As a leading global provider of infrastructure solutions, Bentley is committed to showcasing successful projects in the Chinese market and highlighting the achievements of local R&D teams worldwide. A core mission for Bentley’s Chinese operations is to localize their products for Greater China and Southeast Asia, which plays a vital role in this effort. Today, we will discuss Bentley’s software localization in China.
The team responsible for localization primarily focuses on two areas:
First, the localization of software user interfaces, help documents, user manuals, and training materials. This includes engineering, translation, editing, reviewing, testing, layout design, packaging, and publishing.
Second, assisting in the development of country-specific kits based on local standards and regulations.
Product Localization Decisions
Not all Bentley products have localized versions. So, how do we decide which products to localize? The decision is mainly based on two factors: market demand and technological feasibility.
For products with little or no demand in the local market, localized versions are generally not produced. However, products with high demand are prioritized for localization. From a technical standpoint, some products cannot support double-byte characters properly due to legacy issues, making localization impossible. Additionally, some products nearing the end of their lifecycle or undergoing migration to new platforms are not considered for localization.
Is Localization the Same as Sinicization?
This is an interesting question. In China, the term “Sinicization” is often used, but the more accurate term is “localization.” Localization refers to adapting a product from its original language to the language and cultural context of the target market. It ensures users feel as if the software was developed locally, with no differences in text, customs, or habits.
Localization includes support for local text input, date and time formats, currency, measurement units, sorting, and layout direction (left-to-right or right-to-left).
Is Localization Just Translation?
Not entirely. While translation is a key component, it only accounts for about 60% of the localization effort. The rest involves engineering, testing, typesetting, packaging, and more.
Engineering: This covers all non-translation tasks such as identifying files that require localization from thousands of source files, converting file formats for compatibility with localization tools, extracting strings, adjusting dialog box sizes and positions, converting file encoding, restoring localized files to their original formats, and setting up debugging and testing environments.
Testing: Functional and language testing ensures the localized software works correctly and aligns with local market expectations, just like the original language version.
Layout: Text length can vary by language—translations may be longer (e.g., German, Russian) or shorter (e.g., Chinese, Arabic). In regions where languages like Arabic and Hebrew are used, text flows from right to left, requiring page layout adjustments. Creating localized versions of images, screenshots, animations, and videos is also essential.
Packaging: This involves creating localized installation packages using the localized resource files.
Are Specialized Tools Used in Localization?
Absolutely. As the saying goes, “To do a good job, one must first sharpen their tools.” Just like developers use IDEs such as Visual Studio, the localization industry relies on mature tools designed to meet various needs. These tools help parse strings for translation from resource files, adjust dialog boxes, generate translation units, create translation memory libraries, produce statistical reports on word, page, and image counts, and generate target files.
That concludes our overview of Bentley software localization in China. For more information on BIM, please visit our official website: BIM Architecture Training Website bimii.com.
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