Globalizing phone numbers
When translating a Japanese company's contact information, the phone number will usually be written using the Japanese convention, and intended for dialing from within Japan. For example, my phone number would be written like this:
(Note to stalkers: Call during office hours, Mon-Fri only, please 
)
The leading zero is needed when dialing from outside the city code, which is 98. If you were dialing from outside Japan, you would omit the zero but dial the country code (81). If dialing from a fixed phone within my city code, you'd omit the leading zero and city code.
When translating this into English, I need to assume the possibility that the caller will be calling from outside Japan, and the probability that they won't know the Japanese country code off hand (or the need to dial the leading zero when calling from inside Japan).
I would thus "globalize" this phone number as follows:
I noted today that Microsoft standardizes my phone number as:
This seems fine, except that it assumes someone calling from within Japan knows that they need to dial the leading zero.
I use the form +81-98-123-4567 and expect that English-speaking readers in Japan can do the math.
And of course, this necessarily excludes the international dialing prefix, as it varies from country to country. That might be a bigger sticking point.
I also “globalize” numbers and add the (0) in parentheses [if there is even a zero omitted, which isn't always the case]. Adam’s right – it’s important to say “+” rather than “00″. It’s kind of the same thing as when I translate “National agency for…” to “French (national) agency for…” etc.
Like Adam, I expect that people in the country already will know that there’s a zero on the front of all area codes. In other words, I agree with Microsoft’s assumption. I feel like taking a shower now.
Are the parentheses really enough to tell people elsewhere that the zero must be left off, but not if you’re in country?
There seems to be a split over including the zero. One thing that following the Microsoft approach has going for it is that saying, “That’s how Microsoft does it” is a pretty good way to settle questions about usage, especially if you’re doing IT-related translation.
I first started using the style I mentioned when I saw real-live non-Japanese-speaking gaijins “in the wild” who were unable to make long-distance calls within Japan.
Adam raises the point about lots of people not knowing the international dialing prefix. That varies by country, and even by what long-distance plan you’re using. But although such information is impractical to include for everyone, it’s easy to find. I remember that it was in the first couple of pages of my phone book, back when I lived in the US, and when people still used phone books.
By the way, given my sieve-like memory, I have a little script hot-linked to my desktop that uses text-to-speech to tell me how to dial various numbers outside Japan.