I usually require the source text in an editable file format because I am processing your translation with a computer-aided translation (CAT) software. If you send me the file in the PDF format or an image file format, I will have to convert this file into an editable file format using optical character recognition (OCR) software. Besides, I have to convert the file before I prepare my quotation to you in order to determine the length of the text.

I will be very happy to render this service to you because I will be able to control already at this stage that the target document will resemble your source document as closely as possible and make processing the translation within a CAT software much easier for me. You may be tempted to convert the file yourself and save some money, but I kindly ask you to do it only if you know exactly what you are doing. Non-translation-friendly files converted with OCR may under certain circumstances cause me extra work and in the end higher costs for you after all.

Revising the OCR conversion is also part of converting the file itself. Sometimes, depending on the quality of the original document, the formatting is wrong or characters have been falsely recognised. Numbers in particular need to be verified after converting a file with OCR.


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