Category: Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite

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Adobe Captivate 4: Personalize Your Projects and TOCs

 
In the early Captivate days, you could create a menu for your Captivate project using a TOC feature found via the project skin. Basically, you could enable or disable the TOC. The resulting TOC overlayed your slides and was pretty much devoid of customization or personalization features. Thank goodness for Captivate 4 and the much improved TOC feature.
 
In addition to its ease-of-use, the new TOC feature lets you quickly add personal touches such as your contact information and even your photo.
 
Add your personal information to the project:
  1. Choose File > Document Info
  2. Fill in the information with your personal information (the information that you type here can appear on the TOC–which you will see in a moment)

    Project information filled in

  3. Click OK

 

Add a TOC to the Project Skin

 
  1. Choose Project > Skin Editor
  2. On the TOC tab, select Show TOC

    By simply clicking Show TOC, every slide in your project will be added to the TOC. There is nothing wrong with including everything; however, it might be a bit less cluttered if you only include the major parts of the lesson.

  3. Remove the check mark from any slide that you do not want to appear on the TOC

    TOC with some slides selected

  4. Click OK
If you Preview the project , you will notice that your TOC (also known as a menu) appears at the left of your lesson. As you move through the lesson, green check marks are automatically added to the TOC. Nice!
 
Add your personal information and image to the TOC

 

  1. Open the Skin Editor and, on the TOC tab, select the Info button

    Hmmm… it appears that the Project information you added a moment ago isn't here. Or is it?

  2. Click the Project Info button and the fields in the TOC information field will automatically be filled with the Project Information you added earlier.

    Information appearing on the TOC

    All that's needed now is a picture to go with the name.

  3. On the TOC tab, click the Info button
  4. In the Photo area, click the three dots to Browse

  5. Click the Import button
  6. Open the image you'd like to appear on the TOC
  7. Resize/Crop the image as appropriate
  8. Click OK as needed to close all of the open dialog boxes

    And behold… the image, name and contact information will appear on the TOC when you preview or publish the project.

    TOC info with a picture of Biff

 
***
 
Need to learn Adobe Captivate 4? Click here.
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Adobe FrameMaker: Learn to Love Your LOMs

 
Last week I wrote about how to display shorter chapter titles in a running FrameMaker head.
 
I work with several international authors who use a variety of accented characters in their text. The chapter titles in my Adobe FrameMaker documents are set in all caps, and don't need the accents. The table of contents is set in upper and lower case, and needs the accents. How do you reconcile that issue? Check out the Marker dialog box. 
  1. Select a chapter title
  2. Choose Special > Marker
  3. Click the Edit button from the Marker Type list
  4. Type a descriptive name such as TOC Title
  5. Click Add
  6. Edit the Marker text to match what you want in the Table of Contents and click the New Marker button

When you are ready to generate a Table of Contents, don't. Create a List of Markers instead.

  1. In your book window, choose Add > List of > Markers
  2. Double-click your custom marker from the Don't Include list to scoot it over to the Include Markers of Type list
Everything else is exactly like creating a generated TOC, but the suffix will be LOM (list of markers).
 
Pretty cool. I use this technique whenever I need to modify the TOC entries from the source documents. Luckily it doesn't come up all that often in my work, but when it does, I love my LOMs!
 
***
 
Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.
 
***
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 in the world.
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Adobe FrameMaker: When Chapter Titles are Too Long for a Running Head

 
One of FrameMaker's strengths is its ability to pull the contents of a paragraph directly from the flow and insert the text in a header or footer. If the original paragraph text updates, the header or footer updates automatically (this is known as a running header or footer).
 
In an ideal world, authors would always write short, concise headings. In real life, some heads are so long they look like bold, multi-line paragraphs.
 
When I need to pull lengthy chapter titles and section heads into a running header, the trouble begins. My solution? A Header/Footer Marker $1 marker.
 
There are two of these lurking in the Marker dialog box, just waiting for you to find them. Here's how I use one of them to solve the too-long title issue:
  1. Select the chapter title
  2. Choose Special > Marker (or you can press [Esc] [s] [m] on your keyboard
  3. Edit the marker text to the short, concise title you wish it had been given originally
  4. Click the New Marker button
Now you've got a customized running head that fits, yet manages to alert the reader to the current chapter. How about that for a quick and easy solution to the problem?
 
***
 
Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.
 
***
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 in the world.
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Adobe Acrobat 9: A History Lesson You’re Gonna Love… the Organizer

by David R. Mankin

 
How much time have you spent looking for a PDF file you worked on a while ago? Like most other applications, Acrobat's File menu lists your most recently opened files.
 
Recently opened PDFs
 
By default, you see the last five documents opened, but that sixth one will require some fishing to locate. This is an adjustable value, by the way. To change the number of files listed in your recently used list, you can go to Edit > Preference (or Acrobat > Preferences on the Mac) and make the adjustment there.
 
There is a much more robust feature that Adobe has given us, and it's been there for years. It's called the Organizer. Organizer is a child application of Acrobat, so it cannot be launched on its own–it must be opened from within the Acrobat interface. To launch Organizer, choose File > Organizer > Open Organizer.
 
The Organizer's Interface is divided into three vertical panels. The left-most panel is divided into three sections: History, File Tree and Collections.
 
Organizer interface
 
The History section shows a timeline listed as Today, Yesterday, Last 7 days, Last 14 days, Last 30 days & Last 12 months! Click on the word Today, and the middle column is populated with a list of every PDF file you had opened today.
 
If you single-click to select one of these files in the middle panel, the right-most column then shows thumbnails of the individual pages of that file. These thumbnails are scalable too. Move the slider back & forth below the third column to zoom in and out on the pages.
 
Double-click a listed file in the middle column and Acrobat will open and display that document. However, if you double-click a page thumbnail in the right panel, Acrobat will open that specific document–and display that exact page.
 
If you decide the Organizer is a tool that you'd like to use frequently, you can customize your File toolbar to show an Organizer button. All you need to do is right-click the File toolbar and select the Organizer tool.
 
Organizer button
 
You will also find great little shortcuts to your newly found History feature by choosing File > History. The History section of the Organizer is available for you to use without actually opening the Organizer.
 
***
 
Want to learn more about Adobe Acrobat? Click here.
 
***
 
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 FrameMaker: When Tables Just Won’t Stop

 
Multi-page tables are a regular part of my life. My FrameMaker documents are lengthy, and so are my tables. When a user opens up to the middle of a table, how are they supposed to know that they are not at the beginning? With a Table Continuation variable, that's how!
 
Want to give it a try?
  1. Navigate to the first page of a multi-page table
  2. Place your cursor in your table title and press the [End] key to move to the end of the line
  3. Choose Special > Variable
  4. Scroll down and click on Table Continuation
  5. Click the Insert button
If you have text symbols showing, you can see a little square "u" at the end of the line. Without visible text symbols, you don't even see that. But where's the actual continuation? Don't despair, just go to the next page in your layout. There it is: "Continued."

If you don't care for the wording, or want to change the language, just head back to the beginning of the table and double-click the little "u." Click Edit Definition and go to town! (Don't forget that you can apply an existing Character Tag too, if you are willing to scroll down to the bottom of the Building Blocks List in the Edit System Variable dialog box.)

 
***
 
Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.
 
***
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 in the world.
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Adobe Acrobat 9: Adobe Giveth, & Adobe Taketh Away (but not really)

 
Having been an avid and regular user of Adobe's Acrobat software for more than a dozen years, there are some tools on which I have grown very reliant.
 
Want to go to the next page? Click the right hand arrow on the toolbar and you're there.
 
Want to go to the previous page? Click its neighbor, the left arrow button.
 
Want to go to the last page of the document in a flash? Just click the right-most of the 4 page navigation buttons–the right arrow with the vertical line. WHOAH… if you're using Acrobat 9, you'll ask yourself, "Where did it go?" If you've used Acrobat in the past, you're not going crazy. That button had been there since the mid 1990s, but now it's GONE.
 
Looking closely, you'll see that Adobe has thrown you a bit of a triple-whammy here. Not only are you missing a last page button, but you will find that you are missing a first page button as well. Now comes the slam dunk… the next page button has changed its iconology completely and now is a DOWNWARD arrow. The previous page button is an UPWARD arrow.
 
Next Page Arrow Tool in Acrobat 9
 
No need to panic. When Adobe released Acrobat 8, they seemed to have favored a minimalist approach to toolbars. They did not remove any tools from Acrobat, but they sure did hide a bunch of them. The same philosophy seems to have been carried over to the new release, Acrobat 9 Professional.
 
Starting with the release of Acrobat 8, to see the full array of tools available on any toolbar, it was necessary to right-click a toolbar. This revealed a complete list of commands available on that toolbar. Commands with a checkmark were currently visible.
 
Available toolbar commands (buttons)
 
Those without a check were hidden, but one mouse click toggled the tool from hidden to visible. If you seem to be missing a toolbar entirely (such as the super-useful Advanced Editing toolbar), you only need to right-click in a blank spot of the tool bar area. A full list of available toolbars is shown–checkmarks indicate visible, no check means hidden. Click on a hidden one to add a checkmark & enable visibility.
 
Rather than going through each toolbar's right-click menu individually (a rather time-consuming and tedious chore), Adobe has given you a way of showing, hiding and customizing ALL of the Acrobat toolbars at the same time.
 
Choose Tools > Customize > Toolbars to open this terrific set of options. Any toolbar with a checkmark will be visible, and any tool with a checkmark will be visible on that toolbar.
 
If you miss a tool that you think Adobe removed from one Acrobat version to the next, simply right-click. Chances are that the tool you are looking for is available, waiting for you to make it visible.
 
***
 
Want to learn more about Adobe Acrobat? Click here.
 
***
 
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 Captivate 4: Are Your Bits Certified?

 
My trusty laptop recently began showing signs of decline (it's not as fast as it used to be, and it freezes more than I can tolerate). So off I went to the Sony Style store to pick up a new laptop.
 
As you would expect, there was plenty of inventory at the Sony Style store to consider. I've purchased hundreds of laptops over the years so it didn't take me long to zero in on a model that would work well for me. I won't bore you with the laptop's features other than to list the big stuff:
  • Hard Drive: 250GB (not the biggest but that'll work); Memory: 4GB (nice!)
  • Screen Size: 15.4 inches (nothing to brag about, so I won't)
  • Operating System : Genuine Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (I wasn't a fan of Vista six months ago, but the more I use it, the more I prefer it to Windows XP)
  • And I saved the best for last: $779.00 (I'll bet you can find it even cheaper with a bit of shopping).
So I handed over my credit card and bought my new toy home. And it wasn't long before I had installed my usual software suspects: Office 2007 and the Adobe Technical Communications Suite 2 (FrameMaker 9, RoboHelp 8, PhotoShop CS4 and Captivate 4).
 
While installing the Adobe Technical Communications Suite, I received a message I hadn't seen before, something about 64-bit blah, blah, blah, but I pushed forward and installed the whole suite without issue.
 
And then… I started Captivate and noticed some very strange behavior while trying to record a lesson. After clicking the Record button, Captivate pulled the first screen capture as expected. But that was it. After the first capture, Captivate refused to capture anything else. Pressing END on my keyboard to stop the recording process did nothing. In fact, the only way to get Captivate to pay attention was by manually stopping the recording process (by clicking the Captivate icon in the System Tray.
 
I know that Captivate 4 is Vista compliant. In fact, I was running Captivate 4 on another Vista laptop without incident. This laptop was brand new (just a few hours in service), so I was pretty sure there wasn't a virus causing trouble.
 
I went to Adobe's Web site to verify Captivate's System Requirements. Here's what you'll see on the Adobe site:
  • Intel® Pentium® 4, Intel Centrino®, Intel Xeon®, or Intel Core™ Duo (or compatible) processor
  • Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (certified for 32-bit editions)
  • 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
  • 1.5GB of available hard-disk space; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on flash-based storage devices)
  • DVD-ROM drive
  • 800×600 screen resolution (1,024×768 recommended)
My new laptop certainly meets these specifications. Hmmm. Uh oh. What's that phrase mean: "certified for 32-bit editions?" Certified? As in, won't work otherwise? Say it isn't so, Joe!
 
Back in Vista, I checked my laptops specifications by choosing  Start > System Information. And there it was: System Type: x64-based PC. Most computers running Windows today are 32-bit machines. What's the difference between a 64-bit platform and a 32-bit? Mainly, the extra 32 bits result in increased speed and performance. If your software is 64-bit certified, you might see a speed increase of up to 20% or more. However, if your software is not 64-bit certified, there could be trouble.
 
And there's trouble for Captivate developers. If you are running a machine using the Vista 64-bit platform, there is no guarantee that Captivate will work properly. What could go wrong? For me, the only problem has been recording actions on the desktop (as I mentioned above, Captivate freezes and won't record anything beyond the first screen). However, when I record within an application (such as a Web browser), Captivate records the lesson as expected. I haven't seen other problems, at least not yet.
 
There are a few things you can try to get Captivate to work with Vista 64. First, right-click the Captivate application icon and choose Properties. On the Compatibility tab, select Run this program as an administrator and then click OK.
 
Run as an administrator
 
Start Captivate and see if the program runs as expected. If not, you can try one more thing. Right-click the application icon and choose Properties again. Once again on the Compatibility tab, click the Run this program in compatibility mode for drop-down menu and select Windows XP.
 
Run the program in Windows XP mode
 
Several people have reported that either one or both of these workarounds did the trick. However, in my tests, Captivate just would not work 100% with Vista 64. I'd be curious to hear your experiences with Captivate and Vista 64. Send me your comments and I'll forward them to Adobe. Captivate is such a wonderful program and Adobe very responsive to customer requests and concerns. I have to believe that Adobe is working on the problem and a solution is not far away. 

 
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Need to learn Adobe Captivate 3? Click here.
 
Need to learn Adobe Captivate 4? Click here.
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Link of the Week

Adobe Unveils Two New Suites: TechCom 2 and eLearning
 
The eLearning Suite integrates best-of-breed tools for rapid eLearning, courseware authoring, simulations, and media editing. Create rich, interactive learning experiences that engage audiences with video, audio, and powerful visuals. Work productively with rapid authoring tools that deliver smart collaboration features as well as tight integration with asset-creation tools. And deliver content to the web, the desktop, mobile devices, and Learning Management Systems. 
 
The eLearning suite includes: Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Flash CS4, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 with CourseBuilder Extension, Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, Adobe Presenter 7 and Adobe Soundbooth.
 
 
Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 is a complete and integrated solution for authoring, managing, reviewing, and publishing technical documentation, help systems, knowledgebases, and training. Create content once and then publish it to multiple channels–even as an Adobe AIR application. Take advantage of the powerful image processing capabilities in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and the new roundtrip PDF review workflows.
 
The Technical Communication Suite 2 includes: Adobe FrameMaker 9, Adobe RoboHelp 8, Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended and Adobe Presenter 7.
Click here to learn more about the eLearning suite.
 
Click here to learn more about the Technical Communication Suite.
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Adobe FrameMaker 8: In a Word, It’s the Thesaurus

 
Ever find yourself using the same word over and over in your Frame documents? Next time it happens, reach for the Thesaurus and pick from a list of synonyms. Here's how it works:
  1. Highlight a word
  2. Choose Edit > Thesaurus

    When the dialog box opens, you will see one or more definitions for the highlighted word, several hyperlinked synonyms, and usually a couple of antonyms thrown in for good measure.
  3. Click on the best match, and you'll jump to a new screen with one or more definitions for your choice, along with more linked synonyms and antonyms.
  4. If the word you picked is a good alternative, click Replace
  5. If it wasn't a good match, just keep following the hyperlinked words until you are satisfied. If you take yourself way off track, click the drop-down the Headword menu at the top of the dialog box to see a list of the last 10 words. It's a quick way to get yourself back to more appropriate matches.
Pretty easy! (or should I say "simple," "effortless," "As easy as pie," "As easy as ABC," "A snap?" So many good synonyms, all in one place!
 
 
Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker 8? Attend Barb's Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 8 class. All you need is a computer with fast Internet access, a headset and the current version of FrameMaker (the 30-day trial version of the software works fine). You can ask all the questions you like because all virtual classes are led by a live instructor–this is not pre-recorded content.

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 in the world.
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Adobe FrameMaker 8: Don’t Be an Idiot, Remember Missing Font Names

 
I'm an idiot. I'm also a long time Adobe FrameMaker user (starting way back in the early 90s) and have been continuously certified by Adobe as both an ACE (Adobe Certified Expert) and ACI (Adobe Certified Instructor) on FrameMaker since 1997. You'd think I'd know the program pretty well by now and some days, it sure looks like I do. Other days, well, you read my story and decide.
 
I began laying out an annual publication for an association many years ago. It's a compilation of papers written by a large group of economists. I designed the first chapter 13 volumes ago, and have basically been using the same formatting instructions ever since. I import the all formatting in from a previous chapter for each new article, and then the next year, I import the settings from one chapter from the previous volume to the first chapter of the new volume and move forward. As fonts come and go, I find myself having to update the Font Families every few years. Other than that, it's been a pretty good system. Until Frame 8 arrived.
 
My first foolish decision was to install the first release of Frame 8 in the middle of my production cycle. (Please note that I am not doing that for InDesign CS4–I learned my lesson). I won't bore you with the details; let's just say it was a nightmare. Not one who is happy to suffer alone, I regularly called Adobe Tech Support and took my frustration out on them. Adobe blamed my computer configuration, I blamed their buggy software. It was an ugly time. On one conversation about fonts that are declared missing by the Console but simultaneously declared not found by a Find/Change command, the technician said, "You redesigned your template for version 8, right?"
 
"Of course," I responded, unable to admit that the template was probably defined in version 5.5.
 
It was too late to start over on that job, and it eventually made it to print, but I made a note to redesign the template for this year's job.
 
Last month, I redefined everything from a new document, and picked all my current fonts. I was feeling fresh and virtuous, and layout was going swimmingly until fonts started sneaking in from Word. First it was just one file, and I could keep it open while I updated my book. Then a couple more showed up. The Console said they were there, Find/Change insisted they weren't. I couldn't find them in the Word doc either. In my effort to be a detective, I'd even bring the files into InDesign, which could locate some of the missing font but not others. The fonts were driving me crazy.
 
The solution? Finally locating that little green checkmark next to Remember Missing Font Names in File > Preferences and turning the #$%@ thing off.
 
It turns out all I needed to do was uncheck it once to permanently map all the missing, unavailable fonts sneaking in from the Word docs to fonts that I actually own. How did I miss that all these years? And why didn't any of the technicians mention that last year when I was tearing my hair out over font issues?
 
Adobe does give us the following warning: "Be aware that doing this will cause you to lose the original font information referenced in the document." Yes! That's exactly what I need when authors send me files from all over the world using a wide variety of fonts that I've never heard of.
 
I may have felt like an idiot the day I found the checkmark, but I was a relieved and happy idiot.
 
 
Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker 8? Attend Barb's Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 8 class. All you need is a computer with fast Internet access, a headset and the current version of FrameMaker (the 30-day trial version of the software works fine). You can ask all the questions you like because all virtual classes are led by a live instructor–this is not pre-recorded content.

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