Month: September 2011

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Adobe FrameMaker: Selectively Using Bold in a Table of Contents

by Barb Binder Follow us on Twitter

I like mixing bold headings in my table of contents with regular weight text, but I don't like the bold leaders and page numbers that go with it:

Bold leaders

I just think it looks awkward. My preference is to leave all of the generated paragraph formats in regular weight, and then use a character style to bold just the heading. Here's how:

  1. In your table of contents (TOC), use the Paragraph Designer to set up the initial formatting for your text. Leave everything as regular weight.
  2. Create a character format to set the weight to bold. I called mine Bold.

    Create a character format.

  3. Choose View > Reference pages and turn to the TOC Reference Page.

    TOC Reference Page

  4. On the TOC Reference Page, select the <$paratext> building block for the paragraph formats you would like to bold, and apply the Bold format from the Character Catalog.

    Formatted TOC Reference Page in FrameMaker.

  5. Save your work and return to the Body pages.
  6. Update the TOC to see the change applied.

    TOC with just the headers bold.

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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.

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Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker We offer Beginner and Advanced classes.
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Adobe Captivate 5 & 5.5: That Syncing Feeling

by Kevin Siegel Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn

When developing eLearning with Adobe Captivate, saving unnecessary clicks is always a goal. With that in mind, I rely on keyboard and other shortcuts whenever possible to avoid clicking and dragging my mouse. Here's a little-known shortcut that can potentially save you a ton of clicks over the long haul.

Take a look at the image below. There are two objects on a slide and they appear as blue bars on the Timeline. Above the Timeline is a series of tick marks indicating fractions of a second. I clicked on a tick mark near 1.5 second and a red bar appeared. The red bar is known as the Playhead.

Adobe Captivate Playhead

I'd like the top caption on the Timeline to appear on the slide just before the 1.5 second mark. In fact, I'd like the caption to appear at the exact time indicated by the playhead shown above.

To accomplish the task, I could drag the caption's Timeline object to the left until its left edge lines up with the desired time. I could also use the Timing group on the Properties panel to control when the caption appears on the slide. But there is a way to get the job done that is faster than either of those two techniques.

Assuming that the Playhead has been positioned on the Timeline, right-click the caption on the slide and choose Sync with Playhead.

Synch with the playhead.

Now check out the Timeline. The selected object has automatically moved left and is lined up (synced) with the Playhead.

Object synced with the Playhead.

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5 or 5.5? We offer Beginner and Advanced classes. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend these classes.