November 2008 – Page 2 – The Logical Blog

If you have been tasked with creating 508 compliant eLearning lessons using Adobe Captivate, you already know that the process is easier said than done.

In addition to adding Accessibility Text to all of your slides, you'll have to add keyboard shortcuts to your interactive objects and add Closed Captions to those slides containing narration.

And then there's the issue of image buttons not containing alternative text…

Here's the deal… when inserting a button onto a Captivate slide, developers typically choose between two button types: image and text.

Text buttons are ideal if you need to be 508 compliant because the text you type for the button is what is read by a screen reader. Nice! Of course, the problem with a text button is, well, they're not exactly the best looking things. In fact, most people will agree that those simple gray buttons are down-right ugly.

As an alternative to a text button, many Captivate developers elect to use image buttons because just about any image can be used for the button.

The problem with an image button is that screen readers won't relay any useful information to the visually impaired student, rendering image buttons non-compliant. What's a developer to do? Read on…

Insert a text button (via Insert > Button)
Select Text button as the button type
Type the text you would like to be read by a screen reader into the Button text area
Click Apply (don't click OK, leave the dialog box open)
Select Image button from the Type drop-down menu and select your image button
Click OK
There will be no obvious changes to your presentation. However, the text you typed into the text area will be read aloud by a screen reader, even though you switched to an image button.

Do you have a Captivate production problem that's making you pull your hair out? Email your problem and let others learn solutions from your experience.

Want to learn more about Adobe Captivate 3? Click here.

November 10, 2008

Breaking News: Adobe Unveils Captivate Version 4

I just wrapped up a very informative day at Adobe's Learning Summit in San Jose, CA. The highlight of the day was a presentation by R.J. Jacquez, Senior Product Evangelist at Adobe Systems, where RJ pulled the cover off of the much anticipated Adobe Captivate 4.

During the next several weeks, I'll be spotlighting many of the new features in what I believe is the greatest upgrade in Captivate/RoboDemo history.

Please Note: While Adobe is now showing the new version 4 features to excited audiences, the new version is not yet finished, has not yet been released, and no release date has been announced. My personal feeling is that you won't see the new version until sometime in 2009, possibly before the end of the first quarter. Of course, that's just a guess.

So here goes… among my favorite new Captivate 4 features:

SWF Commenting: In Adobe Captivate 4, you will be able to collaborate effectively with your team members (the SMEs and other reviewers) who do not own Captivate by publishing your project for comments. The published project will play in the Adobe Captivate Reviewer, an Adobe AIR application. As a result, the reviewers won't need to have Adobe Captivate 4 installed on their machines to add comments. Once the comments are added, you will see those comments in your project. You can accept the comments, reject them and add your own (which will appear back on the reviewer's screen without the need to republish the project)

Improved PowerPoint Imports: Imported PowerPoint 2007 projects can now be imported into Captivate 4 via a new linked mode. For the first time, updates to the PowerPoint presentation instantly appear in the Captivate project. Cool! In addition, you can now bring in audio from the PowerPoint presentation and other PowerPoint slide interactivity.

TOC and TOC Aggregator: This is a timely new feature… I spoke with several people at the summit who complained that they couldn't get a table of contents to work with MenuBuilder. And then along comes RJ who demos a wonderfully slick TOC feature that will allow your users to navigate through your lesson, and keep track of their progress via green check marks. And there's the new Aggregator feature that will allow you to combine multiple Captivate projects under one umbrella (your users will be able to navigate through all the modules of the course, rendering MenuBuilder obsolete).

Drawing Tools: Now you can add simple shapes to slides including rectangles, ovals, polygons, lines and arrows.

Slide notes to Closed Captions: If you have to deliver 508 complaint eLearning that includes closed captions, this is huge. For the first time you can use your slide notes to quickly create the closed captions.

There's more of course… but I just got the "thumbs up" from the Adobe folks to blab about what I saw to you guys. So while everyone else took off for the reception at Adobe headquarters for some spirits and world-class munchies, I raced back to the hotel to get this information out to you. Never let it be said that I haven't made my sacrifices in life…

Need training on Adobe Captivate 3? We offer live virtual training and killer workbooks!

November 6, 2008

QuarkXPress 8 Basics: It’s All Greek to Me…

by Kevin A. Siegel

Depending on your monitor's display resolution, and your QuarkXPress layout view percentage, you may or may not be able to read the words on your QuarkXPress pages.

If the text on your layouts looks like gray bars instead of character shapes, there isn't anything wrong with your vision. The makers of QuarkXPress assume that at a reduced page view, you are not interested in reading the text in your QuarkXPress project. Instead, the general thinking is that you are more interested in the page layout than the editorial content. This assumption is called text greeking.

Correct assumption or not, it is not recommended that you attempt to read and/or edit text at reduced views such as Fit in Window. As far as I'm concerned, there are two types of print publishers in the world, those who have glasses–and those who will. Working with text while in a reduced view will hasten your journey into the "have glasses" club.

If you are not a fan of text greeking, or if you'd like to enable the feature, follow these steps:

Windows users, choose Edit > Preferences;
Mac users, choose QuarkXPress > Preferences
The Preferences dialog box appears. There are many categories.
Select the Print Layout, General category
From the Display area in the upper right of the dialog box, select Greek Text Below (put a check in the box)
Click OK
To view the "greeked" text, choose View > 50%
At this reduced view, you should notice that the letter shapes disappear and instead you see gray bars-greeking. If you can still see letter shapes instead of gray bars, try zooming out a bit more by changing your View Percentage to something like 30%.

Want to learn more about QuarkXPress? Attend our QuarkXPress 8 Basics class. Click here for more information.

November 6, 2008

Adobe FrameMaker 8: Change Bars

by Barbara Binder

Last week, we talked about the new Track Text Edits feature in FrameMaker 8. It's a great new feature, and one that most of us will use. But what about the old FrameMaker standby, Change Bars?

The good news is that Change Bars are still part of the program and can be used with or without Track Text Edits enabled.

Here's how Change Bars work:

Open a FrameMaker document
Choose Format > Document > Change Bars and activate Automatic Change Bars:
Just start typing in your document and any line where you make a change will display a black bar in the left column.

This is an easy way to find your changes on a scanning level.

Back in the day, if you wanted to see exactly what was added or removed, you would need to use File > Utilities > Compare Documents and go through several steps to compare the newer version to the original. In FrameMaker 8, I'd suggest just using both Change Bars and Track Text Edits (see last week's article for details) and everything is right there at your fingertips, as you work.

Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker 8? Attend Barb's Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 8 class. All you need is a computer with fast Internet access, a headset and the current version of FrameMaker (the 30-day trial version of the software works fine). You can ask all the questions you like because all virtual classes are led by a live instructor–this is not pre-recorded content.

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007.

November 6, 2008

Adobe RoboHelp 7: Adding See Also Navigation

by Kevin A. Siegel

See Also keywords allow you to place related RoboHelp topics into one common group.

See Also keywords will not appear on the Index when you generate the project. Instead, See Also keywords remain hidden and will appear only when called by a user. One popular way to get a See Also to appear is to use Link Controls (a button that links to topics or See Also keywords).

In the following steps, you will learn how to create a See Also name and associate some topics with it. Then you will create a Link Control in a topic that tells the See Also to appear if the control is clicked by a user.

On the Project Manager pod, double-click the See Also folder
Click in the white space at the top of the See Also pod
Type a name for the keyword (in the example below, I typed Managers) and then press [Enter]

Now you need to associate topics with the new See Also keyword.
On the Topic List pod, drag topics into the Topics for Managers area (in the picture below, I added topics named hr.htm, IS.htm, pres.htm and master.htm)

Now you need to insert a link control in a topic.
Open a topic
Choose Insert > See Also

The See Also Wizard – Link Options dialog box appears.
Give the control a label (I typed Our Managers into the Label field)
Click Next
The See Also Wizard – See Also Keywords Selection screen appears. The See Also keyword you created should be the only keyword available to Add.
Click the Add button
Click Next
Select Popup menu from the Choose topic from area
Click Next
Choose any Font, Font Style and Size you like
Click Finish
Your button should now appear in the topic.

To test the button, you would generate and view the project and open the topic containing the button.

The finished See Also button with the pop-up menu

Want to learn more about Adobe RoboHelp 7? Click here.

November 6, 2008

Adobe Captivate 3: Password Protect and Time-Bomb Your Published Projects

by Kevin A. Siegel

I recently had a client who wanted to provide CDs to his users containing Captivate lessons. He had two particular requirements for the lessons on the CD:

He wanted the lessons to be password protected to ensure only authorized users could view the lessons
He wanted the lessons to expire after a certain amount of time to ensure users came back to him to get a fresh CD when the lessons had grown stale.

We were able to easily meet the client's needs using features native to Captivate.

Open a Captivate project
Choose Edit > Preferences
Select the Start and End option from the Project category
Click in the Password protect project and type your password (keep in mind that the password you enter is case sensitive… you should alert your users to this fact)

If you were to click the Browse button to the right of the Password protect project field, you would see the Password options dialog box below.

Using the Password options, you can specify what users will see if they do not type the password correctly. (You could use the Retry message to remind your users that the password is case sensitive.)
To select an expiration date for your project, select any date from the Project expiration date drop-down menu (You can include two message lines that users will see should they attempt to access an expired lesson.)
Click OK and then publish your lesson

Do you have a Captivate production problem that's making you pull your hair out? Email your problem and let others learn solutions from your experience.

Want to learn more about Adobe Captivate 3? Click here.

November 6, 2008

Grammar Workshop: When Do I Capitalize a Job Title?

by Jennie Ruby

Capitalization is predominantly a matter of style. Tomes like the Chicago Manual of Style list pages of examples of what to capitalize and what not to capitalize. The Government Printing Office style guide is famous for indicating caps for all kinds of government entities, positions, and titles that other style guides would not capitalize. So the best answer on capitalization is always, "Check your style guide."

That having been said, here are some common rules.

Capitalize a title before a person's name, because it is considered part of the proper name:

General Illych Buchansal, General Buchansal, Buchansal
President George W. Bush, President Bush, Bush
Editor-in-Chief Cindy Logan, Editor Logan, Logan

In all of these examples, you do not have to repeat the title every time the person's name is used. After the first time you should use just the last name unless you are trying to be extremely formal:

President George W. Bush did this, Bush also did that.

Do not capitalize a title after the name in text:

Illych Buchansal, a general in the Turkish army
George W. Bush, president of the United States
Cindy Logan, editor-in-chief of our magazine

An exception to capitalizing after the name occurs when you are listing the staff on the masthead of a publication, or listing staff members or officers in an annual report or the like. Then you do capitalize the job title listed after the name, like this:

Cindy Logan, Editor-in-Chief
Andrew Nguyen, Art Director

Do not capitalize titles when you are listing multiple people who hold or have held that position:

We invited presidents Clinton and Bush to the ceremony.
They asked justices Souter and Thomas to supplement the opinion.

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Essentials of Access 2000" and "Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7" to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

November 6, 2008

Questions of the Week

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: What's the Best Way to Add Multiple Audio Clips?

I'm building an eLearning course in Captivate and need to import dialog for each slide. Each character's dialog is in a single file in Audacity. I can export the Audacity audio segments one at a time, but that seems awfully slow and tedious. Is the a way to copy and paste audio in each slide?

Answer

If the audio clips are external files, and stored in the same folder, the fastest way to add them to your Captivate project follows:

Open a Captivate project
Open any slide
Display the Library (View > Show Library menu)
Click the Import button at the top of the Library
Select and import as many audio clips as you'd like
Drag the audio clips to the slide thumbnails on the Edit tab (there is no reason to open a slide to attach the audio-a simple drag and drop from the library to the slide will do)

***

Adobe Captivate 3 Question: How Can I Get the [Tab] Shortcut to Work in a Web Browser?

I'm trying to create a simple simulation in Captivate where the user types in a text-entry box, then presses [Tab] to go to the next field and make another entry. In essence, it's the [Tab] keystroke that is saying "go to the next slide."

I know how to create the text-entry boxes, and how to set [Tab] as the shortcut key. My problem is that it works as I expect in Preview, but it fails when it's published.

In the published version (running in IE), it appears that IE is somehow "hijacking" that [Tab] keystroke–the focus jumps up to the Address bar in the IE toolbar/menu-bar. When the user presses [Tab] again, the slide advances as it should. (Sure, I can tell everybody to 'tab twice,' but why???)

Can you help? Is there a setting somewhere that I'm missing? Or is this some kind of "improvement" in Captivate 3.

Answer

The problem with the [Tab] key isn't within Captivate–you are doing the steps correctly. The problem is that IE grabs the [Tab] key as part of its operating process. You can edit the HTML file that is created when you publish a SWF that will reclaim the [Tab] key. Here is a Web page offering background information on the problem and step-by-step instructions for the workaround.

***

Adobe RoboHelp Question: How Does RoboHelp Work with InDesign?

Can you output RoboHelp to InDesign / CS3?

Answer:

Nope. You can output (single source) from RoboHelp to MS Word. From there, you could import the Word document into InDesign. If you are trying to import your content from InDesign to RoboHelp, you can save your InDesign documents as Word documents, and then import the Word documents into RoboHelp.

Instead of Adobe InDesign, you might want to consider Adobe's Technical Communication Suite and use a FrameMaker to RoboHelp workflow. In that scenario you would import the FrameMaker content into RoboHelp. Changes made to the FrameMaker content are reflected in the RoboHelp project without the need to update content manually in multiple locations.

***

Adobe RoboHelp 7 Question: Why Would Spaces Be Missing in Highlight Searches?

I've had an interesting issue come up after updating files to our project using RoboHelp 7 that didn't occur in prior versions and I wonder if you have come across it or if there is a fix for it.

When you search for a file using the Search function and DO NOT select the Highlight option the page displays correctly.
When you search for the same file and select the Highlight option, the page displays with spaces missing between some of the words. Any ideas how to fix the problem?

Answer:

It's a bug. You can learn more here. You can download the fix here. (Select number 32, it's currently at the top of the list.)

Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.

November 6, 2008

Learn Fast, Forget Fast

By Quinn McDonald

One of the facts I face as a trainer is that no one wants a training class to last two days–one day is a chore, one-half day is best.

I understand we are all under time constraints, but you really can't learn writing, a software program, or much of anything else with four hours of training. The idea of "learn, do, teach" is not reassuring to me.

Adults, in general, will forget a little over half of what they learn in a training class within 12 hours. That means they have less than half the knowledge they received, which is often about a quarter of what they need. Using their class workbooks, they put their knowledge to use for a few days, then "train" the next person, who will also forget half of what they learn.

In about a month's time, we have people passing on tiny bits of information, often with a shrug and "That's all there was in the four-hour course."

What to do? With shrinking budgets, I'm pretty sure that the answer is not "more time for training." Here's what I think will work if you are a trainer or a corporate client.

Insist on exercises. When you show an outline of the class to the client, the first thing to go (to save time) are the exercises. That's where you (as a trainer or training developer) want to put your foot down. The exercises set the information. They slow down forgetting. Struggle to keep those.
Reduce the information to a minimum. You are helping no one, least of all the class participants, by piling a lot of information into a short time. I made this mistake often, because it sounds like a better deal to cram two days of information into four hours, but it's not. I often ask clients for three things they would like the class to know.
Teach through stories, examples and exercises. It's better to do two exercises on one concept than gloss over it because the class is staring at you blankly. Repeat with different examples. Do more than one exercise. In other words, go deep instead of wide. It works better.

About the Author: Quinn McDonald is a writer and nationally-known speaker who has achieved the "Professional" designation from the National Speakers Association. Contact Quinn through her website, QuinnCreative.com.

November 6, 2008

Our Newest Book: QuarkXPress 8, The Basics

We are proud to announce our newest "skills and drill" workbook: QuarkXPress 8: The Basics.

Working with QuarkXPress, the sky–or your imagination–is the limit. You can create newsletters, magazines, posters, flyers, business cards, letterhead, certificates, brochures–just about anything with QuarkXPress. You can import myriad picture formats and text. You can even create a Web site with zero HTML experience.

When you have completed your document, you can "collect" it into a folder with key components such as the layout, images and fonts. And you can export your documents in a Portable Document Format (PDF).

Lessons include:

To learn more about this book, or to order, click here.

Month: November 2008

Adobe Captivate 3: 508 Compliant Image Buttons Are Possible…

Breaking News: Adobe Unveils Captivate Version 4

QuarkXPress 8 Basics: It’s All Greek to Me…

Adobe FrameMaker 8: Change Bars

Adobe RoboHelp 7: Adding See Also Navigation

Adobe Captivate 3: Password Protect and Time-Bomb Your Published Projects

Grammar Workshop: When Do I Capitalize a Job Title?

Questions of the Week

Learn Fast, Forget Fast

Our Newest Book: QuarkXPress 8, The Basics