Localization is a necessity for software products intended for sale on a foreign market.

The service generally includes the translation, in this order, of:

- software strings
- documentation (user/administrator manuals, installation manuals)
- in-line guides

Translating software strings is a complex task, since they are short phrases, taken out of context, often unclear in meaning, which have to be of a preset length.

The project requires a team of skilled translators, editors and project managers. To ensure that the finished translation is uniform and consistent, CAT tools and specific glossaries are essential.

Once the translation has been completed, the translated contents have to be compiled to allow full, thorough checking of the texts that appear on the screen. This check can be performed by the client, their contact on the target market, or interlanguage itself. Once this has been done, the interlanguage team of linguists makes any changes required to the software files and updates the translation memories and glossaries accordingly.

The next step is the acquisition and preparation of the screens to be included in the various manuals (user/administrator and installation). This is followed by translation of the documentation.

Here again, the country-specific features (date and time formats, currency, unit of measurement, etc.) have to be localized, the appropriate keywords have to be used, and care must be taken that the terminology used in the translation is the same as that in the screens incorporated in the documentation.

Terminological consistency can only be guaranteed by the use of CAT tools and specific glossaries, which must be constantly updated in response to the latest releases of the software. Once the translation and editing phase is complete, the project moves on to the graphics (DTP) department, which creates the table of contents and checks the formatting of the entire document.

On completion of the documentation localization process, the same methods (CAT tools) are used to compile the in-line guides.

Once the software localization process has been concluded, the formatting, keywords, cross-referencing and correctness of context of each component undergo functional testing.

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