Supporting multilingual web sites: a DeltaXML solution
The source for a multilingual site is often represented in XML. The initial translation of the source document is straight forward; the problem comes when the original is updated. In order to update the translations, it is necessary to know exactly what has changed in the original text. This is exactly the information a DeltaXML delta file provides.
Following an update to the master text, DeltaXML can compare the revised text with the previous version and identify where information has been changed. If attributes or other markup have been changed, these do not require translation and can be updated automatically. Where text has been changed users are able to select which level of granularity changes should be displayed at, ensuring that the most efficient use of translators' time to reduce the translation bottleneck. Users can choose whether to send the translator just the changed paragraphs, or the full delta, with both changed and unchanged data clearly flagged.
Including DeltaXML as a tool in the translation maintenance pipeline can considerably reduce work and increase quality. And you even can use DeltaXML to validate that changes have been made in the appropriate places in the translated files by comparing the new translation with the old one.