Moving text from Word to InDesign

A method to move text from Microsoft Word to Adobe InDesign by MacKey Composition:
Moving Text From Word to InDesign

The PostScript may, unfortunately, mean that the method no longer works with the latest versions of Word and InDesign.
PostScript
You will notice I don’t make mention of the newest version of Microsoft Word for Mac, Word 2008. The reason for this is Microsoft’s removal of Viual Basic for Applications (VBA) from Word 2008. VBA is a scripting language that allowed, among other things, the recording of your actions within Word into a Macro that, with the press of a button, ran those actions just as if you were going through them all over again. It’s very powerful and my method of using Word described above depends heavily on VBA. Thus, I never upgraded to Word 2008, as none of my Macros would have worked. Apparently Microsoft decided it wasn’t such a great idea to remove VBA from Word after all, and has promised its return in the next version of Word for Mac.

Jamie McKee added in a personal communication dated 30/10/2012:
"As for more information regarding the PostScript…with the release of Word 2011, VBA was put back in, so everything works just like it did with Word 2000 and Word 2004 for Mac. Word 2008 is the only oddball."

Smashing magazine

Some excerpts and links on layout, graphics and typography from the Smashing magazine site:
(Capitalising of Smashing headings changed by your truly from US convention to my preferred convention)

• Smashing magazine home page
• Typography guidelines and references

Here are carefully selected articles about typography and type design that have been published in Smashing Magazine over all the years.

• Mind your en and em dashes: typographic etiquette

An understanding of typographic etiquette separates the master designers from the novices. A well-trained designer can tell within moments of viewing a design whether its creator knows how to work with typography. Typographic details aren’t just inside jokes among designers. They have been built up from thousands of years of written language, and applying them holds in place long-established principles that enable typography to communicate with efficiency and beauty.

• Applying macrotypography for a more readable web page

Any application of typography can be divided into two arenas: micro and macro. Understanding the difference between the two is especially useful when crafting a reading experience, because it allows the designer to know when to focus on legibility and when to focus on readability.

Sea and Navy magazine

To see the English version of the special issue of Mer et Marine for Euronaval 2012, go here.

Style may have suffered due to pressure of work over the last few days to get this finished and on line in time, but on this particular occasion I want to raise a different issue, namely language- and culture-specific typography and layout.
The source is French written for a readership comprising naval industry professionals and the broader maritime and technical communities with sometimes less specific knowledge of naval defence, despite their keen interest.
The target version is written for a more tightly defined readership of naval defence professionals.

This is the first time in my long career that I have had the pleasure of such a good working relationship with the editor-in-chief and his graphic artist and the first time that constructive dialogue between us all has resulted in the adoption of some layout conventions specific to the English version, hence different from the French version. I refer specifically to white space between the paragraphs for improved reading comfort and the minimal capitalisation of heading and subheadings allowing the unambiguous use of military acronyms.

Please feel free to comment? Your feedback, positive or negative, will be most welcome.

Mer et Marine Euronaval 2012

22/10/2012

Le nouveau magazine Mer et Marine sort aujourd'hui

See here.

Deux extraits de la présentation :

C’est aujourd’hui, à l’occasion de l’ouverture du salon Euronaval, que parait l’édition 2012/2013 de notre nouveau magazine sur les forces navales militaires. Ce Hors Série de 132 pages présente les dernières nouveautés des industriels (bâtiments de surface, sous-marins, forces spéciales, drones, électronique, satellites, armement, propulsion, aéronautique…), fait le point sur les grands programmes européens et les contrats à l’export, propose un état de lieux des grandes marines du monde et revient sur les problématiques de sécurité maritime ainsi que les grands enjeux liés à la maîtrise des océans.

Nous tenons, enfin, à saluer Steve Dyson, qui a assuré la traduction anglaise du magazine (avec une version optimisée pour le lectorat anglo-saxon), afin que les lecteurs internationaux puissent également profiter de ce support unique de par la richesse de son contenu et de son iconographie. Un travail colossal puisqu’il a fallu transformer, en anglais technique, plus de 300.000 signes de textes sur des sujets particulièrement variés et souvent très pointus.

Version optimisée pour le lectorat anglo-saxon...
Ce commentaire fait référence à l'emploi des majuscules et miniscules dans les titres et sous-titres, également au blanc entre les paragraphes.

Vos commentaires seront les bienvenus.

Freelancery

Freelance translators looking for tips on how to be better freelancers, or freelance businesspeople, as opposed to how to be better translators, should take a look at The Freelancery by Walt Kania. Walt offers good advice and ideas expressed in exemplary writing style.

Walt's 'portable wisdom' compilation: The 50 most useful articles from The Freelancery, neatly woven into a take-along PDF. Worth $18,756 in saved pain. Free here.

Swearing. Context: media

Finding equivalents for swearwords can be fun. But when a newspaper users a swearword in a front-page headline and other media want to talk about it, they have a challenge on their hands.

A case in point was "Casse-toi riche con" on the front-page of leading left-wing French daily Libération on 10 September. Slate.fr put out an interesting post.

The New Statesman opted for "Get lost, you rich bastard".

Both the fun and the challenge are summed up by the tweet by trilingual (English, French, Arabic) CNN International anchor Hala Gorani: Ok les bilingues, traduisez-moi l'insulte "con" s'il vous plait. Essayez de ne pas faire trop grossier!

Transcreation explained

Creative translators serving discerning customers, sometimes referred to as 'transcreators' -- in addition to translators specialising in advertising and 'corporate image' documents, the community also includes translators of technical journalism -- have long found it surprisingly difficult to present their services and explain how they work concisely and convincingly. The August/September issue of The Linguist, published by the UK-based Chartered Institute of Linguists, contains a ground-breaking article entitled Making it ad up (go to page 20) by friend and colleague Bill Maslen, owner-manager of and chief transcreator at The Word Gym.

The lead line reads: "Bill Maslen offers an inside account of advertising transcreation". While Bill focuses essentially on the advertising industry, most of the article is equally applicable to any translator-customer relationship in which both parties believe that the only way to achieve the greatest impact on the translation customer's customers is through mutual trust based on sustained dialogue.

The good news, for translators aiming to work for the most discerning customers, is that such relationships are increasingly seen as essential in advertising, finance and banking.
The bad news is that in other industries this type of relationship is less common and more difficult to both establish and maintain.
And once such a relationship has been established, there is the risk that a purchasing  executive might decide that intellectual services like translation are a commodity, like nuts and bolts, and that prices must be driven down.

For yours truly, one lesson is that these industries have something to learn not only from Bill's ground-breaking article, but also from the advertising, finance and banking industries where more people appear to know what words are worth. And where purchasing department are not responsible for buying in intellectual services.

The Word Gym page on transcreation closes with the comment:
"If your copy is going to work well in another language, in another culture, you need additional creative input."
We couldn't agree more...