About the Software Localization Project

Globalization Partners International was tasked with developing a solution for multilingual DITA projects using FrameMaker for a major medical device manufacturer. As a result of the software localization project requirements, GPI created:

• One structured template to control language specific formatting for 27 target languages, including Russian, Greek, Chinese, Korean and Dutch.
• Notes, warnings and other hanging indent paragraphs to automatically substitute correct text and change indent values to accommodate text expansion, via logical format rules in the FrameMaker EDD.
• Page Headers/Footers to correctly display localized heading and language specific part numbers, without manually importing templates or conditional text display values.
• Figure caption tables to automatically reformat themselves with smaller point size when “drag n’ drop” is used to place table immediate below a figure.
• Illegal format overrides outside of DITA structure are “washed away” when file is saved and closed. Authors invoke approved format overrides via special attributes in DITA elements, visible in FrameMaker’s structure view window.
• XML DITA files open in FrameMaker immediately after translation, with all external cross references working. Broken external cross references are a common problem with most other publishing solutions in post-translation DTP.
• All steps involved with converting XML source files to structured FrameMaker binary files have been eliminated.
• Training and support time were significantly reduced; powerful EDD and template rules are deliberately hidden from the publisher during authoring and post-translation DTP.

Results

The client, a major medical device manufacturer, estimates that overall project costs were cut by nearly 50% due to FrameMaker’s innovative features. GPI’s development staff estimate that the overall time to develop the formatting solution for DITA in FrameMaker took about 10% of the time required for traditional DITA publishing tools that rely on XLST-FO style sheets. This is because FrameMaker repurposes pre-DITA formatting by enabling swift transformation of legacy document files into structured templates.