Client wants drawings in Russian..Help needed.

[wellsshane]

Our client has required that our drawings be delivered in Russian on a new job.

I have heard of Cyrillic font styles but am not sure if thats the best way to approach delivering Russian drawings to our client?

We havent started any drawings yet and will be using AutoCad electrical 2010.

Can anyone suggest tips in helping us deliver drawings to our client in Russian?

Thanks in advance.

[michael.12445]

I'll assume you have someone available who has the necessary Russian language proficiency. (Note there is a Russan language forum here at AUGI.)

Many TrueType fonts include Cyrillic characters already (I'm pretty sure Arial is among these). In MS Word, if you "Insert special character," a chart comes up that shows all the characters included in the current font. Scroll down and you should see the Cyrillic characters (along with Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, etc.)

I haven't ever tried to access these in an AutoCAD product, but I imagine you could set your MTEXT Editor to MS Word instead of the built-in default.

[jaberwok]

I've done similar with Chinese but I was lucky enough to be sent the required text, in Chinese, as a Word doc.
Suggest your client sends you a doc file, preferably using a Unicode font.

[wellsshane]

Jaberwok or Michael..Thanks for the replies. If its not to much trouble could I ask you all to walk me through this step by step? I have looked at MS Word and how to insert special characters as mentioned; I'm not real clear on when this needs to be done? So will this convert our drawings to Russian? Thanks again, Shane

I can be reached at shane_wells@zeeco.com
or 918 630-1533

[michael.12445]

wellsshane,

No, this won't automatically convert English text into Russian. All this does is give you access to the Cyrillic characters encoded into the font, so that you can enter Russian text:

In MS Word, select Arial as the current font. Then go to Insert, Symbol..., and a chart will be displayed showing all the characters in the Arial font. Scroll down until you see the Cyrillic ones. Highlight the character you want, and select Insert. This inserts the character into your Word document. The Symbol dialog is modal, meaning is stays open, allowing you to select another character and insert it, too, repeating the process until you are done spelling your Russian word. So basically it functions like a really clunky Cyrillic keyboard. (This is probably OK for short notes, but not for text of any length.) Once you have the text you want in Word, I'm guessing you can cut and paste it into AutoCAD.

Now for longer texts, there are Cyrillic fonts that map to the keys found on a normal keyboard. But like I said, either way, you'll need someone with Russian language proficiency to translate English to Russian. I would not attempt to rely on any kind of mechanical solution like you see when Google tries to translate Russian web pages into English.

[jaberwok]

wellsshane,

...This is probably OK for short notes, but not for text of any length.

Now for longer texts ... you'll need someone with Russian language proficiency to translate English to Russian.

That's why I'd ask the client to send you the Russian text - it's quicker (for you), spelling should be accurate and you, hopefully, will not end up with a mess of pidgin Russian.

[cadtag]

If you do not have anyone on staff who is fluent in technical Russian for that discipline, look at either hiring some one, or contracting with a professional translator with expertise in your type of construction documents. (Get one with liability insurance.....)

[wellsshane]

This has been a great help..Thank you all so much!