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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
The two most commonly used features in a Help System are typically the Index and Search tabs. One of the limitations of the Search feature has always been the inability to hook specific URLs to Search terms. I'm happy to say that the External Content Search feature puts that issue to rest in the new RoboHelp 9.
Using External Content Search, you can display content from specific URLs based on terms that users are likely to search. For instance, a company called South River Technologies (SRT) has a Help system and they would like to set it up so that if a user searches for the word webdrive (one of SRTs products), they'll be presented with a link that will take them to a web page showing the word webdrive as it relates specifically to South River Technologies.
If you were SRTs Help author, here is how you could set up the External Content Search in RoboHelp 9.
Click the Advanced Search button and only web pages that contain the word webdrive and the wording south river technologies will be listed. Select and copy the URL in the address bar to the clipboard (you will be pasting it within RoboHelp shortly).
Using RoboHelp 9, choose View > Pods > Project Setup. Double-click External Content Search to open the External Content Search dialog box.
Click the Add button. Change the Title to webdrive. In the Search Terms field, type webdrive. In the URL field, delete the current entry and paste the URL that you copied from the Google Advanced Search. In the Description field, type Search the web for the term webdrive as it relates to SRT.
On the Single Source Layouts pod, double-click your layout and select the Search group. Then select Enable External Content Search.
Click the Save and Generate button and, when ready, click the View Result button. On the Search tab, type webdrive and press [Enter]. Click the lone result to display the Google Search results.
The thing that I really found cool about RoboHelp's External Content Search, especially using a Search engine results URL, like the one you copied from Google, is that the results will automatically update for your users when Google's search algorithms get updated (which is frequently).
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Looking to learn RoboHelp, and fast? I'm teaching a live, online class that will give you the most essential RoboHelp skills… and in just two days.
by Kevin Siegel
When importing voiceover audio into Adobe Captivate, I always suggest that audio be added directly to the slide instead of objects on the slide (Audio > Import to > Slide). Why? By importing audio directly onto the slide, you'll have more direct control over the audio. You will be able to edit the audio clip by double-clicking the waveform on the Timeline. And you'll be able to control when the audio begins to play by simply dragging the waveform left or right on the Timeline.
Which brings me to the subject of this week's article. In the image below, a voiceover clip has been added to a slide, and the audio has been set to play just when the slide appears.
While allowing audio to play when the slide appears on the learner's screen isn't wrong, there is a potential drawback… the first syllable of audio can get cut off.
Solving the problem is simple. Drag the waveform right on the Timeline so that the voiceover is delayed by a fraction of a second or so (as shown in the image below).
While it may not seem like such a big deal, even a slight audio delay can prevent the first part of clip from being dropped after the slide has appeared.
Have you tried to change the theme for just one slide in your PowerPoint 2008 presentation? Are you frustrated because there is no "Apply to Selected Slides" option like there is PowerPoint's Windows counterparts? You are not alone. I struggled with this for what seemed like forever until I discovered the easy, albeit completely hidden, solution.
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."
by Jennie Ruby
Who's Who books do have their grammar right. The proper usage is Who is who. But wait, you might be thinking, just last week, Jennie, you were telling us that we use who as the subject and whom as the object. Isn't the second who in Who is Who an object?
If you can ask that question, you have reached at least the intermediate level in the game of correctly choosing between who and whom. At this level, we must distinguish between action verbs and nonaction, or linking, verbs. The verb to be and all its forms, including is, are, was, were, will be, has been, and all the other forms for the 12 tenses, is a linking verb. It links a subject to one of three things: an adjective describing that subject, a phrase identifying the current location of that subject, or a noun or pronoun that refers to the same person or thing as the subject.
That last situation pertains to the who is who situation. When a linking verb links a subject to a noun or pronoun, it is almost as if that sentence has two subjects. Here is an example:
The instructor is Jennie.
In this sentence the instructor and Jennie are actually the same person. In a manner of speaking, then, this sentence has two subjects. You can actually mix and match the two subjects by reversing them, like this:
Jennie is the instructor.
So if a pronoun is in either of the noun positions in a sentence with a linking verb, the pronoun uses its subject form.
She is the instructor.
The instructor is she.
Old King Cole was a merry old soul.
A merry old soul was he.
And since the word who is a pronoun, it uses its subject form in either position:
Who is that?
That is who?
And, of course,
Who is who?
One thing to remember for these examples: there are no additional words after the word who at the ends of these sentences. If there are words after the word who, then you must enter the advanced level in the who vs. whom game. We'll go there next time.
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.
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.
It's likely that at some point you'll be asked to share the content within your Help system with members of your team so that they can provide feedback. You could post your generated Help system on a web server somewhere, ask reviewers to use the Help system and then provide feedback. The problem is what to do with and how to manage the feedback you are likely to receive.
The new RoboHelp 9 includes a handy Create PDF for Review option that will allow you to create a PDF that reviewers can open with the free Adobe Reader. Your reviewers can use Adobe Reader to add comments. The PDF stores those comments and you can import them directly into RoboHelp. Once the comments have been imported, you can accept or reject the comments, just as if you were using the Track Changes feature you'll find in word processors like MS Word.
Here is how the PDF Review process works.
From within RoboHelp, choose Review > Create PDF for Review.
You can decide to save the PDF locally (and later post it to a server) or send it as an e-mail attachment.
Your reviewers must have the Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader 9 or newer to add comments to the PDF. Shown below are the Text Edit options found in Acrobat 9.
The Text Edit tools were used to cross out some text and replace one word with another in the image below.
You will then use the Review Pane (Review > Show Review Pane) to accept or reject the comments. Sweet!
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Looking to learn RoboHelp, and fast? I'm teaching a live, online class that will give you the most essential RoboHelp skills… and in just two days.
by Kevin Siegel
Adding a Table of Contents to your published Captivate project is a great idea… you'll be giving your learners an easy way to navigate through the lesson.
Of course, adding a TOC to your lesson comes with a cost… you'll be adding a few hundred pixels to the overall width of your lesson. If your lesson is already quite wide, the TOC isn't going to help.
There is a way to have your cake and eat it too. Go ahead and add the TOC to the project via Project > Table of Contents > Show TOC. Then click the Settings button. From the Style area, select Overlay.
When you preview the project, there won't be any obvious sign of the TOC. However, if you look in the upper left of the slide, there are two arrows. Clicking the arrows will open the TOC.
If you observe the playbar, there is also a TOC button. Clicking the button will toggle between expanding and hiding the TOC overlay.
Keep in mind that an overlay TOC has the same functionality as a standard TOC, only it's hidden unless the learner needs it. Best of all, by using an overlay TOC, the width of your published lesson will remain unaffected!