Category: Uncategorized

I recently received the following question from a reader of my skills & drills newsletter:

Question: I have been asked to make the text captions in my Captivate project exactly match the audio. The thinking by management here is that people without speakers or headphones can still see the text captions. I argue that hearing and seeing the same text is redundant and distracting. Do you have any advice on the use of Audio and Text captions in terms of effectiveness? 

Adobe Captivate 5: Essential Skills

During this live, interactive two-day and instructor-led class, you will get an introduction to Adobe Captivate 5 and learn the core, essential skills that will help you create killer eLearning lessons.

Some of the lessons covered in this course:

• Best practices for eLearning
• Recording Demos and Sims
• Adding animation and Flash Video
• Recording voice-overs and adding sound effects
• Publishing as SWF and other formats 

Instructor: Kevin Siegel

• the writing process and structure
• identifying and thinking like your audience
• facilitating the conversation between SME's and the reader
• promoting the "WOW" factor
• keeping "the voice" active, accurate… and short
• avoiding common grammar mistakes
• identifying and eliminating deadwood
• writing narratives that will "hook" your audience
• writing step-by-step procedures that make the most of the learner's time and effort

We are having a really great time at ASTD's TechKnowledge conference in San Jose!

What's more, the bookstore quickly sold out of our Captivate books!

Did it sell out before you got there? Are you totally bummed? No worries! Use the links below to order at the TechKnowledge discount by entering code TK11 at checkout. (Orders must be placed before close of business Friday, February 4th.)

Adobe Captivate 5: The Essentials or Adobe Captivate 5: Beyond the Essentials

I'll be leading one session at the The Adobe Learning Summit 2011. This conference is for Learning professionals who want to learn the latest from industry leaders and Adobe experts. This one-day event is a unique opportunity to become an active participant in the community that's shaping the future of eLearning design and development. Join leading eLearning designers, developers, trainers, industry experts, and Adobe product teams in a collective explosion of information, imagination and inspiration.

February 2-4, 2011
San Jose, CA

I'll be teaching four hands-on Captivate sessions at ASTD's fast-approaching TechKnowledge conference. This conference welcomes professionals who focus their daily attention on the design and delivery, management and strategy of technology and learning. They will come together alongside 70 exhibitors in the learning technology space to learn, network, and move people forward through the application of learning and technology.

Adobe co-founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke have written an open letter to Apple computer about the lack of support for Flash content on Apple devices (namely the iPhone and iPad). In part, the founders say "As the founders of Adobe, we believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers. Freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves."

by Jennie Ruby

To the great joy of my colleague AJ at IconLogic, who tipped me off about this change, and to the relief of writers and editors everywhere who use the Associated Press Stylebook, the 2010 edition has declared website to be one word and lowercase, instead of the official spelling listed in Websters: Web site. And the AP–as editors affectionately call the style guide–has also released an AP Stylebook application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Although many technical publications have spelled website as one word for years, the dictionary still capitalizes the W because it is part of the proper name World Wide Web. Although Webster recently added website as an alternate spelling of Web site, many editors have chafed under the need to use what appears to be an outdated spelling. Having a major style guide declare website the official spelling gives editors an additional argument for the fresher spelling.

And the new iPhone app for the AP style guide gives writers and editors access to some of the most useful features of the style guide, without the need for carrying around the entire printed book.

The new app has an alphabetical listing of common style answers, such as whether to capitalize the words congressman and congresswoman (no) and whether to hyphenate e-mail (yes). In addition to the alphabetical listing, the app has the chapters on business, sports and social media terms, from the book, along with advice on punctuation.

I was able to look up website, e-mail, e-book and e-commerce to check hyphenation. I was able to find out that the word app can be used on the second reference to a program designed for a smart phone. And I was able to verify that smart phone does not need to be capitalized.

As an added bonus, the AP Stylebook app allows me to make notes of my own on any item, so that if one of my editing clients has a specific usage, my note appears every time I look up that item.

At $24.99, the app costs slightly more than the printed book ($18.95). The AP style guide is also available as an online subscription ($25/year). But having plunked down my dollars on the app, I am set for the moment. Having the answers to style questions right on my iPod Touch lightens my briefcase for teaching editing–no need to carry an extra style guide–and adds the fun of using an electronic device to the tediousness of having to look things up.

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.

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.

by Jennie Ruby

When you are using Track Changes in MS Word, sometimes you need to turn the tracking off for a second to make some minor correction "off the record" and then quickly turn the tracking back on. But after a trip to the Home tab, or the Insert tab, or elsewhere to make an untracked correction, you have to return to the Review tab to turn Track Changes back on.  Now if you are a Track Changes guru, you have probably memorized the keyboard shortcut: Control-Shift-E. But if you don't have the keyboard shortcut in your head, there is another shortcut that may come in handy.

In Word 2003 (and earlier versions), grayed-out shortcuts line the status bar at the bottom of the screen. Among them is TRK, a shortcut for turning Track Changes on and off. That shortcut also serves as an indicator as to whether tracking is currently on or off. In Word 2007 or 2010, the Track Changes shortcut appears at first to be absent, but if you right-click the status bar, you get a menu in which you can choose to add the Track Changes shortcut. Once that tool is on your status bar, you can turn Track Changes on and off without a trip to the Review tab. The shortcut also indicates whether Track Changes are currently on or off, so that you don't have to make a test change to check.

Other shortcuts you might find useful on the status bar are Section, Word Count, Proofing, and Macro Recording. Some of these are present by default, others must be selected from the right-click menu, but each of these tools is more than a simple indicator.

Click the Section shortcut, or any of the position shortcuts, and the Go To dialog box opens, allowing you to go to any section, line, page, or position in the document. Find and Replace tabs on the Go To box add even more convenience in finding a specific location.

The Word Count shortcut does more than tell you the number of words in the document. If you click it, it produces full statistics about the number of pages, words, characters, paragraphs, and lines. The Proofing shortcut will take you to the next red- or green-underlined spelling or grammar problem in the document. The Macro Recording shortcut allows you to start and stop recording without a trip to the View or Developer tab.

Word is such a workhorse program for most of us that just a few shortcuts can result in significant time savings and better productivity. If you use Track Changes, consider coming to one of my half-day, live on-line classes. In three hours you may find enough shortcuts and new skills to save yourself days of work over the course of a year.

Mastering Track Changes in Word 2007

Track changes can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Make sure this powerful tool is on YOUR side.

In this half-day class, you will learn how to

• Mark up a document with Track Changes

• Compare two versions of a document

• Combine multiple reviewers' comments

• Change the formatting of tracked changes and balloons

• Know when "Final" does not mean final

• Guarantee that all changes have been removed or accepted

• Protect a document when sending it for review

• Set up a logical procedure for reviewing with tracked changes

Instructor: Jennie Ruby

Click here to learn more or to sign up.