Multilingual document production from support for translating to support for authoring

In this paper, we look at the current scenario in multilingual documentation generation and the types of tools currently being used in support of the translation task, and discuss their shortcomings. We examine emergent trends in the document industry, observing a reorganization of the workflow which mirrors a shift of attention from translating to authoring and from the ergonomics of post-editing the target text to the ergonomics of producing the source text. We argue that these trends invite the design and development of new tools for the task of producing multilingual texts, and that multilingual generation provides the appropriate technology, shifting attention to an even earlier stage in the authoring process, that of specifying the semantics of the text to be produced. We describe a prototype system which exploits this technology to meet the expressed needs of authors and translators by supporting them in the drafting of multilingual instructions. We suggest that, in the future, a single platform to support multilingual documentation should integrate translation-oriented tools and generation-based tools to be employed as appropriate by different types of users (translators and authors) in different circumstances.