Office International Templates Competition

[Stafford Quaid]

Hi Office International Community,

We recently localised new Office templates for Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Before they release worldwide, we would like to learn from you as Office experts. Are these templates ready for your market? How would you improve them or make them better from a user experience or translation perspective? Most of these Office templates were localised in the following languages:

1. German
2. Spanish
3. Japanese
4. Chinese (Simplified, PRC)
5. French (France)
6. Portuguese (Brazil)
7. Russian (Russia)
8. Italian (Italy)
9. Dutch (Netherlands)
10. English (UK)
11. French (Canada)
12. Spanish (Mexico)
13. Finnish
14. Turkish
15. Arabic
16. Greek 
17. Thai 
18. Norwegian Bokmål
19. Lithuanian

The 6 templates we would like you to concentrate on are the ones below:

1. How to ace a Skype interview.pptx
2. Personal Monthly budget.xltx
3. Team Fundraiser receipts.dotx
4. Blue Sphere letterhead.dotx
5. School report presentation with dinosaur models.pptx
6. Filter function.xltx

The templates can be found at the following location. There are folders for each of the 19 languages listed above. If you would like to see the source files we translated from they are in the “English (US) Source files” folder. Please note not every template is localised in every language listed above. 

How to enter... 

Download the templates in your language from the language folder in this location. Download the corresponding templates from the “English (US) Source files” folder at the same location. Then open the templates and compare the English US with your language version. From January 25th to February 10th tell us what you think of the localised templates by clicking “Start a new conversation” in the Competition space of the Office International Community. Provide your feedback with some details and then click “post”. Of course, the more details you can share, the better! Please give us the: 

• Office template filename
• Description of the issue encountered or suggested improvement in your conversation title
• Language affected
• Current translation (if applicable)
• Suggested translation and reason(s) for change
• Corresponding English Text (if known and applicable):
• Suggestion to improve the user experience
• Screenshot of the issue
• Steps to reproduce the issue

We’ll be giving away three $100 Amazon vouchers to 3 competition winners.

Contest Prizes 

• 1^st prize for Highest creation of new, original and valid feedback posts on the selected Office templates – Amazon voucher to the value of $100
• 1^st prize for best new, original feedback post with largest impact to the selected Office templates from a user experience perspective– Amazon voucher to the value of $100
• 1^st prize for best new, original feedback post with largest impact to the selected Office templates from a localization perspective– Amazon voucher to the value of $100

Please also invite your friends or colleagues who are experts in Office to participate and share the competition on social media! Please also read the official rules attached before entering!

Should you enter best of luck and thanks in advance to everyone who participates!

Note: If you are Chinese or Japanese and want to see these instructions in your language you can find them linked below:

Japanese Instructions

Chinese (Simplified) Instructions