January 2011 – Page 2 – The Logical Blog

January 18, 2011

Adobe Captivate 5: Get Ready, Get Set… Reset!

by Kevin Siegel

You can easily add a Table of Contents to your lesson by choosing Project > Table of Contents and then selecting Show TOC.

Like magic, all of the project slides will be added to the TOC. If you spent the time adding Labels to the slides before accessing the Table of Contents screen, the Labels would appear on the TOC as slide names. You can change the name easily enough by double-clicking any slide name on the TOC and typing a name. If you don't add slide Labels, the name given to each slide is based on the slide number. (Slide 1 will be named Slide 1, and on it goes.)

Recently I had a student in one of my Captivate classes ask if she could use her slide labels on the TOC "after the fact." She had added her slide Labels after she had added the TOC. The result of this reverse workflow was that her new slide Labels refused to appear on the TOC, even after she deselected and then reselected the Show TOC check box.

The solution to the problem (and it was a problem… she really wanted to use the slide Labels and was dreading having to retype them on the TOC), is simple, yet not obvious.

First, add your slide Labels to as many slides as appropriate (select the slide on the Film Strip and then add the label via the Property Inspector's Label field).

Open the TOC window and Show the TOC. Then, from the bottom of the TOC window, click the Reset TOC button.

Reset TOC button

And BAM! The existing TOC will be replaced and the names of the resulting slides will match the slide Labels.

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes, as well as a half-day course on Advanced Actions. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

January 17, 2011

Adobe FrameMaker: Adding a Drop Cap

by Barb Binder

Adding a drop cap in FrameMaker is easy, right? Just activate the Apply Drop Cap checkbox and specify how many lines to drop down, right? Ha! I wish. Sadly, there is no drop cap feature in FrameMaker, but that doesn't mean you can't have one. You just need to know how to create the drop cap manually.

Place your cursor at the beginning of the paragraph where you'd like to have a drop cap.
Delete the first character in the paragraph.
Choose Special > Anchored Frame.
Change the Anchoring Position to Run Into Paragraph.
Set the Alignment to Left.
Set the Gap to 3 or 4 pts. (The Gap is the space between the edge of the frame and the edge of the text to the right and below the frame.)
Set the size to about 1 in x 1 in to start.
Click on the New Frame button to add the frame to the paragraph.
Open up the toolbox, if necessary via Graphics > Tools.
Select the Text Line tool.
Click inside the frame and type the character to be used as the drop cap.
Format the character using the Character Designer. (If you plan to use more than one drop cap, I'd recommend making a character format.)
To finish, drag the letter to the top left of the frame with the Select Object tool and adjust the frame edge to match the size of the letter.

Note:

For more interesting and/or ornate drop caps, consider creating them in Photoshop or Illustrator, and then importing them into the frame.

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If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker class. Hope to "see" you there.

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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 world-wide.

January 13, 2011

PowerPoint 2010: Converting Presentations to Movies

by AJ George

In previous versions of PowerPoint, converting presentations to movies could be a bit of a laborious task. PowerPoint 2010 has a new feature allowing presentations to quickly and easily be saved directly to .wmv (Windows Media Video) format .

Open the presentation within PowerPoint 2010.
Do a run-through of your presentation to make sure there is an adequate amount of time between slide transitions and any animation effects you may have added and make any necessary changes.
You won't be clicking your mouse to continue the presentation once it is a movie and you may find that the default transition time goes too fast (or not fast enough) for your liking.
Choose File > Save As.
From the Save as Type drop-down menu, select Windows Media Video (*.wmv).
Click Save.
Notice the Creating video progress bar appears at the bottom of your screen. Sometimes this can take a while. Do not close the presentation before the progress bar indicates that it is finished. If you find that you don't want to wait, you can click the red X button to cancel the process.

And that's all there is to it!

The good news: In PowerPoint 2007, not only did you need to go in to Windows Movie Maker to convert your presentations to movies, but in doing so you lost any transitions or animation effects you may have added. When you use PowerPoint 2010 to Save As a .wmv file, all of your transitions and animations stay in tact.

The not so good news: If you use PowerPoint 2010's new feature allowing for embedding videos from a website, you will find that when you try to save the presentation as a .wmv file, an error message will appear alerting you that this content will not display in your movie. All is not lost. Following these directions, you can take the long way to insert videos from YouTube into your presentation. Using this method will allow you to make a movie from your presentation in which the video will play.

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

January 13, 2011

Writing & Grammar Workshop: Who versus Whom

by Jennie Ruby

In every custom grammar class I teach, I get a request to review who versus whom. The choice between who and whom is arguably the hardest decision in grammar to make correctly. It can involve identifying subject-verb pairs, understanding the concept of object of a preposition, parsing out clauses that are acting as objects, pinpointing phrases that are acting as subjects, and knowing a little bit about infinitive verbs.

But it all comes down to this: is the word who/m a subject or an object in the sentence. To determine whether who/m is a subject, one method is to find every verb in the sentence and figure out exactly what word is the subject of that verb-in other words, identify who or what did that action. If the word who/m is the subject of any verb, the choice is who. If the word who is not the subject of any verb, then it has to be whom.

Here are some examples:

*Who/m put the sneakers in the dryer?*

The verb is put. The word Who/m is immediately before the word put, and is the subject of that verb. Because who/m is the subject of a verb, the correct word is who.

Who put the sneakers in the dryer?

*He gave the important letter to who/m?*

The verb is gave. The word he is the subject of gave. There are no other verbs in this sentence. The word who/m is not the subject of any verb, so the correct choice is whom.

He gave the important letter to whom?

*I wondered who/m the manager would choose for the new supervisory position.

The first verb in the sentence is wondered. The word I is the subject of wondered, so that verb is taken. But there is another verb in this sentence: would choose (a helping verb plus main verb combination). The word manager is the subject of that verb. There are no more verbs in the sentence, and the word who was not the subject of any verb. The correct choice is whom.

I wondered whom the manager would choose for the new supervisory position.

*She asked me who/m had the best sales record.*

The first verb is asked. The word she is the subject of asked. The next verb is had. The word who/m is the subject of had, so the correct choice is who.

She asked me who had the best sales record.

So far, we have seen only action verbs in the sample sentences. However, nonaction verbs, infinitives, and imperative verbs can be confusing in sentences with who/whom. We will take a look at those next time.

In the meanwhile, your homework is to notice any incorrect uses of who/whom you see or hear in the next week, whether they are in the news, in e-mail, on the radio, or wherever. When you find them, correct them, and send them in. I'll share good examples next time.

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Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? If so, consider attending my Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts class. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts class.

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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.

January 12, 2011

Adobe Captivate 5: Don’t Quote Me!

by Kevin Siegel

Prior to publishing a Captivate project, you should spend a few minutes filling in fields you will find in the Project Information window (via File > Project Info).

Among other things, you'll find the Project Name and Description fields. Why bother filling out these fields? The Project Name, which can contain spaces, appears in the title bar of the Web browser when the lesson is first opened by your learner. The Project Name and the Description are both read aloud by a screen reader (which is a critical component of section 508 compliance). And any of the information you add to the Project Information can be used by system variables, allowing you to display the information within text captions anywhere in the project. (That's something you learn how to do in my Captivate 5: Beyond the Essentials online class.)

In fact, filling in the fields within the Project Information window is so important, and so simple, I encourage my beginner Captivate students to fill it in as well. (From a beginner perspective, the information can be displayed on a TOC, something you learn to do during class.)

So what could go wrong by following my advice and filling in the Project Info? Plenty it appears, such as the error message below:

It seems that fellow Captivate developer John T Wylie Jr., International Game Technology, ran face-first into the error message above when trying to publish. The message refers to actionscript keywords and user variables, but John wasn't using actionscript or user variables.

John sent me an email about the problem, but I had never seen that particular error message and, sadly, wasn't able to help.

John didn't give up. And he found the cause of the error in an unlikely place. It turns out that John's Captivate project was covering how to use a 103 inch display. In John's Description field, he did something unthinkable: he typed 103" display. Hence the problem. For whatever reason, Captivate does not like it if you use quote marks in the Description field.

Closed quote in the description

On a whim, John removed the quote mark from the Description field (shown below) and the project published. Go figure!

Description fixed

The issue is apparently a bug and is covered in this post on the Captivate forum. A patch has not yet been released that fixes the issue. So until such time that there is a fix, avoid the quote marks. I'd tell you to quote me on that, but I'm not the one who did the work this time… quote John.

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes, as well as a half-day course on Advanced Actions. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.

January 9, 2011

Writing & Grammar Workshop: Happy New Year! (or is it New Year’s?)

by Jennie Ruby

New Year's Day is the proper noun naming the day we celebrate the new year. That is why it is always capitalized. New Year's Eve is the night before, when all the partying really takes place. When wishing someone a happy new year, the phrase is capitalized and does not need the possessive apostrophe: Happy New Year! Occasionally, you may be using the phrase as an abbreviated form of the proper name of the day: Will I see you on New Year's? is actually short for New Year's Day, or possibly New Year's Eve, and therefore has the apostrophe.

Since there is only one New Year's Day per year, you never have to worry about putting the apostrophe after the s. Even when you are thinking back on all the New Year's Days you have celebrated, the apostrophe still goes before the s.

Here are some things NOT to do: Don't be like the fellow Billy who is giving us a list on his website of things to do for "New Years." If you are putting the s on New Year, you must use the apostrophe. And don't be like the website for clip art that is advertising "Happy New Year images." That is probably just their database sticking the word images after Happy New Year, but it is grammatically suspect. "Images for Happy New Year" would work better.

As one year ends and another year begins, let's all wish our friends and colleagues Happy Holidays! (no apostrophe) and Happy New Year! with no fear about the apostrophes!

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January 4, 2011

Link of the Week

Infosemantics has created a nifty Drag and Drop question widget for Adobe Captivate. According to Rod Ward of Infosemantics, the widget "allows you to create your own drag and drop questions using almost any objects you can add to a Captivate screen."

Rod said that the widget works in Adobe Captivate 4 and Adobe Captivate 5. To learn more, click here.

January 4, 2011

PowerPoint 2007: Adding Voiceover Narration to Presentations Converted to Movies

by AJ George

Last week I detailed how to turn a PowerPoint 2007 presentation into a movie that could be uploaded to popular video sharing sites like YouTube.

If you wanted to add voiceover narration to the movie, however, you may have run into a bit of a problem–there is only one row in the Windows Movie Maker timeline for audio. If there was a need to add background music to the presentation in addition to narration, you would be in a bit of a pickle.

This week, expanding upon the same method from last week, I will show you not only how to add voiceover narration, but how to have it play at the same time as background music.

Follow the instructions from last week to create a movie from your PowerPoint presentation with audio and save your movie as a .wmv file.
Note (And this is important!): Once you have saved your PowerPoint presentation with the audio as a .wmv file in Windows Movie Maker you will not be able to adjust the length of each slide. Practice your narration before saving this original file so you can adjust the length of time each slide plays as necessary before continuing on to add narration.
Open the .wmv file in Windows Movie Maker.
If necessary, drag the .wmv file(s) down to the storyboard.
From just above the storyboard at the bottom of the screen, click Show Timeline.
Since the audio you previously added is now a part of the imported video, you have a spot on your timeline to add more audio.
Click the Narrate Timeline tool.

Note: You can use the microphone built in to your computer for narration. However, if you are looking for better sound quality it is usually better to use an external microphone. We use and recommend the Sennheiser 350.
Drag the blue playback indicator directly before the slide for which you would like to begin narrating.
In the center of the screen where it now says Narrate Timeline, click the Show more options link.
Activate (put a check mark next to) Mute Speakers.

Since you have previously added audio, this will prevent the microphone from picking up that audio in your narration and causing an echo effect.
Click the Start Narration button and record your narration.
Click Stop Narration when you are finished.
The Save Windows Media file window will appear.
Give your narration a name and click Save.
Click the Done link when you have completed all narration recordings.
Drag your Narration recording(s) from the Collections area down to the Audio/Music portion of your timeline.
Save your video as covered last week.
You are now ready to upload your movie to a video sharing site.

If you would like more tips on recording audio for eLearning voiceovers, consider taking our Audio Basics for eLearning live, online class.

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."