we make changes there, we wanted to determine what the best translator to use/ purchase then adjust according to the needs of that software. This is the beginning of our discovery process and we are still open to all solutions.
I agree that word-by-word translation software solutions are not precise enough to stand alone has a solution. However, our website has several hundred pages and we are hoping to find a translator that is compatible with Dreamweaver so that we can translate the bulk of the information and then have a bi-lingual employee assist the web designer in correcting grammatical errors created in the translation. In addition, we think you are on to something with the character set creating the CSS errors but before we make changes there, we wanted to determine what the best translator to use/ purchase then adjust according to the needs of that software. This is the beginning of our discovery process and we are still open to all solutions.
Hi itsmedtt,
I don't think there is a solution within Dreamweaver that will do what you ask. The best way to accomplish things is to create your pages with all of the common elements (graphics, fonts, etc) in the CSS and then use includes to pull in one of two files (english or spanish) based on user preference to handle the navigation and content.
You will need a third-party translation program that can run scheduled jobs and set it to go through the directory with the english files, look for changed files, and output a new spanish version and hopefully a log of changes. The bilingual employees will use that log to go through and correct the errors the translation program generates. By using includes (which can be .txt files), you remove the need to find translation software that works with HTML.
I don't think there is a solution within Dreamweaver that will do what you ask. The best way to accomplish things is to create your pages with all of the common elements (graphics, fonts, etc) in the CSS and then use includes to pull in one of two files (english or spanish) based on user preference to handle the navigation and content.
You will need a third-party translation program that can run scheduled jobs and set it to go through the directory with the english files, look for changed files, and output a new spanish version and hopefully a log of changes. The bilingual employees will use that log to go through and correct the errors the translation program generates. By using includes (which can be .txt files), you remove the need to find translation software that works with HTML.
ASKER
Good Evening Jason1178,
Our Web Mistress has left for today, I will have to get we her in the am to formulate an intelligent response, as I am untrained in Dreamweaver. :) However, your solution appears to be what we are looking for. Do you have an opinion concerning which 3rd party translation software is the best?
Our Web Mistress has left for today, I will have to get we her in the am to formulate an intelligent response, as I am untrained in Dreamweaver. :) However, your solution appears to be what we are looking for. Do you have an opinion concerning which 3rd party translation software is the best?
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ASKER
OK, but how do you really feel about the accuracy of the translators. :)
I going home too eat a biscuit! I will pass this along to the Web Lady and check back in the am.
Thanks
I going home too eat a biscuit! I will pass this along to the Web Lady and check back in the am.
Thanks
I've never had one bad experience with translation software, nor have I lost time and money trying to use them.
Enjoy your evening. I'll be here tomorrow.
J
Enjoy your evening. I'll be here tomorrow.
J
ASKER
We finally decided after much research to use software from http://www.systransoft.com/index.html. Then use bi-lingual associates to localize the text. Jason1178 put us on the right path. I'll try to remember to come back and give update to how well this works. Thanks
Thanks for the points! Please do remember to post back...I'm curious to see how well it works for you.
ASKER