Technical Manual Translation

Technical manuals are used by people who need to operate, install, maintain, or troubleshoot equipment. When a manual is poorly translated, the person following it either cannot complete the task, or completes it incorrectly. For machinery and equipment, incorrect operation is not just inconvenient. A well-translated manual prevents problems. A poorly translated one creates them.

We assign technical manuals to domain-specialist translators. Mechanical engineering manuals go to mechanical engineers or translators with that background. Electronics documentation goes to electronics specialists. Software documentation goes to software translators. The domain knowledge is not interchangeable.

We support structured authoring formats including XML, DITA, FrameMaker MIF, and InDesign IDML. This means the translated content can be returned to your documentation system without manual text re-entry. We also handle PDF manuals and DOCX source formats.

Terminology management is central to technical manual translation. For multi-volume manuals or ongoing translation relationships, we build and maintain a project-specific termbase. This ensures that “operating lever” is not translated as “operational handle” in volume 2 when it was “control arm” in volume 1.

In practice

Common questions