Quick summary: Scan in colour, capture all four edges, include reverse sides and anything that looks blank, save a multi-page document as one file, and read the smallest print back at full zoom before you send. Those five things prevent most of the back-and-forth in certified translation, and they are the same standard the Department of Home Affairs sets for the scans you lodge with it.
The file you upload does more work than anything else in a translation job. It sets the price, the turnaround, and whether the work runs straight through or comes back with questions.
It is also the only part fully in your hands. This is the check to run before sending, ordered roughly by how often each item turns out to be the thing that went wrong.
The five that matter most
1. Colour, always
The Department of Home Affairs asks applicants to scan the original document in colour.
Scanners default to greyscale often enough that this is the most common single miss. Colour carries real information on official documents — the ink of a seal, security printing, the difference between a printed and a handwritten entry — and greyscale flattens a coloured stamp into a grey smudge nobody can read.
2. All four edges inside the frame
Crop nothing. Serial numbers, registry references, printer codes and footers live at the margins, and they are frequently the parts that matter for verification.
If the document does not fit your scanner bed, scan it in overlapping sections rather than trimming it.
3. Reverse sides and "blank" pages
Turn every page over.
The back of an identity card carries data. The reverse of a certificate often carries a registration stamp. A page that looks blank may hold a faint endorsement, a punch-hole notation or a signature.
If a page really is blank, include it anyway. It is quicker for you to send it than for a translator to ask whether it exists.
4. One file for a multi-page document
Home Affairs is explicit: if the document is more than one page, save it all as one file.
Ten separate images are ten chances for one to go missing, and page order then has to be reconstructed by someone who has never seen the document.
5. Read it back at full zoom
Open your own file, zoom to 100% or more, and read the smallest print on it.
If you cannot make out a date, a diacritic or a handwritten annotation, neither can the translator — and a certified translator cannot certify a guess. This one check catches most of what the other four missed.
Phone capture, done properly
A flatbed scanner is better. When you only have a phone:
- Flat surface, indirect daylight. Near a window, not under a ceiling light directly above you.
- Phone parallel to the page, held over the centre. Tilt distorts text near the edges and can make a document look altered.
- Watch your own shadow. You and the phone are the usual source. Move so the light passes beside you rather than through you.
- Use document scan mode if your phone has one. It corrects perspective, squares the page and outputs a multi-page PDF, which handles points 2 and 4 for you.
- Retake it if the preview looks even slightly soft. Ten seconds.
Awkward documents
Laminated cards. Glare is the enemy. Tilt the light source rather than the card, or scan with the lid slightly raised.
Bound books — family registers, household books, passports. Press flat without breaking the spine, and capture the text in the gutter. If a line disappears into the fold, photograph that spread again from another angle.
Faded thermal or carbon copies. Scan at a higher resolution than feels necessary, and resist "enhancing" contrast to the point where faint text disappears altogether.
Documents with attachments. Staples, sticky notes and affixed photographs are part of the record. Capture them in place, then again separately if they cover text.
Long employment records. Multi-year documents such as an employment reference need every page, in order, because dates and roles have to stay consistent across the whole run.
What not to do
Do not photograph a screen displaying the document. Send the file itself.
Do not "clean up" the image. Removing marks, straightening stamps or brightening the background alters the evidence. The translator certifies against what you supply.
Do not compress to save space. Small print is the first casualty.
Do not send only the pages you think are relevant. Scope is a question for the receiving authority, not a judgement to make at capture time.
Do not skip the reverse of anything.
Why the standard exists
A certified translation carries a named practitioner's number and credential, verifiable by whoever receives it. That practitioner is asserting the translation corresponds to the source document.
An illegible source undermines that assertion at the root. This is not fussiness — it is the reason certification means anything.
The same file also has to satisfy the Department, which asks that scans be legible and meet its document requirements. Capturing once, properly, serves both.
The check, in order
- Colour, not greyscale
- Every edge inside the frame
- Every reverse side captured
- Multi-page saved as one file
- Smallest print readable at full zoom
- No shadow, no glare, no tilt
- Nothing retouched, cropped or compressed
Run it before you upload. If everything passes, the quote that comes back will be a real one and the job will not stall.
Home Affairs publishes its document and translation requirements and NAATI publishes its practitioner identification guidance; both are updated over time. You can upload a document to LodgeHQ Translate and it will tell you quickly if the image is not good enough to work from.