Translation Concepts
WorldServer provides a mechanism for automating much of the translation process. When WorldServer is set up to serve your business environment, the entire process of translating, reviewing, and managing the content (or any subset of these tasks) can be governed by a software workflow that ensures all the required tasks are addressed.
When you start with WorldServer, you have a source document (an asset) in one language and you want to translate that file into one or more other languages. The translations reside in target documents (assets). WorldServer enables you to have WorldServer generate the target asset automatically, based on the source document, with some of the target asset already translated using the WorldServer translation memory engine.
For WorldServer to generate the target, it must know where to put it, and what to name it. Usually, the target document has the same name as the source document, just a different directory. For example, the product_info.pdf file for English is in one directory and its German counterpart has the same file name in a different directory. The general use case for WorldServer is that you organize your content along language lines. For example, you could have a directory called english that you use to store all of the English content, and a directory called german that is used as the target for the German content. The directory structure under english can be arbitrarily complex and the directory structure under german will automatically mirror this directory structure when you generate the target asset.
To make this work, there are two key concepts that you must set up. First, you must specify for WorldServer which directories contain content for which languages. For example, you specify that any content under the english directory is in English and any content under the german directory is in German. WorldServer assumes that this applies to all of the files in this directory and any content in any of its subdirectories. You can override this if you want a more complex configuration.
When you have set up the language mappings, you then need to identify the source and target relationships between these directories. For example, to translate the content from the english directory (or its subdirectories) and put the results in the german directory, you would create a link between these two. When you have done this mapping and linkage, if you modify content in the english directory, WorldServer will create new content in the german directory that parallels this content.
- Locales – Repositories for the language you will be working with
- An asset interface – An abstraction for how you connect to content (your assets)
- Linkage – A mapping of your source language assets to the target languages
- Users – Creation of users and specification of what they can do, including what functionality they can use (determined by User Type) and what tasks they can perform (determined by workgroup, workflow role, and locale). You can control which WorldServer features each user can access.
- Workflows – You (and the Project Manager, by default) can create workflows that automate the globalization process with steps, assignees, and logic.
- Projects – A project is essentially a set of tasks to perform on specified content. You can create projects manually, or set them up to be created automatically, for example when content changes are detected.
Depending on the amount of work you have to do and what you are hoping to accomplish, you can use one of two options:
- Complete all the setup steps in this chapter to use WorldServer workflow and projects. This method is recommended for most production environments.
- Adapt, translate, and review content without using WorldServer workflow or projects. This method is recommended only for small projects, such as in a pilot or evaluation setting. To do this, complete all the setup steps in this chapter except the last three sections: creating additional users, creating workflow, and creating a project.
This chapter explains the concepts and provides an overview of the steps required to set up WorldServer. For detailed procedures for each of these steps, see the subsequent chapters and refer to the WorldServer online help.