28/07/2025

Your marketing brochure has been translated into five languages and now it’s time for it to be checked in your company’s international branches. France has sent three annotated PDF files, the USA has sent a list of all requested changes by email and the Chinese colleagues want to delete two pages and add another text block instead. As a result, important terminology is quickly lost and corrections are made inconsistently or even contradict each other. With several process participants, you also lose track of which version is the current one and whether further corrections are to be expected. Last but not least, a great deal of effort is required to incorporate all corrections into the document and the translation memory. What was planned as an efficient review process often turns into an organisational nightmare. There are technical solutions to support the process, make corrections sustainable and integrate everyone involved in the best possible way.

International reviews bring challenges with them. Time differences across national borders make coordination difficult, and everyone involved usually has different priorities, which means that reviews are often delayed. It’s easy to lose track of the process, important corrections may be overlooked or requested corrections from different reviewers may contradict each other. In addition, reviewers use different formats and working methods, such as comments or correction functions in PDFs.

Without a standardised platform, there are often media discontinuities, as branches usually and understandably want to check documents in the layout to be able to place the text in its visual context. So there is layout work to be done before the review process – and even more afterwards. This is because all corrections must be made in both the layout and the translation memory (TM) so that they are permanently stored there, avoiding the need to make the same corrections again in future projects.

Checking directly in the translation environment would be much faster and more efficient for the translation process. However, the isolated texts, divided into sentences in individual rows in a table or spreadsheet, do not provide any information about how the text is presented in the final document.

The length of a heading is decided without seeing where it is placed. Or a product text is corrected without knowing whether it appears next to an image, in a box or as a caption. This lack of visual orientation leads to decisions being made in a vacuum. The consequences can become apparent in the final layout where corrections are linguistically correct but break up text boxes, cover important design elements or destroy the visual hierarchy of the document.

At oneword, we have developed the oneReview platform for the day-to-day process of country reviews and translation checks. Its centrepiece is the layout preview, which shows you exactly what you will see later in the finished document. Instead of abstract text fragments, you see the complete brochure, website or manual. Clicking on a position in the layout opens the corresponding text segment for editing, just like in a CAT tool. All changes are visible in real time in the preview and can be tracked by visual highlighting. Text and image content can also be commented on freely, for example if a comment relates to the replacement of an address or a layout correction. oneReview supports all common file formats, such as XML, InDesign, FrameMaker, HTML and MS Office. The review platform combines the convenience of the familiar PDF view with the functions of a translation tool. Reviewers can access stored terminology, search the TM, receive a message if a corrected segment is repeated in the document and use extensive QA functions. All changes are also integrated directly into the translation memory, where they are saved for future projects.

The layout preview not only solves the visibility problem, it improves overall communication within the team. If everyone involved has the layout directly in front of them, discussions become more precise. Instead of vague formulations such as “the text seems too long”, you can be specific: “The headline overhangs the edge of the picture”.

Inconsistent corrections are significantly reduced because all reviewers have the same visual context, but can also view specified terminology and automatically check that the text complies with it in order to make corrections in line with the corporate language. The integration of translation memories allows existing translations to be reused and avoids inconsistencies in language usage. The automatic synchronisation of identical segments also helps to ensure that texts can be corrected more quickly and uniformly.

A review platform can significantly reduce and simplify review processes, removing the need to manually transfer corrections and avoiding layout-related reworking. Because all corrections are permanently stored, changes only have to be made once and are then available for future projects.

A practical example makes the advantages particularly clear. MHZ Hachtel GmbH, an international supplier of privacy and sun protection systems, was faced with the challenge of bringing together various review processes, comments from different departments and inconsistent terminology. Following the introduction of oneReview with the layout preview, the company reports “enormously simplified and accelerated” review processes. Digital coordination between the German head office and the European subsidiaries now works smoothly, with everyone working on the same basis. This means that time-consuming and cost-intensive rounds of corrections are a thing of the past. You can download the entire MHZ case study here free of charge.

The layout preview transforms chaotic coordination processes into coordinated teamwork. It enables you and your international teams to make well-founded decisions, with full visibility of the consequences. Instead of guessing, you can see exactly what you are correcting.

For internationally operating companies with complex approval processes, this means a decisive competitive advantage: you create professional multilingual publications with significantly reduced cross-checking and sign-off of corrections and predictable project lead times.

Are you interested in a review platform for harmonising your translations? We will be happy to advise you on the possibilities and show you how we can support your specific requirements with oneReview.