While reviewing several colleague’s proofread Word files or PDF files, especially handling the client’s updated Word files to raise own different opinion or suggestion in the updated file, I would like to put forward my some proposals.

First, when you don’t agree with the client’s change, it is quite necessary to write some comments in Annotation box, and try to write the comments as simple and clear as possible, not using the general questions or any questioning sentence, it would be better to use ‘Please change XX to XX’ or ‘Please replace XX with XX’ etc simple sentence, here it no necessary to note your own reason for the change.

Second, if you find the extra space in the text, would be better to highlight the sentence with the extra space, and use the annotation box to write ‘Please delete the extra space’, not instead of just writing ‘spacing’, it would cause the client confused and must think our translator unprofessional, thus would doubt the ability of the translator, sometimes would ask the project manager to change another linguist to handle the file again.

To avoid the unnecessary confusion and inconvenience, so it is essential for the new translator to know some technique how to handle the updated file or proofread some documents.

For some PDF files the colleague proofread, here I’d like to share one technique with us. To open two Adobe Acrobat application windows, one is for the source file, the other is for the target file, and try to list them in the same screen, left to right or up to down, just it is convenience to you.

While finding something wrong in the target file, it would be better to use ‘Annotation and Remark’ tab in Tool menu, in ‘Annotation and Remark’ tab, you could use lots of different mark tool, i.e, rectangle or oval tool etc.

To use such tool to highlight the wrong text, and double click the annotation box to write down your comments for the highlighted text, here is the same suggestion for writing the comments, try to write it as simple and clear as possible you can, not using the long and complex sentence, it would cause the client confused.

After completing the updated file or the proofread file, it is also necessary to read the whole file and check the changed part before the final delivery, finding if something is missing or ignoring, then correct them and deliver the final file to the project manager.