UN Manual Translation – Project Brief:

Argos Multilingual regularly completes translation and localization projects for governmental institutions in the United States and Europe as well as for the United Nations. Recently, Argos was commissioned to adapt a United Nations’ procurement manual into English, French and Spanish. The project required desktop publishing services and editing work.

In order to quickly and effectively complete this United Nations translation project, Argos dedicated a team that included Quality Assurance specialists, translators and DTP specialists, all of whom worked to adapt the manual for use in multiple languages. Aside from translating the material, most of the work revolved around editing, DTP formatting and online placement of the translated content.

The United Nations had strict guidelines that Argos had to follow. Argos had to edit all non-substantive aspects of the manual and format them into a standard suitable for use by public international organizations. Argos had to perform multiple checks that included: inter alia, pagination, page reference, spelling, consistency of capitalization, punctuation and organization. In addition, Argos had to prepare the completed manual for placement online on the United Nations website in a format that is searchable and downloadable, but which could not be modified except by authorized United Nations personnel. The online versions would also need to include internal and external hyperlinks, “active” tables of contents, and keyword search capability as a minimum requirement.

Argos adapted the English portion of the project, which included 350 pages, in less than 2 weeks. In effect, Argos Multilingual helped the United Nations adapt a large manual for use by other international institutions only a few days after it was initially drafted, thereby increasing the United Nations’ efficiency and speed of communication with various outside organizations.

Background Information:

1. Client Industry: Governmental Institution
2. Type of Product: Online Manual
3. Type of Project: DTP, translation and editing
4. Languages involved: English, French, Spanish
5. Amount of work: over 250 pages
6. Time frame: multiple portions, each completed within 2 weeks