I'll be teaming with Matt Sullivan during the STC's 2009 Techncial Communication Summit in Atlanta, GA. to introduce attendees to the Adobe Techncial Communication Suite 2. The 2-day hands-on workshop will be held May 2-3, just prior to the start of the full summit Monday morning.
Adobe Acrobat 9: A History Lesson You’re Gonna Love… the Organizer
How much time have you spent looking for a PDF file you worked on a while ago? Like most other applications, Acrobat's File menu lists your most recently opened files.
By default, you see the last five documents opened, but that sixth one will require some fishing to locate. This is an adjustable value, by the way. To change the number of files listed in your recently used list, you can go to Edit > Preference (or Acrobat > Preferences on the Mac) and make the adjustment there.
There is a much more robust feature that Adobe has given us, and it's been there for years. It's called the Organizer. Organizer is a child application of Acrobat, so it cannot be launched on its own–it must be opened from within the Acrobat interface. To launch Organizer, choose File > Organizer > Open Organizer.
The Organizer's Interface is divided into three vertical panels. The left-most panel is divided into three sections: History, File Tree and Collections.
There is a much more robust feature that Adobe has given us, and it's been there for years. It's called the Organizer. Organizer is a child application of Acrobat, so it cannot be launched on its own–it must be opened from within the Acrobat interface. To launch Organizer, choose File > Organizer > Open Organizer.
The Organizer's Interface is divided into three vertical panels. The left-most panel is divided into three sections: History, File Tree and Collections.
The History section shows a timeline listed as Today, Yesterday, Last 7 days, Last 14 days, Last 30 days & Last 12 months! Click on the word Today, and the middle column is populated with a list of every PDF file you had opened today.
If you single-click to select one of these files in the middle panel, the right-most column then shows thumbnails of the individual pages of that file. These thumbnails are scalable too. Move the slider back & forth below the third column to zoom in and out on the pages.
Double-click a listed file in the middle column and Acrobat will open and display that document. However, if you double-click a page thumbnail in the right panel, Acrobat will open that specific document–and display that exact page.
If you decide the Organizer is a tool that you'd like to use frequently, you can customize your File toolbar to show an Organizer button. All you need to do is right-click the File toolbar and select the Organizer tool.
Double-click a listed file in the middle column and Acrobat will open and display that document. However, if you double-click a page thumbnail in the right panel, Acrobat will open that specific document–and display that exact page.
If you decide the Organizer is a tool that you'd like to use frequently, you can customize your File toolbar to show an Organizer button. All you need to do is right-click the File toolbar and select the Organizer tool.
You will also find great little shortcuts to your newly found History feature by choosing File > History. The History section of the Organizer is available for you to use without actually opening the Organizer.
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Want to learn more about Adobe Acrobat? Click here.
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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.
Adobe Acrobat 9: Splitting Documents
You have torn up your back patio, and have made plans to pour your own cement for the new patio. At 10 a.m., the cement mixer shows up right on time, and backs into your driveway. Uh-oh, you didn't think this out as thoroughly as you should have. All that cement has to get to the back of your house, and the spinning behemoth in your driveway can't get back there without flattening your 60 year old mimosa tree and destroying your beautiful lawn.
The guys from the cement truck ask you how many wheel barrows you have. Wheel barrows, of course! It'll take a dozen or so trips from the front to the back of the house, but the wheel barrow will transport your massive load in smaller bits. Perfect!
What does this have to do with Adobe Acrobat? Plenty, actually. My problem is that I have a PDF that I want to share with a colleague. The PDF is a huge 330 pages… too big to attach to an email.
Time to pull out my digital wheel barrow: the Split Document command in Acrobat 9 Professional.
The PDF has been bookmarked into six sections, so I'll ask Acrobat to split the document into 6 separate PDF documents, each one based on the original's bookmarks. The command is: Document > Split Document.
Acrobat gives you 3 different ways to divvy-up the pieces; by number of pages, by file size, or by top-level bookmarks. I opted for the bookmarks option, since the document was already so nicely partitioned for me.
By clicking the Output Options button, I am given the opportunity to specify where the split files will be saved, and how they will be named (adding a label as a prefix, for example).
The end result is six smaller PDF files, and six pieces that are each small enough to attach to individual emails and send to anyone I choose.
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Want to learn more about Adobe Acrobat? Click here.
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David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. He is an Adobe-Certified Expert in Acrobat.
Adobe FrameMaker: When Tables Just Won’t Stop
Multi-page tables are a regular part of my life. My FrameMaker documents are lengthy, and so are my tables. When a user opens up to the middle of a table, how are they supposed to know that they are not at the beginning? With a Table Continuation variable, that's how!
Want to give it a try?
- Navigate to the first page of a multi-page table
- Place your cursor in your table title and press the [End] key to move to the end of the line
- Choose Special > Variable
- Scroll down and click on Table Continuation
- Click the Insert button
If you have text symbols showing, you can see a little square "u" at the end of the line. Without visible text symbols, you don't even see that. But where's the actual continuation? Don't despair, just go to the next page in your layout. There it is: "Continued."
If you don't care for the wording, or want to change the language, just head back to the beginning of the table and double-click the little "u." Click Edit Definition and go to town! (Don't forget that you can apply an existing Character Tag too, if you are willing to scroll down to the bottom of the Building Blocks List in the Edit System Variable dialog box.)
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Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.
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About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers in the world.
Adobe Captivate 4: AVI Anyone?
The new Captivate 4 now allows you to publish your Captivate projects as an AVI file.
I bet you're wondering what the AVI format is. Great question. AVI is an acronym for Audio Video Interleave, a Microsoft innovation introduced way back in 1992.
AVIs have limitations when it comes to resolution and FPS (frames per second) that were overcome with the SWF format. However, there are a large number of players that support the AVI format, and therefore a huge user base. For that reason, plenty of developers output content in the AVI format.
Before you abandon the SWF format, keep in mind that while AVIs can contain sound and animation (or video), they cannot contain interactivity. For that reason, if you elect to publish your projects as AVIs, you will have to ensure your lesson is a demonstration instead of a simulation (AVIs lose all of those things that make a simulation tick such as click boxes, buttons, and text entry boxes.
Publishing your projects as AVIs is a simple process:
- Choose File > Publish
The Publish dialog box will appear.
- Select Media
- Select Video (*.avi) from the Media Options drop-down menu
You will then need to select an appropriate Video Format from the drop-down menu. There are several encoders to choose from. If you would like to learn about encoders (an encoder is a something that converts analog video to digital video), click here.
As for the Audio format, Captivate uses PCM (pulse code modulation) where the analog files are converted to binary (digital) files.
After settling on the options mentioned above, all that's left to do is click the Publish button and you're all set.
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Questions of the Week
Adobe Captivate 4 Question: How Do I Get Past Audio Recording Errors on Vista 64?
I'm having problems recording audio with Captivate 4 on my Vista 64-bit laptop. After pressing record, I get a message that the audio wasn't recorded. Any ideas?
Answer
There is a post about resolving audio issues with Captivate 4 on the Captivate forums. The developers experiencing the problems are typically Vista users running 64-bit systems.
Try these steps to hopefully resolve the issue:
- Close Captivate
- Run a command prompt (cmd) in Admin mode (If you're using Windows Vista, click Start, type cmd and press [enter].)
- Go to the directory where Captivate 4 is installed
- Run regsvr32 NSAudio.dll
You should get a message 'registration of dll successful.'
- Start Captivate 4 again and test the audio.
You can read the entire post here.
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Adobe Captivate Question: Got Any Housecleaning Advice?
Here is a a 'housekeeping' question–what folder structure should I setup for Captivate projects? I get confused about where to store animation files, widgets etc. Especially at publishing time.
Answer
Great question, and one that is frequently overlooked. I've managed dozens of huge eLearning initiatives over the years where Captivate was the development tool of choice. For each of those projects, I was careful to create one main project folder for each customer. Within that folder I always created a "publish" folder where I had my developers publish all versions of the output (SWF, EXEs and eLearning zips). In addition, I created a backup folder for the Captivate projects (I think it's critical to create updated versions of each project using simple naming conventions such as projectName_v1.cp, projectName_v2.cp, etc.). Last, but not least, backup everything to multiple servers (drives). The last thing you need is your drive going down and destroying your projects.
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Adobe Captivate 4 Question: Can I Open 4 with 3?
I just installed my version of Captivate 4. I plan to keep version 3 at least for the short term. Before I get going full force, do you know if I can answer Captivate 4 projects back in version 3?
Answer:
No. While you can upgrade your projects from version 3 to version 4, there is no going back. If you plan on running both versions 3 and 4 on your system, I suggest you rename the projects as you are upgrading them into version 4. That way you'll still have a version 3 project you can open in the older version of the software.
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Adobe Captivate Question: Can I Control Caption Counts in a Print Document?
My first Captivate project was a big success, which is very gratifying. But now our customer would like a paper copy of the project. I've reviewed the print publishing options and tried them. But the problem I'm having is getting a 'page' with each individual caption before it is overlayed and no longer readable. Is there a way to do this within Captivate? If I'd known a paper doc was going to be requested I would have positioned my captions differently.
Answer:
Sorry, no. That's one main reason that our eLearning style guide limits the number of items allowed per slide to one caption and one interactive object (such as a button, click box or text entry box).
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Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.
Check Out This Hot New Course: Writing for Learning Materials and eLearning Scripts
Congratulations! You've been selected to write the user manual for your company's next big software release. And following that, you've been invited to write the script for the company's Employee Benefits portal and eLearning lessons.
What's that you say? It's been a while since you had to write at such a granular level? Maybe you think your writing could be better? Or perhaps, like many tasked with writing training materials and scripts or user documentation, writing qualifies as "other duties as assigned."
This live, interactive writing course is designed for you. Think of it as an intensive retreat that will give the jump-start you need to create clear, concise step-by-step documentation that effectively educates and motivates adult learners.
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Links of the Week
Customizing RoboHelp's FlashHelp Skins
I've gotten several emails this week from RoboHelp developers who want to use FlashHelp as a Single Source Layout, but want to customize the FlashHelp skin in one way or other. While WebHelp skins can be easily customized via the WebHelp Skin Editor, there is no such editor for the FlashHelp skins.
Hope is not lost however. If you would like to customize a FlashHelp skin, the following two articles, while old, will get you started .
This first article, written by Jake Sibley, introduces you to the FlashHelp layout. And this article, written by Amar "AJ" Joseph, will get you started on the path to creating your own FlashHelp Skins.
Need to learn RoboHelp? Click here.
PowerPoint 2007: Ungrouping Charts
by AJ George
If you're familiar with Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, you may have enjoyed the ability to ungroup a chart and modify its individual elements, or to add custom animation to each element of the chart.
In what appears to be a rather large step backward, the PowerPoint 2007 interface has lost the ability to ungroup the charts. But, fear not, where there's a will there's a (slightly convoluted and backwards, but, all the same, effective) way.
- Insert a new Title and Content slide.
- Choose Insert > Text > Object.
- From the Insert Object dialog box choose Microsoft Graph Chart from the Object type list.
- Click OK.
A Microsoft Graph Chart, similar to what you would see in PowerPoint 2003, appears.
- Enter data as you see fit into the Presentation 1 – Datasheet spreadsheet.
- Close the spreadsheet.
- Ensure the chart is selected and press [Ctrl] [X] on your keyboard to cut the chart.
- Press [Ctrl] [Alt] [V] on your keyboard to bring up the Paste Special dialog box.
- Choose Picture (Enhanced Metafile) from the As list.
- Click OK.
- Right-click the chart and choose Group > Ungroup.
- If a dialog box appears asking if you'd like to convert the chart to a drawing object, click Yes to continue.
- Right-click the chart and choose Group > Ungroup again.
The chart elements can now be modified or dragged around your slide as you see fit.
Click here for Part 2 of this series, Adding Custom Animation to Ungrouped Chart Elements.
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About the author: AJ George, a cum laude graduate of Towson University is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of the book "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials."
Interested in creating beautiful multi-media presentations but having difficulty with PowerPoint's new interface? PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials is now shipping and will get you up and running in no time!