
  General notes for translators:

     1.  Before starting a translation, always check with your fellow
         translators on debian-l10n-<language>@lists.debian.org (if
         such a list does exist) to make sure that noone is currently
         working on the same translation, and read current bugreports
         against the package you are going to translate to see if a
         translation has already been reported.

     2.  If you want to update a translation, please always contact
         the previous translator in order to prevent duplication of
         work.  Mail addresses can be found in the PO file.

     3.  To start a new translation, copy the templates.pot file into
         <xx>.po, where <xx> is the ISO code of your language.  Then
         specify in the first msgstr the charset used for translated
         strings, and also put any useful piece of information.

     4.  Any general text editor can be used to work on PO files, and
         there are some specific tools like gtranslator or kbabel
         which can be helpful if you are not familiar with PO files.
         Gettext documentation contains explanations about the PO file
         format, and you must read at least the 'Filling in the Header
         Entry' and 'The Format of PO Files' sections.

     5.  When you have finished your translation, always reread your
         file at least once to correct all meaning, spelling, grammar,
         typo and other mistakes.  (Maybe your PO editor does include
         a spellchecker or a translation helper like acheck).
         Next run
            msgfmt -c -v -o /dev/null <YOUR_LANGUAGE_CODE>.po
         to check that your file is valid and will be integrated
         without trouble.
         Depending on your language team policy, you may also send
         your translation to your dedicated l10n list so that it gets
         reviewed.

     6.  When your translation is finished and valid, file a bugreport
         against the package being translated, severity minor.  Tag
         your report with 'l10n' and 'patch' marks, add "[INTL:xx]"
         (where xx is the ISO code of your language) to the subject to
         help further searches, ask politely that your translation
         gets included, give maintainer instructions on what to do
         with this file (e.g. "Please copy the attachment into
         debian/po/cs.po") and do not forget to attach your
         translation.  This step can be very easily performed with the
         reportbug utility.

  Notes specific to po-debconf:

     1.  The field name is displayed in comments before msgid.
         Default values are special for debconf, because when
         template type is 'Select' or 'Multiselect', they must *not*
         be translated, but their values may be changed (in rare
         curcumstances) to another string listed in the English
         Choices field.  For this reason, developers should use
         DefaultChoice instead of Default in order to prevent
         confusion.
         THIS IS A PO-DEBCONF EXTENSION.
         In the generated templates file, Default will of course be
         printed, since debconf does not define this DefaultChoice
         field.

     2.  Because instructions for translators may be inserted by
         developers, you must ensure that the tool you are using
         is able to display (without corruption) these comments.
         See for instance instructions to handle language selection
         in the geneweb package.

     3.  Sometimes msgids are identical whereas msgstr could have
         different values.  In order to make msgids unique, some
         special text can be inserted at the end of the string, more
         precisely any sequence of
             + a left square bracket: '['
             + a space
             + zero or more occurences of any character except left
               square bracket, right square bracket and newline
             + a right square bracket: ']'
         at the end of string is removed from msgid strings.
         It also applies to msgstr strings, so that translators can
         insert an empty string.

     4.  Lines are wrapped by debconf, except when they begin with a
         space.  Such lines are often used to format lists, but each
         frontend has its own limitations.  It seems that such lines
         must not exceed 72 characters in order to be displayed
         reasonably well on all frontends.

     5.  The podebconf-display-po script (from po-debconf >= 0.8.3)
         is able to show your translation as it will be displayed by
         debconf at configuration time.  Run
            podebconf-display-po -fdialog debian/po/<YOUR_LANG_CODE>.po
         to have a rough idea on how your translation will look like.
         But this only works for basic configuration files, rendering
         may be altered if complex operations (like heavy use of text
         substitution) are performed.  Available debconf frontends
         (which can be selected by the -f flag) are listed in
         debconf(7).
