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authorJean-Christophe Helary2024-02-18 00:04:18 +0900
committerEli Zaretskii2024-02-18 09:46:01 +0200
commitaa8baf77b47e3de114f5dc5e9aaa987bb96ed248 (patch)
tree90412db579e97365baa78c64332380cec70455da
parentc2d714886ef139f601d89463675b0d5b49d18ff9 (diff)
downloademacs-aa8baf77b47e3de114f5dc5e9aaa987bb96ed248.tar.gz
emacs-aa8baf77b47e3de114f5dc5e9aaa987bb96ed248.zip
Add README file about translations of Emacs manuals
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1* Translating the Emacs manuals
2
3** Copyright assignment
4
5People who contribute translated documents should provide a copyright
6assignment to the Free Software Foundation. See the 'Copyright
7Assignment' section in the Emacs manual.
8
9
10** Translated documents license
11
12The translated documents are distributed under the same license as the
13original documents: the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
14any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
15
16See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html for more information.
17
18If you have questions regarding the use of the FDL license in your
19translation work that are not answered in the FAQ, do not hesitate to
20contact the GNU project: https://www.gnu.org/contact/
21
22** Location
23
24*** Texinfo source files
25
26The source files of the translated manuals are located in the doc/
27directory, under the directory whose name corresponds to the translated
28language.
29
30 E.g. French manuals sources are found under doc/fr.
31
32The structure of the language folders should match the structure of the
33English manuals (i.e. include misc, man, lispref, lispintro, emacs).
34
35*** built files
36
37Translated deliverables in info format are built at release time and are
38made available for local installation.
39
40
41** Format
42
43The manuals and their translations are written in the Texinfo format
44(with the exception of the org-mode manual that is written in org-mode
45and of illustrations for the Introduction to Emacs Lisp Programming that
46are written in eps).
47
48See https://www.gnu.org/software/Texinfo/ for more information.
49
50You should install the Texinfo utilities to be able to verify the
51translated files, and refer to the Texinfo manual if you do not
52understand the meaning of the various Texinfo declarations.
53
54Emacs has a Texinfo mode that properly highlights the Texinfo code to
55make it easier to see which parts are text to be translated and which
56parts are not.
57
58
59*** Texinfo specific issues
60
61Until the Emacs/Texinfo projects provide better solutions, here are a
62few rules to follow:
63
64- Under each @node, add an @anchor that has the same content at the
65original English @node.
66
67- Translate the @node content but leave the @anchor in English.
68
69- Most Emacs manuals are set to include the docstyle.Texi file. This
70file adds the @documentencoding UTF-8 directive to the targeted manual.
71There is no need to add this directive in a manual that includes
72docstyle.Texi.
73
74- Add a @documentlanguage directive that includes your language.
75
76 E.g. @documentlanguage zh
77
78This directive has currently little effect but will be useful in the
79future.
80
81- The @author directive can be used for the translator's name.
82
83 E.g. @author traduit en français par Achile Talon
84
85
86** Fixing the original document
87
88During the course of the translation, you might find parts of the
89original document that need to be updated or otherwise fixed, or even
90bugs in Emacs. If you do not intend to provide fixes right away, please
91file a bug report promptly so someone can fix it soon.
92
93See the 'Bugs' section in the Emacs manual.
94
95** Sending contributions
96
97Send your contributions (either files or revisions) to
98emacs-devel@gnu.org for review.
99
100Always send contributions in the format of the original document. Most
101of the contents in the Emacs manuals are in Texinfo format, so do not
102send contributions that are in derivative formats (e.g. info, html,
103docbook, plain text, etc.)
104
105Before sending files for review, ensure that they have been properly
106checked for spelling/grammar/typography by at least using the tools that
107Emacs provides.
108
109You should also make sure that the Texinfo files build properly on your
110system.
111
112Send your contributions as patches (git diff -p --stat), and prefer the
113git format-patch form because the format allows easier review and easier
114installation of the changes by someone with write access to the
115repository.
116
117The Emacs project has a lot of coding, documentation and commenting
118conventions. Sending such patches allows the project managers to make
119sure that the contributions comply with the various conventions.
120
121
122** Discussing translation issues
123
124Translation-related discussions are welcome on the emacs-devel list.
125Discussions specific to your language do not have to take place in
126English.
127
128
129** Translation teams
130
131The number of words in the Emacs manuals is above 2,000,000 words and
132growing. While one individual could theoretically translate all the
133files, it is more practical to work in language teams.
134
135If you have a small group of translators willing to help, make sure that
136the files are properly reviewed before sending them to emacs-devel (see
137above).
138
139You are invited to refer to the translation-related documents that the
140GNU Project maintains and to get in touch with your language's
141translation team to learn from the practices they have developed over
142the years.
143
144See https://www.gnu.org/server/standards/README.translations.html for
145more information.
146
147
148** Translation processes
149
150Emacs does not yet provide tools that significantly help the translation
151process. A few useful functions would be
152
153- automatic lookup of a list of glossary items when starting to work on
154a translation "unit" (paragraph or otherwise), such glossary terms
155should be easily insertable at point,
156
157- automatic lookup of past translations to check for similarity and
158improve homogeneity over the whole document set, such past translation
159matches should be easily insertable at point,
160
161etc.
162
163
164*** Using the PO format as an intermediate translation format
165
166Although the PO format has not been developed with documentation in
167mind, it is well known among free software translation teams and you can
168easily use the po4a utility to convert Texinfo to PO for work in
169translation tools that support the PO format.
170
171See https://po4a.org for more information.
172
173However, regardless of the intermediate file format that you might use,
174you should only send Texinfo files for review to emacs-devel.
175
176
177*** Free tools that you can use in your processes
178
179A number of free software tools exist, outside the Emacs ecosystem, to
180help translators (amateurs and professionals alike) with the translation
181process.
182
183If you find that Emacs should implement some of their features, you are
184welcome to provide patches to the Emacs project.
185
186Such tools include:
187
188- the GNOME Translation Editor, https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gtranslator/
189- KDE's Lokalize, https://apps.kde.org/lokalize/
190- OmegaT, http://omegat.org
191- the Okapi Framework, https://www.okapiframework.org
192- pootle, https://pootle.translatehouse.org
193
194etc.
195
196
197* Licence of this document
198
199Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
200
201Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are
202permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice
203and this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any
204warranty.