Desktop publishers often work at publishing houses, advertising agencies or software providers, but they can also work for language service providers.

For example, Smart Localize language consultancy provides desktop-publishing and foreign typesetting services designed to optimize the look and feel of your products and adapt them to the target market.

Using a service like this can save time, money and unnecessary intermediate steps.

For example, you have a brochure that needs to be translated from English to Chinese? When you send us the InDesign file, we export the text, translate it and insert it again in InDesign. You will get the final product ready to print.

Problems of desktop publishing are that when you translate a text, it is unlikely that it will have exactly the same length as the original, as some languages need more words, while other need less, to say the same thing. Therefore, the layout must be adjusted accordingly to the new text volume.

If you hire a language service provider to do this, one of the most important advantage is, they know the language and the culture and can adjust the layout accordingly. While when you do it yourself, you probably find yourself wondering, if you can divide the text in paragraphs or not, because you have no idea what this Chinese character means.