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Print Publishing: Tracking and Kerning

The goal of many print publishers is professional- looking and readable typography. To help you reach this goal, both QuarkXPress and InDesign come with tools to ensure the best visual spacing between words and characters in your layout. To achieve the best results possible, you can use tracking or kerning.

Tracking is the process of loosening or tightening the spacing of a selected text. Kerning is the process of adding or subtracting space between two specific characters. Tracking and kerning are both measured in 1/1000 em, a unit of measure that is relative to the current type size. In a 6-point font, 1 em equals 6 points; in a 10-point font, 1 em equals 10 points.

Here are keyboard shortcuts to track or kern text in both QuarkXPress or InDesign. Keep in mind that if you want to track text, select at least two characters. If you want to kern, click between two characters.

QuarkXPress 7

  • Decrease 1/20 em space: [command] [shift] [{]
  • Increase 1/20 em space: [command] [shift] [}]
  • Decrease 1/200 em space: [command] [alt] [shift] [{]
  • Increase 1/200 em space: [command] [alt] [shift] [}]

InDesign CS 2

  • Decrease 20 thousandths em space: [alt] [left arrow key]
  • Increase 20 thousandths em space: [alt] [right arrow key]
  • Decrease 100 thousandths em space: [alt] [command] [left arrow key]
  • Increase 100 thousandths em space: [alt] [command] [right arrow key]
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Grammar Clinic: The Parts of Speech

The following comes from our top-selling grammar book, Abrams’ Guide to Grammar.

If I were to ask you how many parts of speech we have in the English language, I’m sure you would say “eight” and rattle them off: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. So I won’t ask.

Remember those horrible vocabulary assignments given to you by your 7th-grade English teacher: “Look up twenty-five words and write the definition, the part of speech, and a sentence.” By the time you got to the end of the list, you were just happy to be done. You probably had no idea what any of the words meant or how they should really be used. The truth is, no word is a part of speech until it’s used in a sentence.

I’ll give you six sentences using the word down, and each time I use it, it will be a different part of speech.

  • Eric fell down. (In this sentence down is an adverb because it is modifying the verb fell.)
  • Eric fell down the stairs. (In this sentence down is a preposition.)
  • The quilt is made of eider down. (In this sentence down is a noun because it names a thing.)
  • The down elevator was broken. (In this sentence down is an adjective because it modifies a noun.)
  • She downed the ball on the fifty-yard line. (In this sentence down is a verb because it is the action of the sentence.)
  • Down! (Okay, so I cheated a bit here. In this sentence down is acting like an interjection, but I guess we would agree that it is really an adverb as it is modifying the understood word get as in “Get down!”)
  • As a word person, you may not be asked often to label the part of speech of words, but when you are editing and proofreading, it’s a good idea to have the ammunition to support your changes. In a later module, we will be discussing the difference between adjectives and adverbs to avoid errors such as “I feel badly.”

The Parts of Speech: Definitions

Noun: Names a person, place, or thing. A noun can be a common noun, such as friend, monument, river, and street, or a proper noun, such as Ellen, Washington Monument, Hudson River, and Main Street. A noun can name something concrete, such as a chair, computer, dog, or desk, or something abstract, such as love, justice, honor, or friendship. Possessive nouns are adjectives because they modify nouns: Susan’s bike, Alfonso’s idea, Jacob’s car, and Hasim’s music.

Pronoun: Takes the place of a noun. Pronouns include personal pronouns, such as I, she, we, and they. Pronouns also include words such as this, that, these, those, who, whom, some, most, many, all. Possessive pronouns such as his, hers, ours, and mine can stand alone (This is his). Possessive pronouns such as his, her, our, and my modify nouns and are considered adjectives (This is his book).

Adjective: Describes a noun or a pronoun. Adjectives include words such as large, one, the, a, funny, and happy.

Verb: Expresses an action or a state of being. Verbs include overt actions, such as run, laugh, write, and sing. Verbs also include mental actions, such as think, decide, review, and love. State of being verbs include words such as is, are, was, will be.

Adverb: Describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs answer the following questions: How? Why? When? Where? To what degree? The following words can function as adverbs: quickly, very, quite, somewhat, intelligently, there.

Conjunction: Connects two words or phrases or clauses. Conjunctions include simple coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet. Conjunctions also include subordinating conjunctions (if, until, unless, when, where, because) and correlative conjunctions (either/or, neither/nor).

Preposition: Stands before a noun and together with the noun becomes a phrase modifying something else in the sentence. The following words are examples of prepositions: in, for, to, under, around, above.

Interjection: Expresses an exclamation in the middle of a sentence without grammatical connection to other words. The following words are interjections: ouch, ah, oh, oops.

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Captivate 2: Watch Those Support Files

Publishing Flash files from Captivate has always been easy. All you have to do is select the Publish command, select Flash (SWF) from a list of publish options and Captivate creates two files: an HTML file and SWF. Your only worry was to ensure both of those files were kept together. As long as you posted both files on a Web server somewhere and kept the two files together, users who accessed the HTML file would get to enjoy the SWF. Simple.

But now there’s Captivate 2!

When you publish SWF movies in Captivate 2, you’ll quickly discover that, in addition to the two main files (the SWF and HTML files), there might be a second SWF file for any skin you created. (I’ll talk about Skins next week… boy are they cool).

There’s also a new JavaScript file (standard.js). Why is it important? If you’ve published movies within the last few months, you’ve probably run face first into the new security settings in Internet Explorer. You know, the annoying message that requires the user to acknowledge (by clicking) any SWF movie before the user can interact with your movie. It’s never been a big deal, but ranks as a nuisance because the user has to click twice on a button in your movie before the movie works. The JavaScript fixes that. In essence, it "tricks" Internet Explorer and acknowledges the SWF for your users. Very nice.

Last but not least, there are also some metadata files that make it easier to integrate your project into Adobe Connect Enterprise. If you allow Captivate to include the metadata, you might end up with larger than expected SWF files. The metadata files are not necessary if you do not plan to connect to Adobe Connect Enterprise. You can stop the metadata files from generating, and lower the size of your SWFs, by deselecting Publish Adobe Connect Enterprise metadata (via Project > Preferences).

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Print Publishing: What’s In a Font?

There are three types of fonts are available for you to use today: TrueType, PostScript Type 1 and OpenType.

TrueType is a scalable font format developed by Apple Computer, Inc., and built into Apple’s OS 7 and newer, as well as into the Windows OS. PostScript Type 1 fonts are the publishing industry standard for digital type. If you plan on using a commercial printer and service provider to print your document, quality-made Type 1 fonts are recommended, although good quality TrueTypes also image just fine. Neither TrueType nor Type 1 font files are cross-platform—a major frustration to publishers and service bureaus.

OpenType fonts are a newest PostScript format and are the wave of the future. The OpenType format allows for one file to have complete cross- platform compatibility between Macintosh and Windows. OpenType fonts can contain more than 65,000 characters as opposed to a limit of 256 characters in TrueType and Type 1 fonts. One font file can contain an entire family of style variations including ligatures, true small capitals, fractions and old-style figures. OpenType fonts are a two-byte character encoding that encompasses most of the world’s languages, including Asian characters. You can learn more about fonts on the Web at http://www.adobe.com/type/

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Technical Writing Clinic: Eliminating Deadwood

Deadwood is another word for "wordiness." And wordiness can be contagious. You may start your professional life with a natural, concise writing style, but after a while you may notice that other writers in your organization are incorporating inflated language, redundancies and long sentences into their documents. Before long "bureaucratese" and gobbledygook begin to sound natural. Your writing has now become infected. Remember wordiness and pomposity do not equal formality. And simple words do not equal simple ideas.

Clarity, conciseness and simplicity of word choice do make a difference, especially when the message is complex or the reader is uninformed. Conciseness does not necessarily mean brevity.

The following will help you avoid "deadwood."

  • use complete instead of absolutely complete
  • use planning instead of advance planning
  • use ask instead of ask the question
  • use assembled; gathered instead of assembled together
  • use continue instead of continue on
  • use cooperate instead of cooperate together
  • use consensus; general opinion instead of consensus of opinion
  • use each; every instead of each and every
  • use Easter instead of Easter Sunday
  • use identical instead of exactly identical
  • use rabbi instead of Jewish rabbi
  • use experience instead of past experience
  • use shrugging instead of shrugging her shoulders
  • use because instead of the reason is because
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The CBT Development Process

I wouldn’t disagree with people who say that Captivate is a very easy program to learn and use. Compared with programs like Adobe PhotoShop, they’re right. Captivate is easy. In fact, you’ll have it pretty much figured out in two-days or less (that’s the time it should take you to finish my Captivate workbook).

However, there’s a whole development process you need to go through if you intend to produce effective CBTs. And Captivate mastery is only a small part of that process. Getting a handle on the CBT development process isn’t easy. It takes a lot of practice, experience, and above all, patience. I’ve outlined my CBT development process below. While this list is by no means complete, it will give you a nice overview. And I’ve included a power scale that demonstrates the skill level necessary to get the job done. The scale goes from 1 to 10, with 10 indicating a potentially difficult process.

Write It: If you’re not a writer, you’ll need someone to write the step-by-step instructions (also known as a script or storyboard) necessary to record the project in Captivate. You’ll typically find technical writers doing this kind of work. And I’d consider this the most important process. Without a good script, you don’t have a movie. Think I’m kidding? What do Battlefield Earth, Barb Wire, Godzilla, Heaven’s Gate, Popeye and Ishtar have in common? (Power Scale: 10)

Rehearse It: Take the completed script and go through it with the software you’ll be recording in front of you. Don’t skip any steps. You’ll be able to see if the steps you wrote are incomplete or inaccurate before you attempt to record the movie in Captivate. (Power Scale: 2)

Reset It: After rehearsing the steps, be sure to "undo" everything you did. Few things are more frustrating than recording your movie only to find a step you intend to demonstrate has already been performed. (Power Scale: 1)

Record It: If rehearsals went well, the recording process should as well. (Power Scale: 1)

Clean It: This is where you add all of the interactivity in Captivate including highlight boxes, captions, text entry fields, buttons, question slides, etc. If the project contains 70-80 slides and each slide needs your attention, you should budget 7- 10 hours to get the project perfected. (Power Scale: 8)

Publish It: While not a difficult task, if your project is large this could take a great deal of time. You cannot do any work in Captivate while your project is publishing. (Power Scale: 1)

Test It: This task isn’t difficult, but it could take time. If you find a problem, you’ve got to go back and clean it, publish it and re-test it. Some people argue that this step belongs above the Publish It process. I cannot argue with that logic. However, after testing the project, you’ll still need to Publish it and then, if working with a Learning Management System (LMS), upload it and test again. Maybe it should be Test It, Publish It, Test it. See how easy I am? (Power Scale: 2)

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RoboHelp: Editing the GLO

You can easily create a Glossary in RoboHelp by clicking the Glossary tab, adding your Glossary term and definition.

But what if you’ve created a perfectly good glossary in Word and want to use it in RoboHelp? While Word does not allow you to directly import a Word document into RoboHelp, all is not lost. Here is how you convert your Word document into a RoboHelp glossary.

  1. Open the Word document.
  2. Type NAME= (case sensitive) in front of every word you expect to use as a glossary term.
  3. Ensure the glossary definition appears on the very next paragraph (the definition cannot be more than one paragraph)
  4. Copy the entire document to the clipboard
  5. Navigate to your RoboHelp project and open the .GLO file with NotePad (or some other text editor- -the GLO file is the file RoboHelp uses to maintain the RoboHelp glossary)
  6. Paste the glossary text you copied from Word into the GLO file
  7. Save and close the GLO file
  8. Back in RoboHelp, go the Glossary tab and behold that the terms and definitions to pasted into the GLO file appear on the Glossary
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What’s Your Point?

If you are a new print publisher, you are probably more comfortable in layouts that use inches as the default measurement system. In fact, most new users would rather that they never have to work with points or picas.

There are two main problems working with inches. First, it’s very difficult to add, subtract, multiply or divide when you are dealing with parts of an inch. If asked what half of 1 5/8 inches is, few would be able to answer quickly–unless you’re still good at math and fractions, which I’m not. However, if asked what half of 36 points is, most people know the answer is simple division (36 divided by 2 =18 points). Second, most professional printers and service bureaus work with points. If you are comfortable working with points, it will make working with other print professionals easier.

I’ll give you an easy method for memorizing point/pica/inch conversions. Remembering a few numbers will help you avoid having problems working with points or picas.

Here is the magic formula:

  • 12 points = 1 pica
  • 6 picas = 1 inch
  • 72 points = 1 inch

Four little numbers: 12, 6, and 72. All three of them equal 1 (pica, inch, inch respectively). The biggest number to keep in mind is that 72 points = 1 inch. If you can keep that straight, you’ll be able to quickly tell how many points there are to 1/2 inch (36) or how many points there are to 1/4 inch (18).

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Captivate: Emails that Include a Subject and Body

You can create a click box in Captivate that will automatically send an email to whatever email address you specify.

Here’s how

  1. Choose Insert > Click Box or Insert > Button
  2. Select the Click Box tab
  3. Select Send email to from the On success area
  4. Specify an email recipient in the Send e-mail to area

If a user clicks the click box or button, their email software (such as Outlook) will appear. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the user will have to fill in a Subject line and the body of the email before sending the email.

If you want to include a subject line and/or automatically fill in the body of the email, you can type the following:

someguy@someplace.com? subject=Captivate% 20Presentation&body=Body%20goes% 20here&cc=someotherguy@someplace.com

Provided your email client supports the tag, the email that is generated would have the following information pre-filled:

To: someguy@someplace.com

CC: someotherguy@someplace.com

Subject: Captivate Presentation

Body: Body goes here

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RoboHelp: Odd Spacing Got You Down?

The following article was written by Rick Stone, the RoboWizard. Rick is a well known and respected developer. His site is packed full of real-world RoboHelp and Captivate tips and tricks. Check out his Monthly Scry section for some very informative articles.

When using the RoboHelp HTML WYSIWYG editor, have you ever encountered the following disturbing behavior? You compile, generate or preview and notice that your resulting text has odd spacing as follows:

Here is a wonderful paragraph. Notice it is neatly aligned and everything looks just peachy. Why, it might look just dandy in the RoboHelp HTML WYSIWYG editor, but when you view it in either the compiled/generated result or the RoboHelp HTML preview window, it has odd spacing (typically between sentences).        The spacing may look like this!

Believe it or not, the cute RoboHelp project Mogwai weren’t fed before midnight and mutated into the Gremlins that are messing with your project! What has probably happened to you is that you adjusted the left margin using the slider widget on the Ruler. This tends to add some code to your HTML indicating the left margin adjustment. Later, you decided to combine one paragraph with another. Quite logically, you positioned your cursor at the end of the paragraph and pressed the Delete key so the following paragraph appeared to continue to flow. And it does appear to flow properly while in the editor.

How to fix it?

One of the neat aspects of the RoboHelp HTML WYSIWYG editor is that if you select some text, then click the TrueCode tab, the same text (and attributes) are selected in TrueCode. This should easily show you what has happened to cause the odd gap. If you look closely, you will probably find that where the odd gap occurs, you see a tag containing a left margin declaration. Simply remove the opening tag and you should be set. If you wish to be extra tidy, you can traverse the text and locate the closing tag, but I find the WYSIWYG editor does a fair job of doing that automagickally.