Month: March 2010

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PowerPoint 2008 for the Mac: Give a Presentation From Your iPod

by AJ George

You want to pitch a sale to the CEO of a large company, Billy Bigshot. Problem is, Mr. Bigshot is, well, a bigshot. He has no time to meet with you or see your meticulous PowerPoint presentation projected up on a wall in his conference room.

But, if you just so happen to know that Mr. Bigshot leaves his building everyday at 1:07 p.m. for lunch and walks 3 blocks to that great little sub shop on the corner of 3rd and Main, perhaps you could "accidentally on purpose" run in to him and show him your sales presentation… that just so happens to be conveniently located on your iPod/iPod touch/iPhone.

Let's step back a bit… here is how you managed to get the PowerPoint Presentation onto your mobile device:

  1. Open a completed PowerPoint 2008 presentation.
  2. Import slides to iPhoto by choosing File> Send to > iPhoto.

    Note: In addition to an an iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone, you will also need  iPhoto version 6 or later to complete this activity.

  3. When the Send to iPhoto dialog box opens, ensure your options match the picture below.

    Send to iPhoto.

    Note: You have a choice of either JPEG or PNG from the Format drop-down menu. In this instance you are choosing JPEG because of its relatively small file sizes. If you were posting images to the internet it might be in your best interest to choose PNG.

  4. Click Send to iPhoto.

    The iPhoto window opens with your imported slides.

    iPhoto window

  5. Quit iPhoto.
  6. Open iTunes and connect your iPod to your computer.
  7. Click the iPod icon under the Devices category at the left of
    the window.
  8. Select the Photos tab at the right of the iTunes window.
  9. Select Sync photos (put a check mark next to the option).
  10. Choose iPhoto from the pop-up menu.
  11. Select Selected Albums and then select your PowerPoint presentation.
  12. If you have the option to do so, select Include full-resolution photos.

    If you have the option to do so, select Include full-resolution photos.

  13. Click the Sync button (if there is no Sync button, click the Apply button instead).

    If you were to navigate to the Photos folder of your iPod you could now view your presentation on your iPod. You will notice, however, that your slides are not visible on your device using iTunes.

  14. Select the Summary tab in iTunes and ensure Enable disk use is selected from the Options area.
  15. Navigate to your desktop and double-click the iPod icon.
  16. Open the Photos folder and locate your slides.
  17. Select the slides you would like to use.
  18. Right-click (or [Ctrl]-click) any of the files and choose Open with > Preview.

    The selected slides appear in the Preview application as photos.

    The selected slides appear in the Preview application as photos.

  19. Use the down arrow key on your keyboard to navigate through the slides.

    Note: Because the PowerPoint slides were exported as graphic files, any transitions, builds, animations, and/or sounds you added have been removed.

  20. Quit Preview when finished and close the iPod folder.

    Note: When disconnecting the iPod from your computer, remember to eject the device in iTunes first.

  21. Quit iTunes.

    For this and other skills and drills, check out my Microsoft PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials book.

***

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" and the just-released "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials." You can follow AJ on Twitter at http://twitter.com/andrayajgeorge.

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Writing & Grammar Workshop: The Long Dash—Know It and Love It!

by Jennie Ruby

The long dash, or em dash, is a piece of sentence punctuation that only editors seem to fully understand, yet everyone wants to use one.  Some writers use a dash when they just don't know what other punctuation to use. In fact, the flexibility of guidelines for dashes encourages this use, because the em dash has several possible meanings. Knowing the meanings of the dash will give you a powerful piece of punctuation to add flexibility to your sentences.
 
One meaning of the dash is the same meaning as a colon: I have introduced something, and the thing I introduced follows. The only difference between using a colon and using a dash to introduce something is that a colon requires a complete sentence before it, whereas a dash does not.
 
We listened to three songs:
  • Chitlins Con Carne
  • Texas Flood
  • Dirty Pool
We listened to—
  • Blues at Sunrise
  • Pride and Joy
  • The Sky is Crying
The dash in the second list indicates that each item on the list completes the sentence. A dash can also introduce a surprising or emphatic ending on a sentence:

At the end of the set he played one last song—then came back for three more encores!

A pair of dashes can be used to set off an interruption in the middle of a sentence. Of course an interruption could be punctuated with parentheses or a pair of commas. The dashes indicate more of an abrupt and unexpected interruption that might actually be more interesting or important than the sentence itself. Here are examples:

  • The first song of the set, we all agreed, was by far the best. [ordinary interruption]
  • Stevie Ray Vaughan—he played several major gigs with Albert King—is featured on this album. [important and very interesting interruption]
  • The instruments—including the original strat used by Stevie on Texas Flood—are stored in a warehouse. [another important and very interesting interruption]
These three uses—to introduce a list, to introduce an emphatic or interesting end to a sentence, and to set off important or interesting interruptions—make the dash a very convenient punctuation mark to know—and love.

***

About the Author:  Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Jennie teaches two classes popular online classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts.

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Adobe FrameMaker: Multiple References to One Table Footnote

by Barbara Binder

Footnotes in FrameMaker are pretty straightforward. Place your cursor where you'd like the footnote reference to appear and choose Special > Footnote. If your cursor was in the body of the footnote, the note will appear at the bottom of the page. If your cursor was in a table, the footnote will appear directly below the last line of the table. (If you are new to footnotes, click here for a review of the basics.)

What do you do when one table has multiple references to a single note? I use one of two techniques:

Add a Cross-Reference

  1. Start by adding a footnote via Special > Footnote.
  2. Click on the note under the table and jot down the Paragraph Format (FrameMaker defaults to TableFootnote).
  3. Create a Character Tag for superscript:
    1. Press Ctrl+D to open the Character Designer.
    2. Press Shift+F8 to set the Character Designer to As Is.
    3. Name the Character Tag Superscript and click twice in front of Superscript to activate the command.

      Name Character Tag

    4. Click Apply (NOT Update All) to create the new format, and then be sure to UNCHECK Apply to Selection before clicking Create.

      New Character Format

  4. Place your cursor back in the table where you want to place a second reference to the first footnote.
  5. Choose Special > Cross Reference.
  6. Set the Document to Current, the Source Type to Paragraphs, and the Paragraph Tag to TableFootnote (or whatever Paragraph tag you jotted down in step 2).

    Cross Reference Settings.

  7. A list of all the TableFootnotes in the document appears.
  8. Scroll to find the one you want to reference, and click it.
  9. Create a Reference format for the footnote references:
    1. Click the Edit Format button in the lower right corner.
    2. Change the Name to Superscript.
    3. Delete everything on the Definition line and replace with <$paranumonly[TableFootnote]>.

      These building blocks tell FrameMaker to turn on the Superscript Character Tag you created earlier and then they pull the paragraph number only (not the text, or any additional punctuation you may be using) of the tag called TableFootnote. You do not need to reset the formatting back to Default Para Font after the paranumonly building block–it resets itself.

      Edit Cross Reference Format

    4. Click Add, Done, OK (to losing History, if activated) and Insert.

      Finished Cross Reference

There you go! If you need to reference the note a third or fourth time, its way easier because you've done all the hard work.

  1. Click your mouse where you want the next cross-reference to go.
  2. Choose Special > Cross Reference.
  3. Click TableFootnote.
  4. Click Insert.

If you end up adding or deleting the table footnotes, you'll find that these will all update automatically when you update your references, or update your book.

Cheat

True confessions. When I feel fairly confident the footnotes won't undergo edits that will force renumbering, I'll just type in the letter of the note and superscript it. Shhhh. That's our little secret.

***


If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class. Too elementary for your skill level? How about the Advanced FrameMaker 9 class? Hope to "see" you there.

***

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 world-wide.

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Adobe Captivate 4: Got a Sizing Problem? Let Captivate Fix It!

by Kevin Siegel

You've got three text buttons on a slide. The text on each of the buttons is different (One says "Repeat this lesson," one says "Take the Next Lesson," and the last one says "Close the lesson.") You'd still like the buttons to be the same width. So there you go, manually resizing each button until the sizes look about right. There… that wasn't so bad. Oh, did I mention you have a similar problem on 20 other slides.

I know what you're thinking… this is a problem that really isn't a problem. You're such a Captivate stud that you show the properties of the widest button (you can right-click an object and choose Properties to display its properties) and head straight for the Size and Position tab. You adeptly change the Width and Height of the button and, before clicking OK, use the Apply to All option to make all of the buttons in the project the same size. Nice! Good for you! On to another, more complex problem you go…

Oh, did I mention that the text buttons on each of those 20 slides vary from slide to slide. Some have a few words, some just one. Using the Apply to All option to make the buttons all the same size, project-wide, just wouldn't be appropriate in this instance. Dohhhh! So what's a developer to do? Read on…

Here's the challenge: you'd like to make the buttons shown in the picture below match the size of the widest button. Here's a quick way to do it without manually changing the size of any of the buttons, or using the Apply to All option.

Three buttons... two need resizing

  1. Select some buttons (or other slide objects… you can perform this procedure on just about anything).
  2. Right-click the objects and choose Align > Resize to Same Width.

And Bam, all three buttons are the same width! Keep in mind you could have also selected Align > Resize to Same Height or Same Size.

The images are all the same size now

***
Need to learn the basics of Adobe Captivate 4 fast? Attend a live, instructor-led 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.

Worried about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that IconLogic never, ever cancels classes (even if there's just one student registered).

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Questions of the Week

Adobe Captivate: Can I Stop The Presentation From Continuing After a Web Link?

I have a Captivate slide that contains buttons taking the student to one of our Web pages (a link to a URL). My problem is I'm not sure how to get the lesson to stop playing while the student checks out the site… as it stands now, the lesson continues to play in the background.

Answer:

Show the Properties of the object that initiates the URL link. Click the little arrow at the right of Open URL or File and deselect "Continue playing project."

***

eLearning Development: Can You Cite Research References?

Regarding last week's informative article by Jennie Ruby (Do You Need Both Screen Captions and Voiceover Narration?). Could you provide the references for her research?

Answer:

Primary source:
 
Ruth Colvin Clark & Richard E. Mayer, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction. 2008. Pfeiffer, an imprint of John Wiley and Sons.
 
Secondary sources:
 
Craig, Gholson, & Driscoll, 2002.Animated pedagogical agents in multimedia learning environments: Effects of agent properties, picture features, and redundancy. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 428-434.
 
Mayer, Heiser,  & Lonn, 2001. Cognitive constraints on multimedia learning: When presenting more material results in less understanding. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 187-198.
 
Moreno & Mayer, 2002. Verbal redundancy in multimedia learning: When reading helps listening. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 156-163.
 
Mayer & Moreno 2003. Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38, 43-52.
 
Mayer 2005. Principles for reducing extraneous processing in multimedia learning: Coherence, signaling, redundancy, spatial contiguity, and temporal contiguity. In R.E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 183-200). New York: Cambridge University Press.

***
Got a question you'd like answered? Email me.
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Acrobat 9: Image-Based Watermarks

by David R. Mankin

A while back I wrote about Acrobat's watermark feature. At that time, I created the watermark by typing the word DRAFT in the watermark creation dialog box.

There's another type of watermark possible in Acrobat 9–an image-based watermark that will allow you to have your company logo display on each page. The image watermark can be bold or subtle, and can appear on whatever pages you choose.

To insert an image-based watermark, choose Document > Watermark > Add.

Select File as the source and browse for your desired image file. (Accepted file formats are .pdf, .bmp, .rle, .dib and .jpg.) In my example, I selected a PDF file that I made from a coat-of-arms image. In the preview pane, you will immediately see a preview of the image and it will seem rather harsh. Not to worry. The image comes in with an opacity setting of 100% by default. For images, I like to dial the opacity percentage down to around 20%. Depending on the dimensions of your image file, you may opt to scale it to each targeted page. (In my example, I have it set to scale to 80%).

Add an image watermark using Acrobat.

There are other options with which you may want to try such as image rotation and behind versus on top of page. By clicking the Appearance Options link, you can further tweak the watermark to show or not when the document is printed, and/or displayed on screen.

Appearance Options

If your document has varying page sizes, you can opt to keep the watermark's position constant or not. You can even specify coordinates to place your watermark in a specific location on your pages.

If you need to apply this new custom watermark to more than your current PDF, you can click the Apply to Multiple button to select other files to include.

Didn't know Acrobat could do that? Don't feel bad. There are dozens of tricks and features that most folks don't know about. Sign up for my live, project-based online Acrobat 9 Professional class to learn lots of neat and useful tips, tricks and  techniques that will make your PDF files stand out and be noticed.


***
 
About the author: David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. And if that wasn't enough, of course David is an Adobe-certified expert in Adobe Acrobat.
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Adobe Captivate 4: Gimme Some Space!

by Lori Smith

If you have played around with Captivate 4's Advanced Actions features, you have surely discovered that you can add two items together such as myCount := myCount + 1 or myBossSalary := mySalary + mikeSalary.

But, did you know that you can also add words together (concatenate)? You can certainly have an assignment statement of the type: fullName := firstName + lastName.

If your student inputs Biff and Bifferson to firstName and lastName in a couple of text entry boxes, your fullName will end up being the sum of those two. Cool, yes? Well, only if you like your fullName to be displayed as BiffBifferson. Gee, that's a bit annoying… it's one long name and hard to read. You might try to add a space in the middle by doing something like:

fullName = firstName +   <space>

fullName = fullName + lastName.

But I can tell you right now, that it won't work.  Try adding slashes, single or double quotes… still a no go.

I have a little trick I call the Spacer object. The Spacer object is a Text Entry Box that contains a space character.

First, create a variable named spacer (via Project > Actions > Variables).

New variable called Spacer.

Next, create a text entry box on the first slide of your project and stick it up in a corner so no one can click it or fill it in by accident.  Then, set the initial value to a blank space and check the retain value field.

Text entry box with initial value set to a blank space.

Associate the variable spacer with the text entry box.

Associate the variable spacer with the text entry box.

On the Options tab, set the rest of the text entry box's settings as shown below:

Text entry box options

Now that you have a space handy, you can go back to your action and enter the following:

fullName := firstName + spacer

fullName := fullName + lastName

The result when fullName is displayed via a Text Caption will appropriately be "Biff Bifferson."

This is just a little something I like to have handy when I'm working with advanced actions in Captivate. Like this little tip? Want to learn more about Captivate's Advanced Actions? Join me online as I lead you through a 3-hour course focusing on Captivate's Advanced Actions.

***

About the Author: Lori Smith is IconLogic's lead programmer and Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in Adobe Captivate. Lori has a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from MIT as well as a Master's in electrical engineering from George Mason University.  She has been working in the field of software engineering for more than 20 years. Lori will be teaching our Adobe Captivate 4: Advanced Actions online, instructor-led class.

***

Need to learn the basics of Adobe Captivate 4 fast? Attend a live, instructor-led 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.

Worried about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that IconLogic never, ever cancels classes (even if there's just one student registered).

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Social Media Marketing: Putting The Pieces Together

by AJ George

Social Marketing: Putting the puzzle pieces together.I've
been a devoted Facebook member since the first year it made its way out of
Harvard and into most college campuses. I had a MySpace back when you could
only have eight top friends. I regularly post content to Twitter, YouTube and
PhotoBucket. I write my own blog in addition to writing for IconLogic's blog.
Somewhere along the line I'd convinced myself that I was a social networking
whiz. A genius, even.

Last week I attended Mary
Gillen's two-day, online Social Media Marketing class. I now realize how
unsubstantiated my networking arrogance really was. The angles I had not even
considered, the tips I had no clue about, the resources I'd never even heard
of were staggering.

I've
come to realize that if I thought I knew a lot about social
networking for business before Mary's class, it must be incredibly
daunting to someone who knows, right off the bat, that they're not up
to speed. The good news is that Mary's course really put the pieces
together for me.

Here's a bit of what I learned about social media
marketing:

  • Companies should have Facebook pages, but since
    it's the Facebook fan pages that are indexed and updated in real-time by
    Google, it is preferable to make a fan page for your business rather than a
    profile.
  • You should post 3-5 tweets on Twitter a day to
    keep your brand relevant. Avoid posting all of these tweets at the same time by
    using an application like HootSuite that will send out your tweets on a
    schedule.
  • If you are posting to multiple video sharing
    sites, like YouTube and Blip.tv (and you should be), post different videos on
    each or run the risk of appearing as a spammer in Google's search filters.
  • When naming images on your site, include your
    name or the name of your company with dashes to improve Search Engine
    Optimization. For instance, the image at the beginning of this article was named iconlogic-puzzle-piece.jpg.
  • Post thoughtful comments to other people's blog
    at least three times a week with a link back to your site or blog.

That's really just the tip of this enormous
social media marketing iceberg. If you find you need a little help putting
the pieces together, I highly recommend you sign up for Mary's next class.

Exclusive Offer: If you do decide to take Mary's class, here's an offer for readers of this BLOG. Use coupon code SMMICON10 and you'll save 10% off the price of the class.

***

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" and the just-released "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials." You can follow AJ on Twitter at http://twitter.com/andrayajgeorge.

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Writing & Grammar Workshop: One Word or Two?

by Jennie Ruby

My colleague was writing on his laptop across the room when
he asked "Is smackdown one word or two?"

Intrigued as to why a training professional
was writing about wrestling or extreme fighting, I walked over to take a look
at his document.

"Show me how you are using it," I said. "Are you using it as
a noun or a verb?"

"Why do you need to know how I'm using it? I just need to
know one word or two!"

The fact is, the way a word like smackdown is used in
a sentence determines whether it is one word or two. If the word is a verb, it is
two words for sure: "The basketball player may smack down the opposing player's
shot." However, my colleague was using it as a noun.

For smackdown as a noun, there were still two possibilities:
it could be one word, or it could be a hyphenated compound noun.

I asked my
colleague to open a browser and go to m-w.com. That is the Merriam-Webster
dictionary page, where you can instantly search for any word. Even so, I was a
little surprised that this fairly new, somewhat informal word was in there:
smackdown. Noun. 1997.

With that authoritative answer, my colleague right-clicked the
red-underlined word and chose "ignore" to Microsoft's suggested two-word
spelling.

In general, smack down, count down, clean up, and
smash up are used as two words when they are verbs, and one word when they are
nouns: smackdown, countdown, cleanup, smashup. However, sometimes the noun form
is hyphenated, as with follow up/follow-up. With a quick dictionary checkup,
you are good to go.

So why was a training professional writing about a
smackdown? As a vivid way to describe competing training programs. It worked!

***

About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007"
to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years
of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Jennie teaches two classes popular online classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts.

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PowerPoint 2007: Adding Custom Animation to Ungrouped Chart Elements

by AJ George

In a previous article I taught you how to ungroup chart elements for more specific formatting. Say you were giving a presentation on quarterly sales and wanted to keep your audience in suspense by having the bars of your chart come in one at a time. Today you'll learn how to do that.

  1. Follow those instructions to insert a fully ungrouped chart.

    Ungrouped image

  2. Click outside of the chart area to deselect all.
  3. Hold down [Ctrl] on your keyboard and select the second bar from the 1st Qtr section.
  4. Still holding [Ctrl], click the top of the second bar so that the 3-dimensional plane of the bar is selected as well.

    3-dimensional part of the bar is selected.

  5. Press [Ctrl] [X] on your keyboard to cut the bar from the graph. This will allow you to see the hidden side of the first bar so you can select it for animation.
  6. Hold down [Ctrl] on your keyboard and select the first bar from the 1st Qtr section.
  7. Still holding [Ctrl], click the top and side of the first bar so that the 3-dimensional planes of the bar are selected as well. (If you find it difficult to select the planes of the bar, increase your zoom to make the bar larger and try again.)
  8. Choose Animations > Custom Animation to open the Custom Animation pane.
  9. Click the Add Effect button and choose Entrance > Fly In.
  10. There should now be three items listed in the Custom Animation pane making up your first build. Ensure the first item is selected and from the Start drop-down menu choose On Click.
  11. Modify the Direction and Speed as you see fit.
  12. Ensure the next two items on the list are set to Start: With Previous.
  13. Modify the Direction and Speed to match the first item.
  14. When you are satisfied with the animation for the first bar, select the chart area and press [Ctrl] [V] to paste the second bar back into the chart.

Repeat these steps to add animation to the rest of the bars in the chart.

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!