Methods for Delivering Localized Web Content
1) Text based pages retain all the functionality of web pages,
i.e. text size can be changed by the user, link colours change
with use, text can be cut, copied and pasted, text can be searched
and sorted. This method is preferred for sites with substantial
amounts of non-English text, but for those unused to viewing such
pages it is not straightforward. They need either a native version
of their operating system or to install 'language packs' with
the necessary fonts and software to view the language in question,
and their web browser must also be set to use the appropriate
character set - note that Chinese uses two distinct character
sets known as 'Simplified' and 'Traditional'.
2) Image based pages can be viewed on any system without additional
software but suffer from being much slower to download for most
users. The textual advantages discussed above are also lost. They
are also more time consuming and therefore more expensive to produce
and much more difficult to edit and update. Nevertheless this
may be the better option for small amounts of text, or if pages
on your site need to be multilingual.
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