Anne Duranceau Feb 18, 2013:

If there is a way not to guess... Hello Daryo, I agree with your observations, and with your suggestions in the context you give. I also think that before marking disagreement, someone should read the full entry given by a translator.
Upon getting clarification from the asker, I was very likely to mark my agreement to your answer.
I was merely trying not to guess (at what is most likely and least likely because in my opinion, it is what was intended that counts, not what was likely) but to obtain information.
In the title field of my answer, I should have added "only if truly "bi-folded". In the discussion entry, I wanted to know if the description had been provided by the client or if it had been deduced by the translator who asked the question. I probably should have expressed this more clearly.

If I were translating, I would first clarify with the client what is intended (which means that the client might edit the source text), the same way I verify with the speaker if I am told to be somewhere on Wednesday February 19th. (This year, it's either Wednesday the 20th, or Tuesday the 19th).

Daryo Feb 18, 2013:

whoever used "bi-folded" didn't check the usual meaning of the term, gave it a meaning of his/her own choice i.e. "twice-folded". Happens sometime. Not every ST is perfect.
In a case like this, the question to ask yourself is: out of 3 terms, is it more likely to have
-- one wrongly coined/misused and two used correctly,
or that
-- two unambiguous terms have been used wrongly ("tri-section"+"accordion style") and one ambiguous term used correctly?

I think "tri-section, accordion style" can't be a typing mistake and is more than enough to indicate what the ST is supposed to mean: that this "instruction leaflet" is made of a piece of paper folded in 3 pans/sections in "accordion style".
To fold something like an accordion you need to fold it at least twice (plier deux fois), which interestingly enough also produces 3 pans/folds. CQFD

BTW, what would be the point of focusing on only one word while ignoring the context? That's what Machine Translation is for.

Anne Duranceau Feb 18, 2013:

S'agit-il d'une erreur du texte de départ? J'ai fait une courte recherche sur le Web et il semble qu'un document bi-fold, malgré ce que le nom a l'air d'indiquer, a un pli, donc 4 volets comme une carte de souhaits traditionnelle. Pour être de style accordéon, il doit être tri-folded. De quel type de dépliant s'agit-il vraiment? La version anglaise doit-elle être corrigée? Les suggestions des traducteurs traduisent soit bi-folded, soit la description que vous en avez donné, mais comme les deux se contredisent, pas les deux.