The Challenge
Based on a contract with a leading translation agency, we secured a government educational project targeting the Cambodian community in an American state. Cambodian (Khmer) is not as commonly used compared to the languages of neighboring countries such a Thailand and Vietnam. This presented us with more of a challenge in providing qualified native Khmer linguists. Moreover, the program chosen by our client for typesetting did not support the Cambodian language. It would require a very expensive add-on to accommodate Cambodian, but there was no room in the client’s budget. At the same time the client could not allow us to use different applications because they were afraid that Cambodian might appear to have a format different from the 13 other language versions included in the project.
The Solution
Given our vast resources and experience in managing Asian languages, we were able to assign the project to a knowledgeable Khmer linguist who would perform the initial translation, as well as to additional linguists who would handle the tasks of editing and proofreading. The translator and editor both had previous experience working on projects related to the U.S. government, as well as impressive knowledge of the subject. However, the DTP issues would require a solution that was very creative but also time-consuming. First we used the application that supported Cambodian to generate the overall layout, and subsequently we deleted all the graphics and other design items in order to leave only Cambodian texts. We then saved each page as a separate EPS file, and deleted all text from the original applications. This left only design items such as graphics, lines and background colors. As the final step, we imported the text-only EPS files for each page. Although we had to work extra hours on the project to make it into a refined product, we satisfied the client and met all the expectations.
