How to Prepare Your Marketing Materials for Translation

Key Takeaways

• How marketing content is written and designed in English directly determines how smoothly and cost-effectively it translates — preparation at the source reduces rework at the translation stage.
• Idioms, cultural references, and humour that work in English often require significant adaptation in other languages, and some cannot be translated at all. Writing with translation in mind reduces this problem.
• Text expansion of 15–25% is typical when translating from English into European languages — designs that do not allow for this require expensive layout rework after translation.
• Files supplied in native editable formats (InDesign, Word, HTML) rather than locked PDFs or flattened images make translation and typesetting significantly faster and cheaper.
• A brief given to your translation partner before work begins — covering brand voice, terminology, target audience, and any cultural sensitivities — consistently produces better output than a file sent without context.

The quality of a marketing translation is shaped by two things: the skill of the translator and the quality of what they are given to work with. The second factor is within your control. Marketing materials prepared with translation in mind translate more smoothly, require less revision, and cost less to localise across multiple languages. This guide covers the practical steps that make a real difference.

Write for Translation From the Start

The single most effective thing a marketing team can do to improve translation quality is to write source copy with translation in mind — sometimes called "internationalisation" of content.

Avoid idioms and culturally specific expressions. Phrases like "hit the ground running," "the ball is in your court," or "ahead of the curve" are natural in English but have no direct equivalent in many languages. Translators either render them literally (which sounds odd) or find a local equivalent (which takes more time and may not land the same way). Plain, direct language translates more consistently and costs less to localise.

Keep sentences concise. Long, complex sentences — with multiple subordinate clauses and parenthetical additions — are harder to translate accurately and often expand significantly in the target language. Shorter, clearer sentences translate more reliably.

Be consistent with terminology. If you refer to your product as a "platform" in one paragraph and a "solution" or "tool" elsewhere, your translator will need to make a choice — and may not make the same choice each time. Decide on the key terms before writing and use them consistently throughout.

Avoid cultural references that are market-specific. Sporting metaphors, local celebrity references, and season-specific imagery (particularly around holidays) may not resonate or may actively confuse audiences in other markets. These require either significant adaptation or removal.

Leave humour for transcreation. If a piece of content relies on humour to work, flag this to your translation partner. Humour is the hardest content to translate and the most likely to require transcreation rather than straightforward translation.

Design for Text Expansion

Text expansion is one of the most common and avoidable causes of additional cost in marketing translation projects. When English copy is translated into most European languages, the translated text runs longer. Typical expansion rates for common European languages are 15–25% longer than the English source; German often runs 30% longer. Languages with different scripts — Arabic, Chinese, Japanese — may contract, but also require different typographic treatment.

Design implications:

• Text boxes in InDesign, PowerPoint, or other design tools set to a fixed size will overflow when translated text is inserted. Either set text boxes to auto-resize, or build in space from the start.
• Buttons and calls-to-action are particularly vulnerable — a "Request a Quote" button that fits in English may need a completely different layout in German.
• Navigation menus, headers, and captions are all high-risk areas for expansion-related layout problems.
• Right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu) require a full layout mirroring — text alignment, reading direction, and in some cases the entire page structure need to be adapted.

The cost of designing with expansion in mind is minimal. The cost of redesigning a 40-page brochure after translation because the text overflows every text box is significant.

Supply Files in Editable Formats

Translation and multilingual typesetting are significantly faster and cheaper when files are supplied in their native editable format rather than as locked PDFs or flattened images.

Recommended formats:

• InDesign (.indd or .idml): The standard for print marketing. Supply .idml rather than .indd where possible, as .idml is version-agnostic and can be opened by translation teams regardless of which version of InDesign they use. See our InDesign translation page for more detail on the workflow.
• Word (.docx): For text-heavy content — white papers, reports, newsletters. Use styles consistently so translated text inherits the correct formatting.
• PowerPoint (.pptx): For presentations. Avoid embedding text in images — any text in an image cannot be extracted for translation and must be recreated, which adds time and cost.
• HTML or CMS export: For web content. Many CMS platforms support XLIFF export, which is the most efficient format for web translation projects.

Avoid supplying content as a PDF only unless the original source files are genuinely unavailable. A PDF requires additional steps to extract the text for translation, and the typesetting must be recreated from scratch — which adds cost that a supplied InDesign file would not.

Prepare a Brief for Your Translation Partner

A translation brief is a short document that gives your translation partner the context they need to make good decisions throughout the project. It does not need to be long, but it consistently produces better output than sending a file with no context.

A useful brief covers:

• Brand voice: Is the tone formal or conversational? Authoritative or approachable? Are there words or phrases the brand always uses or always avoids?
• Target audience: Who is this content for in the target market? A consumer audience in France requires a different register from a B2B audience in Germany.
• Key terminology: Which product names, brand names, and technical terms must remain in English? Which should be translated?
• Cultural sensitivities: Are there any topics, images, or references that should be handled carefully or avoided in the target market?
• Existing translations: Do you have previously translated content that should be used as a reference for terminology and tone?

Conclusion

Marketing materials prepared for translation produce better translations at lower cost. The investment is in how content is written and designed before the translation brief is placed — and it pays back across every language the content is localised into.

Global LTS works with marketing teams from brief through to final multilingual delivery, including brochure translation, InDesign typesetting, and full marketing translation services across 120+ languages. Contact us to discuss your next multilingual marketing project.

For related reading, see our guides on marketing translation vs transcreation and website translation and multilingual SEO.