Reuse and localization

Last Updated : Jun 28, 2021 |
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Even if your deliverables are not currently translated into other languages, you must create your topics to make them translation-ready for future.
Based on customer requests or business needs, translation request might come even after the release of a product.

Element reuse

You can reuse inline elements, such as uicontrol, wintitle, and cite. This helps the Localization team and writers to manage the common elements well.
  • Create separate common topics for the uicontrol and wintitle elements that you reuse. Depending on the complexity of your product and the number of interfaces, you can decide to have separate common topics based on the types of users (for example, administration versus users) or separate interfaces.
  • The Localization team requests that you create separate common topics for inline elements that are part of the interface versus those that aren’t. For example, a filename that they double-click during installation must be tagged with uicontrol but it is not an element in the interface. Therefore, the filename must be added in a separate common topic from the actual interface elements. You can contact your Localization team member to request a list of the strings from the interface.
  • You must reuse inline elements only where it is semantically appropriate. For example, if a term is used as both a uicontrol and a generic word, reuse only the uicontrol element when it is specifically referencing the interface element and not when it is a generic reference.
  • Each project must have a common topic for titles in cite elements.
Do not reuse the following inline elements.
  • emphasis
  • indexterm
  • pre
  • q
  • simple-equation
  • sstitle
  • title
  • tm

Use of xrefs to topics

When content contains embedded xrefs, it creates a dependency on the topics that are the target of xrefs. If the content is localized, all content that is referenced is included in the package sent for translation. Therefore, if you are reusing content with xrefs to other topics, those other topics are included in the package for localization, even if only an element in that topic is being reused that does not include the xref. This increases the translation costs.

Reuse icons with alt text

If your content contains a lot of icons, create a common topic with icons and the alt text in the image element. With this, the Localization team can translate the common topic that includes the alt text only once, and do not require to retranslate separate instances of the alt text.