Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite – Page 39

March 9, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp 8: Custom To Do Lists

by Kevin Siegel

Adobe RoboHelp is a wonderful help authoring tool. But it will never be confused with a high-powered project management application like Microsoft Project. However, you might be pleasantly surprised to learn that you can add some project-management type information to your project topics. Once added to the topics, Status information can be viewed in a handy report via Tools > Reports > Project Status.

Show the Properties of any RoboHelp topic. On the Status tab, you'll find a fair amount of information you can add to any topic such as Status, Priority code, number of hours spent working on the topic and even a handy To Do List.

But check out the To Do List (shown below).

RoboHelp 8 Status tab

You'll notice that the standard items are represented on the To Do List (First Draft, Tested, etc). Nice. But it's a good bet that the list doesn't have an item or two that you need. I'd tell you to go ahead and click the Customize button and add your own items to the list, but there isn't a Customize button anywhere to be seen. Bummer! Thankfully, it's easy to customize the To Do List. The only problem is that the location of the feature isn't obvious.

Choose File > Project Settings. On the General tab, click the Manage button to the right of the To Do List area. Click the Add button, type the name of the Item you'd like to add and press [Enter].

Manage the To Do list

The next time you access the Status tab, you'll see your new items in the To Do List. It really doesn't get any easier than that. And, as mentioned earlier, when you create a Project Status report, information you add to the Status tab will appear.

***

Need to learn the basics of Adobe RoboHelp fast? Attend a live, instructor-led, project-based, online training class. 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).

***

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

March 3, 2010

Acrobat 9: ClearScan Rocks!

by David R. Mankin

PDF files start their lives as many different file types
before their conversion to PDF. Using the print command will allow you to
convert any document to PDF from any application.

There are powerful utilities
that skillfully guide the conversion process to include advanced features, as
is the case with PDF Maker–the
Microsoft Office to PDF utility that come with Acrobat 9.

Acrobat itself will
do conversions to PDF. Take a look at the very first task button: it's called Create. Clicking this button reveals
various sources from which Acrobat will create a PDF file. One of these
options, PDF from Scanner allows you to grab an image of a document and convert it to PDF.

An image-based PDF file can pose a few challenges. A
pixel-based document is generally a large file. Not only that, it doesn't
contain any text at all, even though we can read it with our eyes and brains.
Using Acrobat's Find command is
guaranteed to yield no results. This PDF file is a picture of words, not
actually searchable characters. Acrobat has a terrific OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine built in, allowing us to
take an image-based PDF file and convert the shapes of letters and words into
actual text.

A
brand new feature in Acrobat 9 Professional is an OCR option called ClearScan. ClearScan analyzes the pages
of your image-based PDF and determines which regions contain text and which
contain foreground and background images. The shapes of individual text
characters are analyzed, and Acrobat actually assembles a unique scalable font
within the document. This makes a markedly smaller PDF file that is searchable,
looks amazing, and will print faster thanks to the custom fonts being utilized.

ClearScan

To use ClearScan, open an image-based PDF and
choose Document > OCR Text
Recognition > Recognize Text Using OCR. Click the Edit button to set your OCR options. Be sure to select ClearScan as your PDF Output Style.

OCR Text Settings

Once
complete, zoom way in to the text to see that the original escalator-like
pixels have been smoothed by using the custom font. Do a Find or Search. Also
check out the document's size by visiting the Document Properties Description
tab. Amazing!

***

Looking for Acrobat training? Join David for a live, 2-day online class. Click here for more information.

***

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.

February 25, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp 8: See Also Controls Bring Enhanced Navigation to the Fingertips

by Kevin Siegel

Adding links to related topics is a common feature found in most Help Systems created with RoboHelp. However, if you spend the time typing out See Also and then adding related links, you'll be looking at a lot of work if you want to add those same links in other topics. Instead, consider adding See Also controls to your topics.

See Also's allow you to place related RoboHelp topics into one common group. The See Also keywords are related to Index keywords except they will not appear on the Index when you generate your project. Instead, See Also keywords remain hidden and will appear only when called by a customer. One popular way to get a See Also to appear is to use Link Controls (a button that links to topics or other See Also keywords).

In the following steps, you will learn how to create a See Also group and name and associate some topics with it. Then you will create a Link Control in a topic that tells the See Also to appear if the control is clicked by a customer.

On the Project Manager pod, double-click the See Also folder.
Click in the white space at the top of the See Also pod.
Type a name for the keyword (in the example below, I typed Managers) and then press [Enter].

Now you need to associate topics with the new See Also keyword.
On the Topic List pod, drag topics into the Topics for Managers area (in the picture below, I added topics named hr.htm, IS.htm, pres.htm and master.htm).

Now you need to insert a link control in a topic.
Open a topic.
Choose Insert > See Also.

The See Also Wizard – Link Options dialog box appears.
Give the control a label (I typed Our Managers into the Label field).
Click Next.
The See Also Wizard – See Also Keywords Selection screen appears. The See Also keyword you created should be the only keyword available to Add.
Click the Add button.
Click Next.
Select Popup menu from the Choose topic from area.
Click Next.
Choose any Font, Font Style and Size you like.
Click Finish.
Your button should now appear in the topic.

To test the button, you would generate and view the project and open the topic containing the button.

The finished See Also button with the pop-up menu

***

Need to learn the basics of Adobe RoboHelp fast? Attend a live, instructor-led, project-based, online training class. 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).

***

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

February 23, 2010

Acrobat 9: Custom Signature Appearances, Historically Speaking

by David R. Mankin

When I started teaching Adobe Acrobat (this was way back in the 1770s), I had a very bright student named John. He was asked by his colleagues to apply his digital signature to an important PDF file. The document had something to do with government.

Since they hadn't taken an Acrobat class and knew little of Acrobat's advanced features, many of John's colleagues simply placed the default Acrobat Digital Signature on the document.

Not John. John learned Acrobat on his crude computer (it was made of wood, naturally). And during his Acrobat training, John learned that he could go to Acrobat's Preferences ([Ctrl] K on a PC, or [Cmd] K on a Mac), select Security and then click New next to the Appearances list box.

John chose to configure his Digital Signature's custom appearance by importing a scan of his actual signature. He chose just a few text descriptors to show, like Name, Date & Reason–to keep his custom digital signature appearance unique and uncluttered. He gave his custom appearance a name (he used his own–he wasn't very creative).

Creating a digital signature

John attended his group's big convention in Philadelphia that July. It was hot, but the pretzels and cheese steaks were awesome, so they say.

When John's colleague Thomas sent him the all-important PDF file, John grabbed Acrobat's Digital Signature tool (I think the icon was a quill back then) and drew a rather large rectangle.

John then entered his secret password in the dialog box (they only had 2-bit encryption back then–I'll let you make the joke on this). Unlike his unlearned colleagues, John knew that if his digital signature was to be noticed, it had to look different. He confidently clicked the down arrow next to Appearance, found his newly-created custom appearance and selected it. He then chose I am the author of this document from the reason for signing.

John Hancock's digital signature was huge, and unique. Everyone at the convention was very impressed… except Thomas (it was Thomas who actually authored this important historical PDF). In the end, Thomas had the last laugh… his house is on the nickel today, and John just has an insurance company.

John Hancock signature

***

Looking for Acrobat training? Join David for a live, 2-day online class. Click here for more information.

***

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.

February 22, 2010

Adobe Captivate 4: Lock It Up

by Lori Smith

When creating Captivate eLearning lessons we, the developers, need to enable the student to be as successful as possible. By successful, I mean being able to complete the lesson as intended, not necessarily passing any quizzes.

In addition, developers often want the student to feel as if they have the power… the students are in control (when in reality the design of the lesson is forcing them to proceed in a given manner).

You can elect to have the TOC displayed in a lesson (Project > Table Of Contents, Show TOC) and allow it to be navigable (via the TOC settings, Enable Navigation checkbox). This gives the students a lot of power to navigate, but clicking the TOC while on the wrong slide (e.g. quiz slide) could derail the entire lesson.

Enter the system variable cpLockTOC. Yes, you can temporarily lock the TOC so it is not clickable during crucial slides and then re-enable the navigation later.

Disabling and enabling the TOC can be done via any interactive item as well as on slide enter/exit. In each case, the cpLockTOC should be assigned the value 1 to lock the Table of Contents.

To lock the TOC on slide enter, show the slide properties and set the On slide enter field as shown below.

On slide enter action

To re-enable the TOC navigability (unlock the TOC) set the cpLockTOC variable to 0. To unlock the TOC on slide exit, show the slide properties and set the On slide exit fields as shown below.

On slide exit action

This is a simple constraint to implement. Here's one piece of advice before forging ahead locking and unlocking your TOC: know your navigation. Be sure that the student will actually execute the locking/unlocking. For example, if the student is allowed to navigate away from a slide via a button, the student will not execute the OnExit commands. In that case, ensure your button unlocks the TOC before jumping away.

***

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. Click here for details.

***

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).

February 18, 2010

Adobe FrameMaker: Working with Fixed Spaces in Dialog Boxes

by Barbara Binder

Last week we talked about adding fixed spaces to FrameMaker documents. As a quick recap, here's the list of shortcuts:

Em space: Esc spacebar m (or Control+Shift+Spacebar)
En space: Esc spacebar n (or Control+Alt+Spacebar)
Thin space: Esc spacebar t
Figure space: Esc spacebar 1 (one)
Non-breaking space: Esc spacebar h (or Control+Spacebar)

But what if you want to enter the shortcuts above into a dialog box? Or maybe you need to use one to separate the run in heads in Paragraph Designer. In that case you will need the following list as well:

Em space: \m or \sm
En space: \sn
Thin space: \i or \st
Figure space: \#
Non-breaking space: \ (space)

For example, I like to space out my em dashes with thin spaces on either side. That's a quick and easy Find/Change:

Em dashes with thin spaces.

And, I like to use en spaces to separate my run in heads from the text that follows:

En spaces separate run in heads from the text that follows.

Finally, I can correctly anticipate the non-breaking space in my Cross Reference format when I see the "\ " in the Heading & Page building blocks between page and <$pagenum>.

Anticipate the non-breaking space in a Cross Reference format.

***

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.

February 17, 2010

Adobe Acrobat 9: Reply!

by David R. Mankin

You've received an email from a colleague. Attached is a PDF file of the document you are both working on.

Your colleague has posted a Sticky Note comment with a design suggestion. You open the file, read the comment and decide that the suggestion might be a smart idea. You do not, however, have the authority to approve the change alone, so you will need to run it by your team leader.

You could send an email back to your coworker explaining that you need to run it by the boss. This email alone, even though it is referring to the PDF file, is detached from the workflow process.

To engage the workflow into your reply, you could grab a commenting tool and make an additional note on the PDF that will inform your coworker of your intent to run his idea up the chain. This way, the PDF file itself is the platform of communication, but there are now two Sticky Notes that refer to the same topic. They are physically close to one another on the page, but are indeed still two separate thoughts.

To thread these two comments together, one could locate the initial comment in the Comments Panel. Select the comment by clicking its entry in the Comments Panel or on the note's icon on the page. Click the Reply Button at the top of the Comments Panel.

Enter the annotation and it shows up as a threaded entry in the original note, and in its own sub-entry in the note's popup window on the page!

Threaded entry

An entire conversation can transpire about, and within, an individual note. You can take advantage of this feature within email reviews, server-based, or those hosted on Acrobat.com. Clear, efficient and cool!

***

Looking for Acrobat training? Join David for a live, 2-day online class. Click here for more information.

***

February 17, 2010

Adobe Captivate 4: Make Text Entry Boxes Retention and Tension-Free

by Kevin Siegel

I just love Text Entry Boxes. In case you are new to them, Text Entry Boxes allow you to simulate areas in an application that require a learner to type data. You can instruct learners to type specific information into a Text Entry Box and, depending on what they type, captions can provide feedback on their entry.

There is one problem with Text Entry Boxes: retention. In short, there may be a need to automatically clear the text typed into a Text Entry Box without having the learner close the lesson and start over again.

"What's the big deal?" you ask. Glad you asked. Here's a scenario for you: Your learner is instructed to type some text into a Text Entry Box on–I don't know–let's say Slide 10.

Later, the learner does something crazy like replays the lesson (without first closing it).

The text that the learner had already typed into the Text Entry Box on Slide 10 would still be visible to the learner. Ooops. Of course the learner could easily delete the text and retype it–but that's not the point. Why would anyone type something if they didn't have to? I'm lazy! If I was supposed to type something that was already there, I'd be perfectly happy. I'd move to the next step in the movie–blissful in my ignorance as to what had, or had not, just happened.

If you've created Captivate projects that utilize Text Entry Boxes, you can probably relate to the scenario I mentioned above. And you will be happy to hear that Captivate allows you to determine if the text typed into a Text Entry Box is retained or not. Here's how:

Insert a Text Entry Box onto a Slide (Insert > Standard Objects > Text Entry Box).
From the Settings area of the Text Entry Box tab, remove the check mark from Retain Text if you don't want the learner's typed text to appear in the Text Entry Box should the lesson be rewound; otherwise, add the check mark.
Set the remaining Text Entry Box options/settings as appropriate.
Click OK.
Preview the project (you can press F4 on your keyboard to quickly preview the project).

When you get to the slide containing the Text Entry Box, type in the appropriate text and go to the next slide. Afterwards, rewind the lesson and notice that the text in the Text Entry Box is either retained or not (depending on the option you selected in Step 2 above).

***

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).

***

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

February 10, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp 8: Avoid Recent Project Confusion

by Kevin Siegel

So
there you are, looking at the Adobe RoboHelp recent projects list when
you run face-first into a confusing dilemma: you accidentally opened
the backup version of your project from the server. You closed the
backup right away but now both versions of your project appear in the
recent projects list.

RoboHelp 8 recent projects list

Hmmmm…
if you use your mouse to point to each of the project names in the
list, you will see the location of each project. Problem solved. Simply
read the destination and ensure you open the correct version of the
project. Of course, if you're like me, you are often in a rush to get
the project open and get your work done. It would be a shame to open
the wrong project.

Wouldn't it be better to simply remove the unwanted project from the recent projects list? I think so… and here's how

Choose Tools > Options.

On the General tab, select the project you do not want to accidentally open from the Most recently used project area.

Click the Delete button (don't worry, clicking the Delete
button will not delete the project… instead, it will simply remove
the reference from the recent projects area).

Delete a project from the recently projects list

Click the OK button.

And just like that, the project that was causing all of the stress will be missing from the recent project list.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp quickly? Join my live, online and instructor-led RoboHelp class. 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).

***

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

February 9, 2010

Adobe FrameMaker: Working with Fixed Spaces in a Document

by Barbara Binder

When most of us think of spaces, we think of pressing the
spacebar and moving on. Did you know that FrameMaker supports additional
spaces? Em, en, figure, thin and non-breaking spaces are all available if you
just know how to ask for them. Unlike spacebar spaces, which are proportional to
the characters around them and can expand and contract when you justify a
paragraph, these five spaces are all fixed width spaces.

Here's a quick list for you:

Em space Esc spacebar m (or Control+Shift+ Spacebar)

An em space is typically the width of a capital letter M in any given
typeface. In FrameMaker, if your type is set to 12 pts, the em space is 12
points wide. I use them when I want a big fat space and I don't feel like
setting a tab. In the first image below, the run-in head is separated by a
spacebar space. In the second image, it's an em space.

em Space

En space Esc spacebar n (or Control+Alt+Spacebar)

An en space is half the width of the M space in any given typeface. For
example, in 12 point type, the en space is 6 pts wide. I use them when I want a
fixed space and I don't feel like setting a tab.
In the image below, the run-in head is separated by an en
space.

en Space

Thin space Esc spacebar t

The thin space in FrameMaker is 1/12th the width of an en space.
Continuing with the example of 12 point type, the thin space would be 1 point
wide. My personal preference is to space out my em dashes with thin spaces on
both sides. The first image below shows em dashes without any spacing around
them, the second image shows thin spaces on either side.

Thin Space

Figure space Esc spacebar 1 (one)

The figure space is the width of the number zero in any given typeface. This
one is really handy for scooting the numbers in a table over so that the
varying columns line up on the right hand side, when I don't feel like setting
a tab. In both images, the numbers all have a center alignment. In the first
image, the first two cells have fewer digits than the rest, and the center alignment
is apparent. In the second image, I inserted a figure space at the beginning of
the first two cells, and everything lines up perfectly.

Figure Spaces

Non-breaking space Esc spacebar h (or Control +space)

A non-breaking space is used to keep two words from breaking across lines.
In the first image, the number 6 is all alone on the line. In the second image,
a non-breaking space was added between May and the number 6, so now they both
move to the next line together.

Non-breaking space

***

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.