Q2. I work in the pharmaceutical industry: How can I reduce my translation costs?

• The Medical Network of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting in London has a useful on-line brochure by Chris Durban of general tips for translation buyers: “Translation: Getting it right - A guide to buying translations” / “Traduction: Faire les bons choix - Petit guide de l’acheteur de traductions” http://www.medicaltranslators.net/clientadvice.html.
• If your text is an electronic file, and you want the same presentation in the translation, ensure that your document is formatted using basic word-processing commands (Page Setup, Styles, Paragraph Keep With Next, Bullets & Numbering, Table of Contents etc). This avoids the translator having to spend a couple of hours at your expense reformatting your document before he or she can work within it.
• Strike out/clearly mark sections that do not require translating, e.g. small-print headers and footers, numerical tabular material, literature references and passages of duplicate text.
• Tell us what the translation is for, if not obvious from the context. Do you want a literal translation of the original for information purposes, or do you want a piece of native-speaker English for consumption by American physicians? This will save the translator time in settling on a style, and provide you with a more appropriate product.
• If the text for translation is a paper targeted at a specific journal, read through our answers to Q1.