A world-renowned Japanese manga publisher contacted a translation company specializing in DTP services. The expectation from the publisher was to convert the language (Japanese) into various languages and tweak the comic panels accordingly. The certified DTP experts were able to adapt the manga, making it suitable for different regions/ countries.

Now imagine if the publisher hadn’t used DTP services and just translated the language. What would have been the result? The comic’s text would appear misaligned, the layout would be haphazard, and the content flow would be difficult to follow. This scenario is quite common without assistance from professional desktop publishing services, or DTP services: a visual mess, which results in a confusing experience for the end user.

So, in this article, we won’t just discuss the importance of multilingual desktop publishing services, but also how modern AI plays a significant role in transforming and improving the service.

What Is Multilingual DTP, and Why Is AI Important in It?

Most people think that DTP services are just used for aesthetic presentation, but it is much more than that. Formatting and translating the content in DTP also involves:

• Adjusting the text if it expands or contracts based on the language.
• Aligning images for both right-to-left (RTL) scripts and left-to-right (LTR) scripts.
• Ensuring consistency in the design throughout the content.
• Enhancing readability in multilingual versions of the content.

To summarize, DTP services ensure that the content stays clean, accurate, and aligned, both visually and contextually.

However, without AI, working with multilingual DTP tends to get increasingly complicated.

DTP Challenges Without AI Assistance

For certified DTP experts, handling complex scripts like Arabic, Hebrew, or Mandarin isn’t just time-consuming but error-prone too. Every time such complicated languages are translated, the DTP operator must:

• Manually realign texts and visuals.
• Fix overflowing texts.
• Maintain style consistency across several languages.
• Perform multiple proofreading cycles.

These exhaustive procedures also need complete accuracy, especially in e-learning localization and formatting projects that aim to engage with different regions.

So, how is AI helping such cases?

Before we get to that, have you ever wondered how expert DTP services ensure accuracy in multilingual projects? Check out our related blog: DTP Services: How to Create Accurate Multilingual Content?

How Is AI Helping Multilingual DTP Services?

Combining AI with DTP services reshapes workflows, automates repetitive tasks, and enhances accuracy. Here’s how:

• Automated Layout Detection: AI instantly analyzes a document structure. It detects text, images, tables, and margins. Furthermore, it can recreate the whole layout in the target language without compromising on visual appeal.
• Script Intelligence: Different languages (mainly RTL languages) need different formatting procedures. AI understands these rules and so auto-adjusts page orientation and text direction to make translation and formatting easy.
• Style Consistency: AI can match brand styles during multilingual document translation projects. They ensure proper use of colors and typography, which makes the content consistent across different languages. For example, a corporate training manual translated into several languages must be consistent with the company’s identity.
• Speed and Scalability: We mentioned earlier that DTP experts can take days to complete a complex project. However, with AI assistance, what took days can be done in mere hours. Furthermore, AI scales DTP workflows by boosting productivity, which helps to complete high-volume tasks like e-learning localization and formatting within deadlines.
• Human-in-the-Loop Proofreading: Although AI assistance helps with speed, scale, and layout consistency, it is always vital to have human expertise review the content before final delivery.

Some Popular AI Tools Powering DTP Services

If you ever need AI assistance for DTP projects, these tools might help:

• For Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Layout Detection: ABBYY, Google Vision AI, and Tesseract. Some additional plugins:
  • ABBYY FineReader PDF Plugin
  • Tesseract + PDFBox
  • Google Cloud Vision API Plugin
  • SDK Integration (for ABBYY Cloud)
• For Translation and Natural Language Processing (NLP): DeepL, GPT-4, BERT. Some helpful plugins are:
  • BERT NLP Plugin
  • ElasticSearch
  • Microsoft Translator Add-in
• For Formatting and Styling: Adobe Sensei, Canva AI. Some helpful plugins are:
  • Creative Cloud Library Plugin
  • Adobe Express Plugin (could be integrated with Slack)
• For Multilingual Workflows: Smartcat, Trados, Memsource. Some additional plugins:
  • Zapier
  • Trados Studio Plugins (Termbase integrations)
  • Lokalise Plugin for Figma
• For Proofreading and Quality Checks: Grammarly, Linguistic ToolBox (LTB). Some additional plugins for this are:
  • MS Office Add-in
  • LTB Plugins
  • QA Distiller Integration

However, using these AI tools alone doesn’t guarantee high-quality results.

Is AI Assistance Enough for Perfect Multilingual DTP?

AI, although evolving fast, still has some limitations. In the language and translation industry, cultural elements play an essential role. AI, unfortunately, cannot understand varying cultural nuances and hence can’t reflect them in translated content.

So, a human-only approach is the solution, right? Not exactly.

Certified DTP experts have some limitations, too. They are not as fast as AI and can end up costing a lot. This is not ideal for a project with a limited budget or a tight deadline.

So, what is the solution? The Hybrid Approach.

Professional multilingual desktop publishing services use the hybrid approach to ensure speedy, scalable, and high-quality results.

• AI tools are used for speed, precision, automation, and consistency.
• Human DTP experts are used for maintaining cultural context, tone, and design quality.

By combining both, flawless multilingual outputs can be efficiently created.

Looking for DTP Services? Here’s A Checklist

Choosing the right DTP partners goes beyond the price of the service. You need:

• Top-notch experience with multilingual document translation.
• Native-language linguists and certified DTP experts.
• Advanced tools for layout identification and AI integration.
• Scope of scalability for large projects (like user manuals, e-learning, and product catalogs).
• ISO 17100:2015-certified process to ensure the highest translation standard.

Are you still wondering which translation company to collaborate with?

Somya Translators, a leading DTP and translation company from India, believes greatly in clarity, culture, and consistency in every language. And so, we power our DTP services by the best of both worlds: advanced AI tools and certified DTP experts.

When the aim is to go global, words are not enough. The look, feel, and function of these words matter too. With AI-powered DTP services, brands can ensure translated and articulately presented content for global resonance.

And whether you are someone looking for multilingual desktop publishing support for technical documents, corporate training manuals, advertising content, or learning modules in over 170 languages, Somya Translators can be the right place for you.

Visit our website (https://www.somyatrans.com/) or contact us via call (+91-11-43061918) or email (info@somyatrans.com) for a free quote on your requirements!