Engagements
What the work looks like before anyone commits to anything.
Most pages on a site like this describe outcomes. This one describes the work: what arrives, what usually goes wrong with it, and what we do about that. Document shapes, not client names.
We do not publish a client list. Agencies work under confidentiality with their own customers, and the same rule runs in the other direction.
The first engagement is a sample, not a pilot
It starts with one real document. Not an extract, not a demonstration file — the one that normally causes trouble.
You send it. We run it through the whole path and return the finished file, with the layout intact and your terminology applied if you have a list. What comes back is a document you can open in the application you already use, not a report about a document.
Then you check it the way you would check any supplier's work: your glossary, your reviewer, your own judgement about whether the output is usable. That step is deliberately yours and not ours.
If the file comes back wrong, you have learned something worth knowing before you sign anything. That is the point of starting here instead of with a contract.
Engagement shapes we are set up for
These come up most often. Each is described by where it breaks, because that is the part that decides whether it works.
A regulatory submission pack
A main filing plus annexes, exhibits and a term list that has to be applied exactly. The exhibits are usually scans, so recognition runs before translation, and nothing may be reordered on the way through.
A product manual set
A manual with figures, callouts and cross-references, plus every language it has to exist in. The prose is rarely the hard part — keeping each callout attached to the right part of the right figure is.
A release's worth of interface strings
A string file and the screens it appears on. Strings carry no context of their own, so a term that is merely plausible stays invisible until it is already in the product. The screens are part of the input, not a nicety.
A due-diligence data room
A folder of mixed files with no consistent shape: some digital, some scanned, some spreadsheets, some photographs of paper. Routing decides the outcome here, because no single treatment suits a whole folder.
Courseware that gets re-versioned
Training material that changes every term or every product release. The property that matters is that only the pages which changed need reprocessing, and the untouched ones come back as they were.
An archive that only exists on paper
A scanned collection with no text layer anywhere in it. Recognition is the step that decides the result, so the failures worth watching for are recognition failures rather than translation ones.
How one of these actually runs
Six steps, in order. The first four are the sample evaluation; nothing commercial happens until step five.
- 01
You send one real file
The awkward one. If it arrives as a folder, send the folder.
- 02
We look before we translate
Every page is inspected and routed before anything is translated. We tell you what we found, including the parts that will not work well.
- 03
You get the finished file back
Not a report about the file. The file, with its layout intact, so you can open it in the application you normally use.
- 04
You check it yourself
Your glossary, your reviewer, your judgement. This step is deliberately yours, not ours.
- 05
Then we scope
Volume, language pairs, delivery shape, who receives what. This is the first conversation about a commercial arrangement rather than about a document.
- 06
Nothing is committed before step five
The sample obliges you to nothing. If the output is not good enough, that is a complete answer and a cheap one.
What this page does not contain
Worth being explicit about, because a page like this normally carries the opposite.
No logos. Agencies work under confidentiality with their own customers, and putting a name on a supplier's site would break that. The same courtesy runs in both directions, which is why there is no client list anywhere on this site.
No measured numbers. Accuracy percentages and throughput figures are only worth publishing if they were measured under conditions that match yours. Ours were not, so we do not publish any. The limits that do appear on this site are the ones the production system enforces, and each traces back to the code that enforces it.
No delivery timeline for production work. How long a job takes depends on what is in it, and a figure published before anyone has looked at your files would be a guess dressed up as a commitment.
Engagement questions
Can you show me work you have done for other agencies?
No, and the reason is the one you would want. Agencies work under confidentiality with their own customers. A supplier willing to show you someone else's files would show yours to the next enquiry, so this site carries no client list and no sample work belonging to anyone else.
Then how am I supposed to judge you?
With your own document. Send the file that normally causes trouble and we return it finished. That tells you more than a page of logos would, and it does not ask you to take our word for anything.
Do you sign a confidentiality agreement?
Yes. Confidentiality terms are part of scoping and they cover your customers' material as well as your own. If you need one in place before sending a sample, say so and we will handle that first.
How long does the sample evaluation take?
Within 72 hours of the file arriving. That window covers the sample evaluation only — it is not a delivery commitment for production work, which is scoped per engagement.
What if my documents match none of the shapes above?
Then send one. The shapes on this page are the common ones, not an exhaustive list. A file that does not fit is more informative than one that does.
Start with the file that causes trouble.
One document, run end to end, returned finished. It is the shortest route to knowing whether this deserves a second conversation.
- Send one real file
- Returned within 72 hours
- You judge the output, not the description