Excel (and similar) software is usually associated with calculations, balance sheets, financial reports; however, our native speakers can also use it for translation and proofreading! Although such software is often not very word-friendly, it offers some tools that may actually assist your business in creating quality foreign language content.
Programmes like Excel are made of rows and columns with many individual cells. This type of layout is useful when you have to create e.g. a brochure in several languages. You can have each sentence of your source language in a different cell in the first column. Then, you just add the translations in adjacent columns ? e.g. English in column 2, German in column 3, Spanish in column 4, etc. Using this approach you know exactly where a given phrase in the foreign language should go!
Although spell-check is an in-built option in Excel, this programme may also be used for further proofreading. Our native speakers can improve your Excel document in three ways. One is about creating a separate row for cells that are edited. The second requires marking the modified cells with colour. Excel software also enables track changes, but it is not as visible as in DOC/DOCX files ? the programme marks the cell and displays a drop-down menu with the inserted change. Using cell-based programme is not recommended for texts in one language only (it is less convenient in such cases); if you have the same content in several language versions, it may prove more convenient for you.
It is also possible to leave comments where the content is not clear for the native speaker. It proves useful when you have manuals or lists of ingredients ? everything has to be transparent there.
Let us know what other formats would you like us to handle. Do not hesitate to contact us about your Excel projects or any other documents that would benefit from the attention of our native speakers. We are available on the expert chat and at info@ecorrector.com.
About eCORRECTOR: Mission statement: to ensure textually clear, grammatically correct and properly localised proofreading and translations by native speakers of the target language.
eCORRECTOR has an excellent track record of providing proofreading and translations to individual academics, institutes and businesses. We are building a solid reputation and have a large number of customers who reuse our services as well as recommended it to others.
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