Multilingual DTP and Typesetting
that keeps your design working in any language
Every language sets type by its own rules, and your artwork follows English ones, so a page that keeps English spacing, hyphenation and emphasis after translation looks imported to the people it was meant for, however exact the words are, and multilingual typesetting is the stage that puts it right.
Your design obeys English typographic rules. Your translation does not.
A translation can be accurate to the last word and still look wrong on the page. French sets a space before a colon and a question mark. German capitalises every noun, Spanish opens a question with an inverted mark, and Chinese and Japanese never hyphenate at all, breaking their lines by rules English has no equivalent for. Carry the English settings across and the punctuation crowds, the breaks fall in the wrong places, the emphasis is applied in a way the language does not use. Readers seldom identify the fault. They register a document that looks second-hand.
What that page needs is a typesetter who knows the rules of its new language and leaves the design you approved intact. Ours work inside your original InDesign or Illustrator file and set each language to its own conventions. What comes back is the design you signed off, ready for print or screen, reading as though it had been drawn up in that language from the start.
Spacing, punctuation and emphasis applied as the target language uses them, not as English does
Line breaking and hyphenation set by the language's own rules, or switched off where it has none
Arabic and Hebrew mirrored in full, Chinese and Japanese set to their own breaking rules
Your design, kept intact
Your own files worked in directly: InDesign, Illustrator, PowerPoint and Word
Fonts checked for full support of every accent and character in the target language.
Text expansion and contraction handled in the layout, with your grid and colours held steady
After translation
The words are approved. Now the layout has to work in every language.
For marketing and design teams
You briefed the translation, approved it and now the artwork has to look as good as the original. That is where a clean design starts to break: a headline wraps to three lines, the French punctuation sits tight against the words because nobody set the spacing, a German compound splits across two lines in a place that shows nobody was thinking about the German. You need the copy set into the file you designed by someone who reads the layout as closely as the words, so the finished piece looks designed in every market and ready for publication.
Our translated text never fits back into the original design. Can you fix that?
Yes. We set the translated copy into your original file and adjust the layout for the new text length, so the design holds instead of overflowing or leaving gaps.
Our Arabic version still reads left to right. What happens to the layout?
Right-to-left languages mirror the whole page: columns, images and reading order travel with the text. Your design comes back reading from the right, intact.
Our Tokyo team says our Japanese layout looks wrong. What are we missing?
Usually it is the line breaks. Japanese runs continuously, and certain characters cannot begin or end a line. English rules ignore that, and your readers see it.
We need one brochure in eight languages. Do you set each one separately?
Yes, eight files, all built from the design you approved. Each is set to the rules of its own language and follows the original design faithfully.
We work in InDesign. Can you translate the file without us rebuilding the layout?
Nobody rebuilds anything. We translate the IDML export from your InDesign file and return the copy to the same document, ready for you to sign off.
4.9
Overall Rating
More markets. Same brand voice.
Your content, everywhere it needs to be.
For public sector and government teams
A public body has a duty to reach every resident, which means one document set into the languages a community actually speaks, sometimes ten or fifteen at once, to a fixed deadline and a set budget. Accessibility and legibility are the whole point, not the final polish. We have handled multilingual projects in languages including Somali, Bengali, Yoruba, Gujarati and Arabic, for electoral bodies, government publishing and city councils, setting each language cleanly within the approved design so the information reads as intended in every version.
Bring the files you need typeset, along with the languages you need them in, and we will talk through what is needed. It is a working conversation about your project, not a sales pitch.
Translated text is rarely the same length as the English it replaces. In a brochure that means the copy no longer fits the space it was designed for. We adjust the layout inside your original file and set the spacing, punctuation and line breaks to the rules of the new language. You get the same brochure in another language, laid out properly.
Spacing and punctuation set to the conventions of each language
Headlines and pull quotes reset so they still lead the page
Captions realigned to the images they belong to
Consistent look across every page and every language.
Reports are long and full of tables, charts and cross-references. When the translated text changes length, everything after it moves, so pagination and contents pages stop matching. Number formats change too: most of Europe writes a decimal comma where English writes a point. We reflow the whole document, reset the number formats for the target market, and return a report where the pages and references still line up.
Full-document reflow that keeps pagination intact
Number, date and decimal conventions set for the target market
Contents pages and references kept in sync
Multi-language versions matched page for page where possible
Print and digital PDF outputs
Packaging & product labels
Packaging panels are a fixed size. Translated text is a different length, and regulatory copy has to appear in full, so cutting it is not an option. We set each language within the panel it is given, keep it legible at the size it prints, and tell you early if the text will not fit.
Copy set to fixed panel dimensions
Legibility held at small point sizes
Right-to-left and character-based scripts set correctly on-pack
Exhibition panels are a fixed size, and many carry two or three languages at once. Each translation is a different length, so the text has to fit the panel and still be readable from a distance. We set each language on the panel and tell you early if the text will not fit.
Slides give text a small, fixed space. When the translation runs longer, a bullet that fitted one line wraps to three and drops off the slide. We reset the text boxes, relabel the charts, and set the punctuation and line breaks to the rules of the target language. You get the same deck, readable, in every language.
Text boxes and columns adjusted to the translated copy
Bullets and callouts kept on their intended slide
Charts and diagrams relabelled in the target language
Arabic is cursive, so its letters join up and change shape depending on where they sit in a word. Software that is not set up for Arabic leaves them disconnected, and the text cannot be read at all. The page mirrors too: columns, images and reading order all run from the right. We set the script correctly and mirror your design, so the Arabic reads from the right exactly as your English reads from the left.
Arabic and Hebrew pages mirrored in full: columns, images and reading order
Arabic set with correct letter joining and shaping
Mixed-direction content, such as Latin numerals in Arabic text, handled correctly
Fonts checked for full script support before anything goes out
Layout matched to the source in everything but direction
What happens to my layout when the translated text is longer than the English?
It gets adjusted, not squeezed. German, French and Spanish run longer than English. Chinese and Japanese run shorter. A layout built for English has to absorb both. We reflow the text, adjust spacing and line breaks and rebalance pages so the design still reads as intended. Where the only fix would be shrinking the type until it is hard to read, we'll let you know. The page count stays the same unless you decide otherwise.
How do we check the typeset files if nobody on our team reads the language?
You do not have to. Once the layout is finished, a native speaker of the target language checks the typeset proof for the errors that are only visible at the layout stage: a line broken in the wrong place, a hyphen where the language does not allow one, a caption that has drifted from its image, punctuation set to English rules. Your review is the design, not the language.
What do you deliver at the end of a multilingual DTP project?
Whatever you need to publish. For print, that is a press-ready PDF per language, set to your printer's specification. For onward editing, it is the packaged InDesign file with fonts and links. For digital, it is a web-optimised PDF or the native file for your platform. Tell us what you need, and we deliver in that format.
Can you set several languages in one document?
Yes, and it needs planning before the first line is translated. A bilingual leaflet, a trilingual safety card or a multilingual public information document has to give every language equal weight and equal legibility, and the layout has to hold when one language runs half as long again as another. We work out the structure with you first, then typeset all the languages together so the finished document is one design rather than several stitched together.
Do you typeset in tools other than InDesign?
Yes. InDesign is the most common, but we also work in Illustrator, PowerPoint, Word and Figma, and in whatever the file was originally built in. What matters is that we work in the native file, not a PDF of it, because that is the only way the translated document comes back editable and consistent with the original.
