XML style for translation

[Tommy Reynolds]

Now as we focus on the translation problems, er,
opportunities, I'd like a definitive answer about this.

Which of the following formatting paragraph styles does the translation team
find more friendly:

	When in anger or in doubt, run in
	circles, scream and shout.  The
	quick brown fox jumped over the
	lazy dog.

or:

	When in anger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
	The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Specificly, should each sentence from the source document be:

	1) lines justified all together into the semblance
	   of a paragraph; or
	2) a separate line, no matter how long it gets.

Personaly, I prefer #2 where each sentence forms its own formatting
object.  This avoids any distractions trying to minic the final
document layout.  I've seen diffs that just changed "the end.  The",
with two spaces, into "the end. The", with a single space.

Ultimately, the point of XML DocBook is to separate content from
presentation so I could live with either, but I'm no translator.
Well, maybe if you consider redneck-to-english a formal process ;-)

I'm not advocating layout surgery on existing content, but would like
a "best practices" recomendation from the folks who know what they
are talking about.

Cheers

[Mark Johnson]

Tommy Reynolds wrote:
>  Now as we focus on the translation problems, er,
>  opportunities, I'd like a definitive answer about this.
>  
>  Which of the following formatting paragraph styles does the translation team
>  find more friendly:
>  
>  	When in anger or in doubt, run in
>  	circles, scream and shout.  The
>  	quick brown fox jumped over the
>  	lazy dog.
>  
>  or:
>  
>  	When in anger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
>  	The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
>  
>  Specificly, should each sentence from the source document be:
>  
>  	1) lines justified all together into the semblance
>  	   of a paragraph; or
>  	2) a separate line, no matter how long it gets. 
Hopefully, the new XML diff tools won't care which style is used. But I 
guess we need to hear from translation to get the definitive answer on 
this. FWIW, glad you raised this issue, T.

"Only your translator knows for sure..."

Cheers,
Mark


>  
>  Personaly, I prefer #2 where each sentence forms its own formatting
>  object.  This avoids any distractions trying to minic the final
>  document layout.  I've seen diffs that just changed "the end.  The",
>  with two spaces, into "the end. The", with a single space.
>  
>  Ultimately, the point of XML DocBook is to separate content from
>  presentation so I could live with either, but I'm no translator.
>  Well, maybe if you consider redneck-to-english a formal process ;-)
>  
>  I'm not advocating layout surgery on existing content, but would like
>  a "best practices" recomendation from the folks who know what they
>  are talking about.
>  
>  Cheers
>   

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------
Mark Johnson                     <mjohnson(a)redhat.com&gt;
OS Product Documentation
Engineering, Red Hat, Inc.       <http://www.redhat.com>
Tel: [phone]                Fax: [phone]
GPG fp: DBEA FA3C C46A 70B5 F120  568B 89D5 4F61 C07D E242

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, 2005-08-26 at 10:58 -0400, Mark Johnson wrote:
>  Tommy Reynolds wrote:
>  > Now as we focus on the translation problems, er,
>  > opportunities, I'd like a definitive answer about this.
>  > 
>  > Which of the following formatting paragraph styles does the translation team
>  > find more friendly:
>  > 
>  > 	When in anger or in doubt, run in
>  > 	circles, scream and shout.  The
>  > 	quick brown fox jumped over the
>  > 	lazy dog.
>  > 
>  > or:
>  > 
>  > 	When in anger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
>  > 	The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
>  > 
>  > Specificly, should each sentence from the source document be:
>  > 
>  > 	1) lines justified all together into the semblance
>  > 	   of a paragraph; or
>  > 	2) a separate line, no matter how long it gets.
>  
>  Hopefully, the new XML diff tools won't care which style is used. But I 
>  guess we need to hear from translation to get the definitive answer on 
>  this. FWIW, glad you raised this issue, T.
>  
>  "Only your translator knows for sure..." 
Right... xmlformat doesn't care about preserving any presentation other
than inside CDATA type containers.  *Unless* we decide to go the other
way and use "foo-doc-XX.xml" for each language, in which case we can
restrict tidy-bowl to just particular languages.  AFAIK, xmlformat will
not be able to respect parallel structures based on the "lang"
attribute.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
 Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/

[Noriko Mizumoto]

Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  On Fri, 2005-08-26 at 10:58 -0400, Mark Johnson wrote:
>  
> >Tommy Reynolds wrote:
> >
> >>Now as we focus on the translation problems, er,
> >>opportunities, I'd like a definitive answer about this.
> >>
> >>Which of the following formatting paragraph styles does the translation team
> >>find more friendly:
> >>
> >>	When in anger or in doubt, run in
> >>	circles, scream and shout.  The
> >>	quick brown fox jumped over the
> >>	lazy dog.
> >>
> >>or:
> >>
> >>	When in anger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
> >>	The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
> >>
> >>Specificly, should each sentence from the source document be:
> >>
> >>	1) lines justified all together into the semblance
> >>	   of a paragraph; or
> >>	2) a separate line, no matter how long it gets.
> >
> >Hopefully, the new XML diff tools won't care which style is used. But I 
> >guess we need to hear from translation to get the definitive answer on 
> >this. FWIW, glad you raised this issue, T.
> >
> >"Only your translator knows for sure..."
>  
>  
>  Right... xmlformat doesn't care about preserving any presentation other
>  than inside CDATA type containers.  *Unless* we decide to go the other
>  way and use "foo-doc-XX.xml" for each language, in which case we can
>  restrict tidy-bowl to just particular languages.  AFAIK, xmlformat will
>  not be able to respect parallel structures based on the "lang"
>  attribute.
>  
>   
Actually I don't care much about this, writer can go either way :)
Especially once the file converted into po file, then there is no 
difference for us.

Noriko