Reading time: about eight minutes. Last reviewed September 2026.
Send the editable original if one exists
A Word file, an InDesign package, a spreadsheet or a set of software strings can be translated directly, with the layout and structure preserved. A scanned PDF of the same content has to be rebuilt before anyone can start, and rebuilding a complex layout takes time that appears on your quote as preparation.
Look for the source before you settle for a scan. The finance team usually still has the spreadsheet. The agency that designed the brochure still has the InDesign file. For a certified translation of an official record a scan is unavoidable and expected, but for corporate, technical and marketing content the editable original almost always exists somewhere.
Make sure scans are legible
Where a scan is the only option, its quality sets a ceiling on what a translator can produce. A translator cannot render a word they cannot read, and a professional will flag an illegible passage rather than guess at it, which means a question back to you and a pause in the work.
- Scan at 300 dpi or higher, in colour rather than black and white so stamps and coloured ink stay readable
- Capture the entire page, with nothing cropped at the margins
- Include the reverse side of any page that has content on it, including a single stamp
- Keep the page square rather than photographed at an angle
- Avoid photographs taken on a phone in poor light, which are the single most common cause of an illegible source
- If part of the original is genuinely unreadable on the physical document itself, tell us so we treat it as a known gap rather than a scanning problem
Say what the translation is for
The purpose changes the work more than any other single piece of information. The same source document produces a different deliverable depending on its destination.
- For filing with an authority. Needs a certification statement, a layout that mirrors the source and a complete rendering of every stamp and seal.
- For understanding internally. A clear accurate translation with no certification, and possibly a summary rather than the full document.
- For publication. Needs adaptation for the audience, attention to tone and often a further review pass for style.
- For a court or an expert. Needs literal fidelity, including preserving ambiguity that exists in the source rather than resolving it.
- For a contract or signature. Needs consistent defined terms and careful treatment of obligations, and often a bilingual layout.
A single sentence about purpose in your request prevents the most expensive kind of rework, which is a finished translation that is accurate but wrong for its use.
Name the audience and the locale
Spanish for Mexico is not Spanish for Spain. Portuguese for Brazil is not Portuguese for Portugal. Arabic for a Gulf readership differs from Arabic for North Africa, and Modern Standard Arabic differs from both. French written for Paris reads differently to French written for West Africa.
Say which variety you need and who will read it. A regulator, a patient, a customer and an engineer need different registers of the same language, and a translator who knows the reader makes better decisions on every page.
Send reference material and glossaries
If your organization has approved terminology, send it. If it does not, send whatever comes closest: a previous translation you were happy with, a style guide, a product catalogue, the English source of a related document, or a list of terms nobody is allowed to change.
What matters most:
- Product and brand names, and whether they are translated or left in the source language
- Job titles, department names and entity names as they appear in your own materials
- Acronyms, with what they stand for
- Terms your industry uses in a specific way that differs from general usage
- Anything a previous reviewer objected to, which is often the most useful list of all
If you have none of this, a good provider will build a glossary from your first project and send it for approval, so the second project starts from an agreed base.
Be realistic about deadlines, and say what is really driving them
A deadline that reflects a genuine filing date is a constraint everyone can plan around. A deadline invented to create urgency produces rushed work and no benefit. Tell us what the date actually is and what happens if it slips.
If the volume cannot be done well in the time available, there are usually better options than compressing the schedule: translate the critical sections first and the rest on a normal timeline, split across several linguists with a single reviewer for consistency, or produce a rough version for internal understanding now and a finished one for external use later. Any of those beats a hurried translation of everything.
Say up front whether you need certification
Certification is not something to add at the end. A certified translation is formatted differently, treated differently in review and delivered as a package with a signed statement and a copy of the source. Deciding after delivery that the document needs to be certified usually means redoing part of the work.
If you are unsure, ask. The question is normally settled by knowing who will receive the document. Our guide to certified translation for USCIS covers the most common case.
Handle confidentiality before you send
If a document contains information that is not needed for an accurate translation, remove it first. Account numbers, unrelated patient details, third party names and internal identifiers can often be redacted without affecting the translation at all, and what you never send cannot be exposed.
If the material is sensitive but cannot be redacted, say so with the request so the project is set up accordingly. Our security and confidentiality page sets out the handling options available.
Understand page count against word count
Translation is normally scoped on word count, because words are what get translated. Certified vital records are often quoted per page instead, because a birth certificate has a predictable amount of text regardless of layout.
Two things surprise clients. First, a page of dense technical text can contain several times the words of a page with a diagram and a caption, so page count alone tells a provider very little. Second, text expands and contracts between languages: English into Spanish, French or Arabic typically grows, and English into Chinese or Korean typically shrinks. That matters for anything with a fixed layout, a slide, a label, a button in a user interface, and it is worth flagging at the start if space is constrained.
Plan the review cycle
If someone on your side will review the translation, decide who before the project starts and tell us. Two things follow. The reviewer can be given the glossary and the brief in advance, so their comments address genuine errors rather than preferences already settled. And their preferences can be captured into your glossary afterwards, so the next project reflects them automatically.
A review that appears unannounced two days after delivery, from someone who was not briefed, produces the longest and least productive revision cycles in this industry.
The checklist
- Editable source file located and sent, or a clean 300 dpi colour scan of every page including reverse sides
- Purpose of the translation stated in one sentence
- Target language variety and reader named
- Glossary, style guide or a previous approved translation attached
- Real deadline given, with what depends on it
- Certification requirement decided and stated
- Sensitive content redacted where it is not needed
- Word count or page count known, and layout constraints flagged
- Internal reviewer identified and briefed
- A named contact who can answer a question within a working day
That last point is worth as much as the rest combined. Most projects generate one or two questions. A client who answers within hours keeps the schedule; a question that waits four days for an answer moves the delivery date by four days, whatever the quote said.
What we do
Every Layaab project starts with a project manager reading the brief and checking the source is complete and usable, so problems surface before a translator starts rather than at delivery. Send what you have and we will tell you what else would help. See our quality guarantee for the full workflow.
Read next: how to choose an interpreter.