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Art by Mariam from United Arab Emirates   2004

Translating With Composer

No-cost HTML Editor that handles most
languages' character sets. Available
for Linux, Windows, Macs...

Download at  Sea Monkey
(older version named Mozilla Suite).

Guidelines

  1. Before translating your first page, read this!
    Read our note for new translators. Then, save the first page to translate as explained in 2 below. Mail us the page you saved on your disk (before translating anything), so that we can see that it has been saved correctly. Continue from 3 below when we have given our go ahead.

    If the page to translate is called index.html, check with us if special guidelines exist for translation of its contents. Some index.html page translations are to be reduced in scope. Example: Guidelines for translating /english/general/index.html

  2. Save the page to translate on your local disk
    1. Open Mozilla. Important: Make sure you open the browser, not the editor. The browser's File menu has the choice "Work Offline", and usually also a search icon (example at right) after the address line at the top right:
    2. Click at File | Open Web Location. Type the web address of the English language page you want to translate, and retrieve it to your screen. Example: Type http://www.kidlink.org/kie/nls/english/response/1STQUESTION.html to retrieve 1STQUESTION.html
    3. Select File | Save Page As . A Save As window will open:
    4. Set File Type to "Web Page, HTML only"
    5. Give the file the same name as the source document. For example, save 1STQUESTION.html as 1STQUESTION.html
      Do not translate directory and file names!
    6. Save the page in a matching directory (folders) on your disk. Example: http://www.kidlink.org/english/general/overview.html should be saved at c:\spanish\general\ overview.html if translating into Spanish.
    7. Click at  "Save". A Download Manager window will open. Click the X to close the window.
    8. In Mozilla, click File | Open File, and load the file you just saved on your disk. Note: You will probably not see the images that you saw on the page on the web. This is OK. (To check if you saved the page correctly.)
  3. Open the Composer editor (File | Edit Page). Your page will be loaded into the editor.
  4. Set the language on the page to your language.
    Select File | Save And Change Character Encoding. Select the appropriate character set setting, then save the document before proceeding, for example "Unicode (UTF-8)" or "Chinese Simplified (GB2312)". More about Non-Latin Characters.
  5. Translate by overwriting the English language text. Keep links the way they are!
    Translate verbatim! Do not translate the name Kidlink.Be careful not to do change embedded image codes or destroy anchors!

    Translate the page's title, and page description: (Step-by-step explanation).

    Some images, like those in the footer (at the bottom) of a page, may contain an alternative text that appears if a viewer points at the image with the mouse. Mark the image (one light click on the image with the mouse), click with the right (or lower) mouse button to get a menu of choices, then select "Image properties". In the window that appears, select the tab "Location", then mark off "Alternate text". This is where your translated version of this text should be typed. Click OK when done, and save the page.

    Special: The top navigation bar, Links, text in illustrations, Search, Footers (the bottom of pages). Marking untranslated links (optional).

  6. Spell check your translation
  7. Check all links!
  8. Credit yourself at the bottom of the page: Translated by Your Name. Mark the name you just typed, click at Insert | Link, and a Link Properties window will open. Type mailto:your@mailaddress (please replace your@mailaddress with your email address :-).

Next page: Your final check before shipping | Sign up to join the translation team

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Search: Advanced

Change language Go to start page for teachers. Art by Nevena. 10 years. Girl. Yugoslavia Go to "My Future Job". Art by Luca, boy, Italy , 2003. Go to "Making Our World Better". -- Art by Nastia (11), girl, Belarus 2004 Go to "Who-am-I?". Art by Diana (9), girl, Romania  2004 <ArdeleanA> Go to KidArt Go to KidProj's projects in KidSpace Go to the start page for kids. Art by Nevena from Yugoslavia, 2003
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