Carry a document through localization

A translated help topic must still lead the reader through the task. Prepare its text, links and media together, then review the assembled result. A list of approved segments cannot show whether a warning still precedes the action it governs or whether the next link opens the right instructions.

Use the message contract for individual resources and the quality review for review responsibilities and findings.

Define the deliverable

Identify the audience, product version, platform and language before assigning the work. State which outputs are included: the Help Panel, web manual, PDF, screenshots, captions or other material. Record exclusions and the behavior a reader will encounter where a translation is unavailable.

Supply the source revision, surrounding topics, approved terminology and access to the relevant interface. Include editable media, callout text and translator comments. A screenshot provides visual context; it cannot explain every hidden state or substitute for the meaning of a placeholder.

Inventory the actual material, including generated messages, sample documents, image text and content supplied by another component. Identify who owns each item and which source produces each output. File extensions and word counts cannot establish what needs translation or how much testing it needs.

Build a source-language sample before translation and retain known source defects. Confirm the publishing tools, font versions, style sheets and image dependencies. A cached preview can hide a missing asset. Include preparation, layout, conversion and review in the scope alongside translation.

Separate wording decisions from changes to the product or offer. A translator may adapt the expression of a benefit while preserving its evidence. A different price, support contact, supported feature or comparison needs a decision from the responsible owner. Familiarity with a market does not establish those facts.

A translated store page must describe the language support the delivered product actually provides. Check the route from its purchase or support link through the destination, including the language in which help is available. Translate a promise only after its owner has confirmed that the service can fulfil it.

Match the audience and the kind of text

One product contains several kinds of writing. A compact command, a recovery instruction and a customer story need different treatment. Identify who is speaking, what the reader knows and what the passage must accomplish. Keep the approved concept while adjusting the register and explanation to that setting. Do not give a quoted customer the product's voice or make a warning sound like an advertisement.

Base adaptation on relevant examples, reader feedback and the task. A country label cannot establish everyone's preferences, expertise or cultural background. A culturally specific specimen may be the point of a typography lesson; explain what readers need to understand it instead of automatically replacing it. Record the evidence and reasoning for an adaptation so another reviewer can assess it.

Raise requirements while the source and product can still change. Translating the label of a required family-name field cannot help someone whose name does not fit the form. Route such findings to the owner of the data and interaction; the names and formats guidance explains the underlying assumptions to check.

Explain behavior that depends on settings

At the feature that uses a locale, explain which setting affects the result and how the reader can check or change it. Label an example's relevant settings: an unexplained date or sorted list can make one configuration look universal. Describe the behavior verified in the supported build, including restrictions. A translated page does not establish broader input or language-tool support.

For a text limit, confirm what the product counts: bytes in a named encoding, code units, code points or grapheme clusters. Then give readers an accurate limit and a useful example. Do not replace “characters” with “bytes” merely because the document is being internationalized. Use the distinctions in scripts and typography.

A document's language need not match the interface it explains. Identify the UI language used in the procedure and keep its control labels recognizable. Explain locale-dependent details in the published instructions; translator comments alone cannot help the reader perform the task.

Check segmentation before allocating work

Inspect how the actual translation tool divides a representative passage. Abbreviations, product-name punctuation, lists and inline markup can create boundaries that separate a condition from its action or split a single thought. Repair the segmentation or provide a supported way to translate the complete unit before different people receive its fragments.

For example, a fictional procedure says: “If the preview differs from the export, check the selected instance.” Keep the condition visible to the person translating the action, even if the tool presents two segments. Do not turn the conditional check into an instruction that applies to every export.

Check one small round trip through the intended export, editor and import tools. Confirm that characters, inline structure, resource identities, language tags, comments and review states survive where the format carries them. A valid file can still have lost the context needed for the next review.

Read reused content in its new surroundings

Reuse a topic or memory match only where its assumptions hold. Check the prerequisites, referenced controls, pronouns and outcome in each assembled document. The same paragraph can be correct in a tutorial and misleading when an isolated help search result hides the preceding step.

Read across the boundaries between contributors and reused passages. Terms must refer to the same concepts, steps must share the same starting state, and warnings must remain with the actions they qualify. Apply the existing memory rules when wording or context changes.

When a source revision arrives, compare meaning as well as text. A changed screen, operation or link destination can invalidate an unchanged sentence. Record affected translations and media, review the delta, and then inspect the whole revised procedure for coherence.

Share answers to source questions with everyone translating the affected material. Keep the decision, source revision and owner together so different languages do not quietly resolve the same ambiguity in incompatible ways.

Keep words and media in agreement

Capture the interface that the reader will actually use. Record the build, platform, language and state with each screenshot. If the interface remains in English, quote its English labels in translated instructions; do not paint translated controls into an image as though the product supplied them.

Keep essential steps available as text. Translate meaningful image descriptions and callouts, and verify what each arrow or highlight indicates after the localized layout changes. An image that looks familiar is not evidence that it shows the current operation.

Keep editable image sources and a reproducible capture state. Check a sample at its intended output size before recreating a set of screenshots. For documents, inspect all delivered variants for overset text, missing fonts, damaged tables and callouts. A fixed shrink percentage cannot establish readability.

Review an alternative description against the localized image and its purpose. If a graphic or its destination changes, its old description may become wrong. An image used as a control needs an alternative that conveys the action; decorative images need different treatment. Use the W3C image decision tree and the accessible content guidance. An automated check can detect an attribute without judging whether it helps.

For a tutorial, review captions and narration while watching the actions. Allow target-language clauses to use different cue boundaries and timing. Keep facts and conditions when shortening a line. The audio and video guidance explains captions, descriptions and transcripts; translating dialogue alone does not cover all of those needs.

Follow the help route

Start where the reader starts: a control, error message, search query or shared link. Follow it to the translated topic and then to its related material. Check the destination's language, product version and relevant section, including any declared fallback. Confirm that contents, indexes and generated navigation lead to the intended pages in every delivered format.

Change the headings, index markers and cross-reference templates in their maintained sources, then regenerate navigation. Check the surrounding grammar as well as inserted titles and page numbers. Navigation labels may differ from headings when their meaning and destination remain clear. Review conditional topics against the declared scope; a sequence of Next links may omit them.

Make alphabetized reference entries self-contained. Translation can move them within a list, so refer to an entry by its name and link rather than its position.

Read the link's wording against the destination: a promise of installation steps must lead to those steps. A topic reached directly through search or a shared link must state the prerequisites that its surrounding chapter normally supplies.

Try the professional term and the ordinary words a reader may use to find it. If approved aliases help discovery, keep them in the search or index mechanism; keep the product term consistent in instructions. Record a search limitation instead of assuming that translated prose makes the search engine support the language.

Test the search index shipped with the material, including a fresh copy without the development cache. Check useful synonyms, hierarchy and sorting rather than forcing the translated index to have exactly the same number of entries.

Finally, perform the task using the delivered material. Record the reviewed revision, outputs, unresolved defects and checks not performed. A notification that all segments are translated describes a workflow state; acceptance depends on the documented review.