Start from a clean page
Typesetting needs a page with the original lettering removed and the art underneath restored. Inside plain white bubbles that is quick; over screentone or colour it means redrawing what the letters covered. Typeset on a dirty page and every flaw shows through.
Choose a small set of fonts
Use one comic dialogue font for ordinary speech and a few others with clear jobs: one for narration boxes, one for thoughts if the series sets them apart, and a heavier face for shouting. Fewer is better. A page with six fonts looks like a ransom note; a page with two looks designed.
Fit the bubble
- Centre it. Text sits in the middle of the bubble, with even space to every edge, and never touches the outline.
- Shape it. Round bubbles take a lozenge of text: short lines at the top and bottom, the longest in the middle.
- Keep the size. One size for ordinary dialogue across the page. Shrink only where a bubble cannot hold the line any other way, and reword before you shrink.
- Tall bubbles. Japanese is often lettered vertically in tall, narrow bubbles. English needs more, shorter lines there, so break at natural phrase boundaries.
- Joined bubbles. When two bubbles are joined, split the English so each lobe gets its own part, in the order the source reads. Never centre one block across the join.
Keep the emphasis
Words the source stresses, with bold lettering, brackets or a bigger size, stay stressed in English, usually in bold. Shouts get the heavier face; whispers can go smaller or lighter. The reader should hear the same voice they would in the original.
Text on the art, and what not to add
Dialogue that sits on the art without a bubble is erased and lettered in place, with a thin outline so it reads over the drawing. Do not cover it with a white box or a caption plate: boxes hide the art and look like a patch. On title pages, translate the characters' dialogue and leave the logo, title and credits as drawn.
Proof the lettered page
Read the finished page at the size readers will see it. Check for text touching an edge, inconsistent sizes, a line in the wrong bubble, a bad line break (a single word alone on a line), and a misspelled name. Then check the next page's first bubble still follows from this page's last.
How Panelift handles it
Panelift letters every bubble for you: centred and sized to fit, joined bubbles split lobe by lobe in reading order, emphasis kept in bold, and dialogue on the art lettered in place with an outline, never boxed. On title pages only the dialogue is translated. You choose the dialogue font for a job, every bubble is checked for fit and legibility, and if you reword a line in the page editor only that bubble is lettered again.
Questions
What is the difference between typesetting and lettering?
They are the same job. Scanlation groups call it typesetting; publishers call it lettering. Both mean setting the translated text into the page.
What font is used for manga translations?
A comic dialogue font for speech, often with separate faces for narration, thoughts and shouting. Use a small set and keep each to one job across the series.
How do I fit long English into a small bubble?
Reword first: say the same thing in fewer words. Then break lines into a lozenge shape. Shrink the text only as a last resort, and keep it legible at reading size.
