Month: September 2009

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Questions of the Week

Adobe RoboHelp 8: Why Doesn't My Skin Show Up?

I am trying to assign a Skin to my project in WebHelp, but the option to select a Skin is disabled. Why?

 
Answer:

Show the Properties of the layout. You'll see that you have selected 508 Compliant Output. Skins are not 508 compliant and are automatically disabled if you select the 508 compliant option. I would recommend that you create two layouts, one compliant and the other not. In the non-compliant layout, you'll be able to add your skin.

 
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Adobe Captivate: How Do I Get My Text to Speech Options Back?

I'm using Adobe Captivate 3 and I'm not yet that familiar with  the software. I have created an eLearning lesson with a custom Flash menu. We inserted this Flash menu at the start of the lesson, and I created different click boxes that "Jump to" specific slides. We have a total of 100 slides. Here's my problem: when the user reaches a particular slide and then goes back to the main menu slide, I'd like a box to become visible and highlight the lesson they were just on. Is this possible in Captivate 3?

Answer:

Nope. However, Captivate 4 supports advanced actions and allows for objects to be hidden by default. The objects can be forced to appear via actions. This is the kind of cool Captivate feature that I cover in my advanced Captivate 4 class.

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Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.
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Links of the Week

Test-Drive Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 In Minutes, No Trial Download Required

According to Adobe, "With 6 major Adobe software applications in Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2, plus 10 other smaller programs, evaluating the entire Suite has been a challenge for our customers because of the total file size of the software. Today our customers have to either order a shipped trial DVD, or wait for several Gigabytes to download before getting their hands on the software.

"In an effort to provide a better trial experience to our customers, we have been working with Runaware, who specializes in hosting full versions of software in a virtual environment, delivered via the browser. This means that you can now get your hands on our entire Suite in literally minutes and without having to download the trial version of the software."

Click here for more information.

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Scrolling Tables in Adobe RoboHelp

M Martin-Johnson, a 10-year veteran technical communicator, has come up with an interesting technique for creating fixed table headings in RoboHelp. According to Martin-Johnson, "If you're working on a [RoboHelp topic] that has a lot of data displayed in a table, you may want to ensure that the table headings are fixed and viewable on the screen as the reader scrolls down through the table.

"There is a simple way to do this: scrolling tables. Basically, you are placing a scrollbar on the area of the page that you want to be scrollable. This approach also allows you to display a lot of information in a small area of the screen."

Click here to learn how to create the scrolling tables.

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Looking for RoboHelp training? Check out our course… it will get you trained in just two days. Click here for details.

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Acrobat 9: Smoooooooth!

I receive lots of feedback on my Acrobat tips and tricks articles. Whether in a physical classroom, online virtual learning environment, through my blog or email tips, there can be that one gem of a concept that can impact the way one works with Acrobat dramatically.

"I am SO using that when I get back to my office."

"I wish I knew that last month–it would have saved me dozens of hours of painstaking work."

I love hearing these types of comments from students. Acrobat is loaded with great features that are super useful, but maybe not so obvious. This week's tip is one of those not-so-obvious features.

When zooming in and out of a PDF file in Acrobat or Reader, the visual transitions from view to view are jerky. Perfectly normal, perfectly fine, since that's the way PDF files and Acrobat work, right? Yes, but there is a way to have Acrobat or Reader make the visual transition smoothly.

Choose Edit > Preferences and go to the Page Display option on the left. In the Page Content and Information section, select Use smooth zooming and then click OK.

Use smooth zooming

When changing magnification now, you see an animated, smooth glide from view to view. Useful? Maybe not. Cool? Yes! (Macintosh users, this is another of those gems that exists in the Windows version only. Not to despair, your operating system is so slick, you probably aren't as starved for these visual tricks as the Windows folks anyway!)

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Join me online and learn, hands-on, how to unlock the power of Acrobat. Click here for more details.

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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.
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Adobe Photoshop CS4: Cropping Tips

by Barbara Binder 

It seems like most Photoshop users, even when they don't know how to do anything else with the software, know how crop photos. It's pretty easy: when you want to remove pixels from along the edge of a photo, you grab the Crop tool from the Toolbox, draw a crop box, tug on the sizing handles until its perfect, and then press [Enter] ([Return] on a Mac). If you can't get the box the right size (usually because you are on a caffeine overload and your mouse is too shaky) don't press [Enter], just press [Esc] and you can try again. But you knew that, right? Here are a couple of cropping tips that elude a number of otherwise competent Photoshop users.

  1. As long as the border pixels are transparent or a solid color, just choose Image > Trim. It's quick, but also really great when the object you are cropping has a drop shadow with partially transparent pixels. You may not see them well, but the software will, and will crop up to the shadow, perfectly.
  2. If you have a marching ants selection loaded, don't go back and draw a new box with the Crop tool, just choose Image > Crop.
  3. And my favorite: I throw an image on the scanner, and besides picking up the white background of my scanner lid, of course the image isn't straight when I open it in Photoshop.

    Draw the crop box with the Crop tool, place your cursor just outside a sizing handle and it turns into a rotate cursor. Drag your mouse to rotate, adjust the sizing handles one more time, and presto: crop and straighten at the same time!

Want more Photoshop tips? I've got an Introduction to Photoshop CS4 class coming up on October 8-9, so put it on your calendar! The advanced class is October 12-13, if that's a better match for your skill set. Also, I put out the option earlier this summer to run a free, lunchtime seminar on creating a custom Twitter background in Photoshop. I didn't get much of a response, so I'd like to put it back out there. Any interest from our faithful Skills & Drills readers in attending a 1-hour seminar? Send me a tweet at BarbBinder if you are interested.

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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 was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007.

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Adobe Captivate 4: End Aggregator Audio Aggravation

by Kevin A. Siegel

If you've used the Aggregator to combine multiple Captivate published SWFs into one TOC (via File > New > Aggregator Project), you might have come across the following scenario (specifically in the FireFox browser):

The Aggregator project contains four lessons (Lessons A-D).

Lesson A is first in the list so it plays first.

Lesson A is just about to end and next up is Lesson B. Lesson B has background audio.

Just before Lesson A finishes… what was that??? The background audio from Lesson B began to play even though Lesson A hadn't quite finished. It was just a bit of an audio bleed so maybe you were hearing things. You play the aggregated lesson again and, sure enough, there was just a bit of audio bleeding from Lesson B.

The problem with the audio bleed is due to a feature in Captivate 4 called "Auto Play." If your lessons were standalone lessons posted on your Web server or LMS, you'd probably want them to "Auto Play" once the lesson begins. Of course, if you disable "Auto Play," how will the lessons in the Aggregator list play at all? Good question. In reality, Aggregator was designed with an implied "Auto Play" option enabled for every lesson in the Aggregator list. However, if you don't disable the "Auto Play" feature for all of the lessons in the Aggregator list except the first lesson, the audio from the lessons may bleed as mentioned above. (I say may because, as I understand it, the issue doesn't always make an appearance and is most widely reported in FireFox).

Here is how you disable the "Auto Play" preference for the individual Aggregator lessons:

  1. Prior to publishing each of the lessons you intend to include in the Aggregator project (except for the first lesson), choose Edit > Preferences.

  2. Select Start and End from the Project category.

  3. Deselect Auto Play from the Project start options area of the dialog box and then click OK.

    Auto Play disabled

  4. Publish each project as a Flash SWF and then add it to the Aggregator project.
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Need to learn the basics of Adobe Captivate 4 fast? Attend a live, 2-day online training class. Click here for more information. Looking for more Advanced Captivate 4 training? We've got you covered. Click here for more information.

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Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iconlogic.

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Acrobat 9: Search Is King

You have a PDF file, and you need to locate a word or phrase in it. How convenient–there's a Find tool right there on your toolbar.

Find tool

You type in your search term and press Enter. Instantly, you are brought to that phrase in your PDF. But it wasn't the passage you needed. You press the Find Next button. Another instance of your word is highlighted, but it still isn't the right one. You start clicking faster and more fiercely because there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. You have no idea how many times your word appears in this document, so you may be clicking for a few minutes, or considerably longer. There's got to be a better way, and there is!

Retire the Find toolbar. Right-click on an empty spot of your toolbar area deselect Find from the list (to hide the Find Toolbar for good). Now right-click on your File toolbar and turn on the hidden Search button (it's the one with the binoculars).

Search button

When you click on the Search button (or choose Edit > Search), the Search panel opens and offers to help you find your elusive text.

You can search the current document, or a collection of PDF files in a specific directory. You can refine your search criteria to search whole words only, be case-sensitive, include bookmarks or even the file's comments. A link at the bottom of the Search Panel allows you to show more advanced search options such as stemming (a search for "opening" finds instances of "open," "opened," "opens," and "openly") and Boolean operators.

Search Panel

A list of search term 'hits' are presented in concert with their surrounding words, allowing the context to be previewed and evaluated at a glance as to its relevance.

In my online Acrobat classes, I refer to the difference between Acrobat's Find and Search commands like driving a VW Beetle and a Mercedes sports car. (I really DO drive a Beetle, actually, but wish I had that Mercedes!) Take the Search button for a test drive. You'll never look back.

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Join me online and learn, hands-on, how to unlock the power of Acrobat. Click here for more details.

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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.
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Adobe RoboHelp 8: Customize Your Favorite Toolbar Buttons

by Kevin A. Siegel

If you've spent any time formatting text, surely you've changed the text style for selected text to bold using myriad programs–MS Word, PowerPoint, QuarkXPress, WordPerfect, Dreamweaver.

What's that you say? You've never, ever made text bold? Well then, stand back and I'll teach you the trick. First, select some text. Now, click the "B" tool in any of the programs mentioned above. Go ahead, look around and you'll find that pesky "B" tool. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guarantee that clicking the "B" tool will make your selected text bold. Look at me… I'm the second coming of Joe Willie! There's your cool trick of the week. Enjoy.

Of course, if you're a RoboHelp developer, you know that making text appear bold isn't as easy as clicking the "B" tool. Why? There isn't a "B" tool. Silly me, it's a "T" tool.

"T' tool for Bold

Granted, it's a thicker "T" than the "T" tool right next to it (which is the "Italic" tool… I bet you were thinking that you'd find the standard "I" tool for italic, but nooooo! And don't get me started on the missing "U" tool!)

So that's the bad news in RoboHelp 8… the tools on the toolbars don't necessarily look the way you're used to. However, there is very good news indeed… you can easily customize the look of any tool on RoboHelp's toolbars (you can make your own toolbars too). Want to learn how to customize the tools? Read on…

Start RoboHelp 8 and choose View > Toolbars > Customize to display the Customize dialog box. While this dialog box is open, you can add or remove commands from any toolbar and you can customize the look of any tool.

Right-click the tool you'd like to customize, choose Change Button Image and then select an image you'd like to use.

Change a button's image

Your button will quickly show your change (and its new attitude).

Updated button image

Of course, if you want to go hog-wild (and you have superior drawing skills), right-click the button and choose Edit Button Image. The resulting Button Editor will open offering you more opportunities to customize the button than you might have hoped for.

Customize a tool

And finally, I couldn't close this week's article without a helpful tip should you have "button regret" and long for the good old days and your simple, yet elegant "T" tool. With the Customize dialog box open, right-click any edited button and choose Reset to remove your button edits.

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Looking for RoboHelp training? Check out our course… it will get you trained in just two days. Click here for details.

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iconlogic.

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Adobe Captivate 4: Create a TOC with Useful Titles!

by Kevin A. Siegel

It's a snap to create a usable TOC in Captivate 4. Simply create your project and then choose Project > Table of Contents. Select Show TOC and every slide in your project will be added to the TOC.

While that was easy, you might notice that the titles assigned to each slide by default (Slide 1, Slide 2, etc.) aren't very descriptive.

Adding a TOC

If you'd like to add a more descriptive Title to the slides on your TOC, close the TOC dialog box and show the Properties of a slide (you can right-click a slide and choose Properties).

On the Slide tab, type a descriptive title in the Label field and click OK.

Adding a Slide Label

Return to the Table of Contents, select Show TOC and… BAM… the Label you typed on the Slide tab does double-duty and appears as a Title on the TOC.

Slide title on the TOC

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Need to learn the basics of Adobe Captivate 4 fast? Attend a live, 2-day online training class. Click here for more information. Looking for more Advanced Captivate 4 training? We've got you covered. Click here for more information.

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Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iconlogic.