STAR TS Translation Services Blog

The terms uppercase characters and lowercase characters are used commonly today in the language of desktop publishing.

Have you ever stopped to think where the terms originated?

Strangely enough most publishing terms actually come from the old print industry. When documents where originally put together for printing, all the letters had to be manually placed onto the press before the page was pressed.

All the characters were stored in the printers’ case of letters, which had an upper part of the case where capital letters were stored and a lower part of the case where the other letters were stored.

Thus was born the language of  “upper case letters ” and  “lower case letters “.

Brought to you by STAR Translation Services

1.    English proofreading services.
Language is STAR’s business so we have English proofreaders on our teams. You may not need translation, but perhaps your latest documents could do with a good proofreading.

You may be working on your latest tender submission or updating your website for English readers and need your text checked for consistency or ease of understanding. Our English proofreading teams can help you.
We also provide proofreading in all the languages we translate into.

2.    US English and UK English Translation
Gasoline or Petrol, Zucchini or Courgette? We provide US English and UK English conversions and vice-versa on a regular basis for clients. Ecommerce providers often have different sites for their English-speaking customers around the globe.

Having your website checked for spelling mistakes can improve your online sales.

3.    Voiceovers
Need a video translated? We provide voiceover translation and actors for all our languages.

4.    Document Conversion
Paper, FrameMaker, InDesign, QuarkExpress, PDF, etc. From lost originals to just conversion to the latest document system, we can help you.

Occasionally you may have to translate a project where you have lost your original sources. STAR’s desktop publishing teams have the experience and expertise to recreate almost any document. Even if you only have a scanned image or PDF, we can recreate your documents for you.

You may also have decided to retire some older software and move your documents to the latest design package like InDesign. We can help make that transition easier for you.

5.    Software Localization
Whether you are developing a desktop application or an iPad app we can help you deliver your software in multiple languages.

STAR has its own software development teams. We are a developer of document and information technology ourselves, so we know the challenges of international software design.

We can give you advice on what the best steps are for your project, including enabling and software localization services.

Download our PDF document on first time Localization

Contact us today for a quote:

PHONE:
from USA/UK: +353 1 8365614
from Ireland: 01 8365614

An issue that pops up from time to time when we translate for clients is the issue of source copyright. Always ask your design agency up front whether you own all artwork and if they will supply you with all the master documents upon completion.

Some clients encounter problems when they start translating as their designers won’t release the master files to the translation agency.

Agencies can offer two rates for design. The first is a flat rate for your work where you get the rights to print your artwork. The 2nd is for full ownership of all the creative sources.

It is a bit like photography. Nowadays if you have a professional photograph taken you get a print of the image that you can then hang in your office or home.  However, the photographer maintains ownership of the original photograph. If you wanted to use this photograph again commercially you need to purchase the rights from them.

Browsershots is a new free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl.
It takes screenshots of your web site in different browsers.  So you can see exactly how your clients see your new website. Perfect for checking your latest designs.

It is at http://browsershots.org/

Trying to decide what the best font and style to use on your next international site can be tricky. Especially when you are trying to see if your foreign character sets will be ok.

A great site to visit that allows you to try various styles/fonts and sizes is the typetester site from Maratz. http://typetester.maratz.com/