Typographic competence for translators

[Michael Rowley]

It's likely that there is a large population of translators who don't work with CAT tools and just overwrite text in Word docs or go from PDF to Word.

CAT tools were no use to me when I was still translating for a living, because I seldom got texts to translate that were like a preceding text, and there are plenty that are in the same boat.

Some languages have semi-official standards of typography, which is some help if you know that publishers and printers stick to them. Most translators have only one target language, so it's not too difficult to learn the basics of 'orthotypography'—if you can find someone to teach them.