La Gazette - N°2 (Patreon)

Hi everyones,As you know, no packs today.I publish four releases per month, and when there is a fifth issue, I offer something else.• News about Lovemaps Dungeons• How I translate my Book-----News about Lovemaps Dungeons

Lovemaps Dungeons offers dungeon maps for various DnD-like or OSR scenarios.It has its own Patreon 👉 : https://www.patreon.com/Lovemaps_dungeonsGo take a look, you can see a lot even without subscribing.• Scenario for Shadowdark :

• Campaign progress Odyssey of the DragonLords :

----------How I translate my BooksHere I show you how I quickly translate my books. Foreword:• I am French, and many official books are not necessarily published in my native language.• I speak English quite correctly, but some concepts may escape me, such as precise descriptions. • Also, some descriptions in the official book may vary when translated by a publisher in another country, but the original version serves as a reference.• This may be of interest to English speakers, as some campaigns are not translated into English (yes, it happens!), such as Broma Macabra.• My method is legal and can potentially help all of us.• Please note that this is only helpful if you do not have an official document in your language and you are in a hurry to play. It will never be as good as a translation from an official third-party publisher!What I use: • A PDF reader (in this case, Acrobat) • I Love PDF website (free) • Deepl (paid service in this context)• Step1 : Have the PDF to be translated. This seems fairly obvious. The PDF must be text-based and copy/pasteable. Purchase it officially. You are free to translate it for private use.• Step 2: Translate the PDF using Deepl.Deepl translates PDF documents, and is one of the best automatic translators. https://www.deepl.com/Deepl offers one free subscription and two more affordable subscriptions: One that allows you to translate one document under 5 MB per month (free) One that allows you to translate 3 documents under 30 MB per month ($8.74) (€7.49). One that allows you to translate 20 documents under 30MB per month ($28.74) (€24.99) It's up to you to choose the subscription that suits you best based on the number of documents you need to translate. And don't forget to unsubscribe afterwards if you won't be using the service again.If your document is less than 30 MB, you can simply drag and drop it into Deepl, and it will do the work for you. This can take up to 15 minutes depending on the complexity of the document.• Step 3: Reduce the size of your PDF. Naturally, our document will often exceed the 30 MB limit. There are 3 practical methods for doing this:Compress PDF: Use the free website https://www.ilovepdf.com, then select the Compress PDF function. Drag and drop your PDF file and select a compression. The size of your PDF file will be significantly reduced (possibly by a factor of 10). Note that compression affects images, not text. Please also note that the lower the compression, the better the quality of the document once translated.Remove heavy pages from your PDF: Your PDF reader may allow you to remove pages. It is important to understand that images are what make your PDF heavy. Therefore, removing “heavy” pages is a good way to reduce the file size. Removing the cover page or any advertisements at the end of the PDF can also help significantly.Split your PDF: Your PDF reader may allow you to split your PDF into several parts. Split it into 2 or 3 parts, or according to the number of chapters.You can also split your PDF and then use ILovePDF to compress it.The goal is always to stay under 30 MB so you can go back to Deepl in step 2. Of course, once you're on Deepl, if you put 3 separate chapters into 3 PDFs, it will count the translation of 3 documents.---Result:If you have followed the steps, in less than fifteen minutes you will have a clean PDF document in your language. Well, clean... It depends on the publisher's layout. In my case, these are very often Chaosium books. And it works pretty well, I would say it's 90% OK!The translation is fairly accurate and consistent. The layout is generally respected. The stats tables even display the values in a readable way. Sometimes there are a few repeated sentences or slightly odd boxes. Pages with backgrounds take on a gray tint.But it's still acceptable and doesn't really interfere with reading.Please note that this is still a working document.Limitations: • Works with text layouts that go in all directions, and/or with text in images, such as many OSR books... Forget it! It won't give you any conclusive results.• I also understand that the language chosen plays a big part in the result. For me, English to French it's OK.• Please note that having your document translated does not give you the right to share it with the entire world. It remains for private use only!Examples:Here are a 3 examples from English to French. (I use Masks and The Sutra of Pale Leaves)

And 3 examples from French to English. (I use Broma Macabra/Farce Macabre)

There you go, I hope this helps some of you out.

Next week, Masks highlights with the first part of the America chapter.

Have fun!Damien - Lovemaps