The Logical Blog by IconLogic

Adobe FrameMaker: Page Navigation

by Barbara Binder 

Sure you know how to get from one page to another in a FrameMaker document, but are you a Page Navigation Expert? If not, you certainly should be. As I've said many times, shaving seconds off your work here and there can quickly add up to minutes or even hours of production time in a FrameMaker project.

Besides the vertical scroll bars and the scroll wheel on the mouse, see how many of these you know (and use):


 
In a long document, I'm going to guess that you rely fairly heavily on the Go to Page dialog box, but have you tried out the two new navigation features in FrameMaker 9?



Go to Page Containing the Insertion Point is great when you scroll away from the page where you were working, and want to get back but have forgotten where you were. And jumping to a specific Line Number is nice when you are trying to guide another FrameMaker user to a specific spot in the document, to enter a correction for example. If you find those commands useful, note that you can also access them from the status bar in the lower right hand corner of your screen:


 
Go to Line Number is on the left, and the button on the right will take you to the page containing the insertion point.

Finally, a discussion on page navigation wouldn't be complete without mentioning that you can follow any hyperlink in an unlocked FrameMaker document by simply holding down Control and Alt keys as you click on the link.

Now you really are a FrameMaker Page Navigation Expert. Feel free to put it on your résumé!

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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.

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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.

Acrobat 9: Making Search Easy

by David R. Mankin 

 

A few months ago, I wrote an article titled Search Is King which touted the power of Acrobat's Search command.

I use Search constantly, and I almost never use Find. Why drive a moped if there is a Honda Goldwing in the same garage?

Adobe gives you, in both Acrobat and Reader, a Find command on the default Toolbar layout. It's easy to use, but very limited in its capabilities, like that moped.

The Search command is NOT part of the default tools layout, therefore severely reducing the chance that a casual PDF 'consumer' will use the more powerful Search command.

Here's a cool trick that will greatly increase the likelihood that one of your customers will call on the Search command: you'll put it right in their hands and they won't be able to resist using it!

In the most binary way, you always do two things to a PDF page: you open and close it. You can use these two page states as a trigger for an action, such as Edit > Search.

1. Open any PDF file, and then open the Pages Panel.
   
   
2. Right-click on the first page icon, and choose Page Properties.
   
   
3. Select the Actions tab.
   
   The two page states I mentioned above are listed as Triggers.
   
   
4. Select Page Open as the trigger, and choose Execute a menu item as the Action.
   
   
5. Click the Add button to bring up a list of possible commands to execute.
   
   
6. Choose Edit>Search from this list and click OK.
   
   
   

When the first page in your PDF is opened, it will automatically trigger the Edit > Search command, showing the normally hidden Search panel without your customer even knowing how to display the feature.

Page Actions are very powerful, and multiple actions can be assigned to a single trigger. Experiment and have fun with this.

***

 

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.

The Learning Industry: Year In Review and Trends for 2010

by AJ George

Congratulations for surviving another year in the learning industry! Let's wrap up some of 2009's most exciting additions to the industry and set our sights on what 2010 has in store for us.

Mobile Learning

It's no secret that the iPhone was king in 2009, but competitors are hot on the iPhone's heels in the form of the Droid and the Pre. If the potential for offering training courses on mobile devices hasn't already revolutionized your life in the technical training/sales/learning field, hold on, because it will.

According to Brent Schlenker of the eLearning Guild, training is shifting to mobile. Schlenker believes that the iPhone is a key player in the mobile industry, even though the iPhone does not play some media such as SWFs (SWFs are the most common output published by eLearning developers who work with Captivate and Camtasia).

"I'm not convinced that the iPhone needs the ability to play SWFs to be successful as an mLearning device," said Schlenker. "I've seen effective, comprehensive training solutions on the iPhone that do not rely on SWFs."

Schlenker went on to say "Companies will see the greatest return on investment in sales force training because they are the most mobile. A sales force needs the most up-to-date information without the fluff. Mobile is the perfect solution because it's easy to get all of the information to the learner--when they need it and in the right format."

Holistic Sales Techniques

Many industry pundits say that the recession is over. However, it has been a tight year and businesses aren't ready to start throwing money around just yet.

According to ASTD's December issue of T+D, Marc Ramos, director of the Sales College at Red Hat University, believes that today's consumers aren't only concerned with their total costs. They're also worried about social, political and environmental issues.  

"We must train salespeople to be more holistically-minded and authentic," said Ramos, "and build learning content that supports this new type of buying style."

mLearning, eLearning and online training certainly support the environment by allowing customers to "go green" by cutting back on travel--thus reducing their carbon footprint.

 

Web 2.0

It seems that everyone has tapped in to the Web 2.0 trend. I'm willing to bet that your parents and grandparents have Facebook accounts, and it's a good bet that your 12-year-old is Tweeting. It seems like everyone has a network! And when it comes to training, a network could change everything.

 

In the December issue of ASTD's T+D magazine, Holly Huntley, Chief Learning Officer for CSC (a leading global IT services company), said "These (Web 2.0) tools have shifted the power base. Teacher as expert is no longer the model, and knowledge is no longer power. The real power is in your network and how you use it.

Schlenker agrees and quoted friend Mark Oehlert: "We're no longer looking for SMEs, we're looking for Subject Matter Networks."

"It's the network effect," said Schlenker. "Web 2.0 allows multiple people to be able to collaborate and learn together to bring the industry forward. When you get people together you have an incredibly powerful brain trust."

What's in Store for 2010?

According to Schlenker, the future isn't necessarily new technology (although new technologies will continue to appear), but the future is the way technology is used. "The technology is already out there," he said. "It's the culture that needs to catch up and shift."

What Schlenker sees in 2010 is more mobile applications for training purposes and, he hopes, the adoption of virtual worlds in the training industry.

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About the author: AJ George, a cum laude graduate of Towson University, is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of the book "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and the soon-to-be released "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

Adobe Captivate 4: PDF Anyone?

by Kevin Siegel

One of the biggest concerns Captivate developers face when publishing Captivate projects as SWFs is this: will customers have the free Flash Player on their computer so that they can view the SWF? According to Adobe, developers shouldn't worry because the vast majority of the world's computers have the minimum Flash Player installed. Of course, it's certainly possible that your most important customer won't have the Flash Player, and won't be in a position to download and/or install it.

There's also an issue with SWFs playing correctly if your lessons are accessed from a CD (due to Flash security issues, SWFs play best when accessed from a Web server). So if SWFs turn out to not be the ideal format, what should a developer do?

Plan B: Publish a standalone project, either an EXE or an AVI.

You avoid the necessity of the Flash Player and both EXEs and AVIs play well from a CD. Of course, EXEs aren't ideal if accessed from a Web server and they'll only work for PC customers running Windows (your Mac customers will be out of luck). If you elect to go the AVI route, you'll lose any interactivity you might have added to the project. Ouch!

Plan C: Publish a PDF.

This might be an ideal solution since PDFs published from within Captivate can be opened by anyone who has the free Acrobat Reader 9 (older versions of Reader won't play the embedded SWF content). You might be wondering how a PDF eliminates the need for the Flash Player. If there's a SWF in the PDF, isn't the Flash Player required to play the SWF? Yes, and Reader 9 includes the Flash Player. Bam!

When delivering the PDF to your customer, your customer will not need Captivate to open the PDF and take your eLearning lesson. The customer will not need the SWF, the HTML or the standard.js files created when you publish the PDF. In fact, the only thing that your customer needs is the PDF and the free Flash Player 9.

To publish a PDF from within Captivate, choose File > Publish. Select SWF from the list at the left and then select Export PDF. It's that simple! Once the lesson has been published, you can discard everything published to your target folder (all you need to deliver to your customer is the PDF).

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Looking to create killer eLearning lessons with Adobe Captivate? Join one of IconLogic's Captivate classes, or contact me for custom group or onsite training rates. Click here for more information about our 2-day Captivate Essentials class. Looking for more Advanced Captivate 4 training? We have you covered. Click here for more information.

Worried about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that we never, ever cancel our classes (even if there's just one student registered).

Acrobat 9: PDF Cover-Up=Dangerous!

by David R. Mankin 

 

Last week, a news story broke regarding a PDF file that was publically posted by the Transportation Security Administration. It contained their Screening Management Standard Operating Procedures.

The PDF was filled with specifics regarding how passengers are screened at security checkpoints at airports. Not just little tidbits of info, but SECRET stuff, like which 12 passports will instantly get you shunted over for secondary screening simply by showing them to the ID-checking agent. There were details on the calibration process of the metal detectors and the procedure for screening foreign dignitaries.

The folks that released this document knew that there was sensitive information contained within the PDF because they redacted the delicate sections (redacted documents are documents that have had sensitive information removed or blacked out). But did they redact the information?

TSA employees apparently drew black boxes over the secret information. Huh? That's not redacting... that's covering! ANYONE can see what's underneath the black box if they simply know how to copy and paste. Doesn't make you feel too safe when flying if this is how the TSA handles sensitive material issues.

In Acrobat 8, Adobe included a set of redaction tools to virtually eliminate text or sections of a PDF page. True PDF redactions are thorough and irreversible. In Acrobat 9, the redaction tools have been enhanced and allow for automatic file renaming and advanced Search and Redact option.

There are training classes in Acrobat 9 Professional. If your workflow entails using PDF files, you can guess at how to do things. The TSA did, and fortunately someone caught their COLOSSAL mistake--hopefully in time. In the mean time, an unknown number of TSA employees have been placed on leave pending the outcome of the internal investigation. A smarter (and safer) decision would have been to take a class from an Adobe Certified Instructor... like me. Click here for more information and class dates.

And now, some more infamous bad redactions through history:

***

 

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.

Writing & Grammar Workshop: How Not to Start a Sentence, Part II

by Jennie Ruby

Do not start a sentence with due to or based on. Use because of or on the basis of instead. Due to and based on create adjectival phrases. Adjectival phrases modify nouns. When these phrases introduce a sentence, they are followed by a comma and are understood to be describing the noun right after the comma. Here are some problem sentences with fixes:

• Incorrect: Due to an early deadline, we do not have an update on this story.  [The adjective phrase Due to an early deadline appears to modify we, but in reality, we are not what is due to the early deadline.]
  
  
• Correct: Because of an early deadline, we do not have an update on this story.  [Because of creates an adverbial phrase, which correctly modifies the verb after the comma, correctly explaining why we do not have something.]
  
  
• Incorrect: Based on their analysis, the consultants recommended that we upgrade the software. [The adjective phrase Based on their analysis appears to modify the consultants, but as in the previous example, the consultants are not based on their own analysis.]
  
  
• Correct: On the basis of their analysis, the consultants recommended that we upgrade the software. [On the basis of creates an adverbial phrase, which correctly modifies the verb recommended. However, this sentence sounds wordy.]
  
  
• Better: After analyzing our needs, the consultants recommended that we upgrade the software.

Here is an example of based on used correctly:

• Based on our careful research, this report is absolutely correct. [The adjective phrase based on our careful research correctly modifies this report: the report is in fact based on the careful research.]

Although it is possible to create a grammatically correct sentence starting with due to or based on, the great likelihood that you need an adverbial phrase, not an adjectival phrase, at the start of your sentence leads me to the advice you read above: Do not start a sentence with due to or based on.

*** 

 

Join Jennie online December 18, 2009 where she'll be teaching Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts. This is the last writing class for 2009. It's not too late to register!

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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. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

Adobe FrameMaker: Aligning Punctuation in Numbered Lists

by Barbara Binder 

When I teach Numbering Properties to new FrameMaker users, about half of them ask me how to line up the punctuation on a numbered list. The picture on the left shows what I am supposed to teach them, the picture on the right show what they actually want.



How do you do it? The trick is setting two tab stops per list item: one decimal tab for the punctuation, and one left align tab for the text. Here you go:

1. Create a Paragraph Format for your list. I used List2 in my example.
   
   
2. Open up Numbering Properties and add the following to the Autonumber Format line: \t<n+>.\t
   
   
   
   
3. Click Update All.
   
   
4. Open up Basic Properties and set the Left Indent value. I used 30 pts.
   
   
5. Still in Basic Properties, add two tab stops.
   
   The first tab stop should be a Decimal tab. (I used 20 pts in my example.)
   
   The second tab stop should be a Left aligned tab. Be sure that the number matches your left Indent value (again, I used 30 for my left indent, so I'm using 30 here).
   
   
   
   
6. Update all and voila!

***

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.

Adobe RoboHelp: Which is Better, FlashHelp or WebHelp?

by Kevin Siegel

When generating RoboHelp projects, the two most common layouts generated by RoboHelp authors are WebHelp and FlashHelp. Both layouts are cross-platform (accessable by most operating systems including Mac and Windows) and can be used by a vast majority of the world's computers.

WebHelp is a great choice for producing cross-browser, cross-platform Help systems. FlashHelp takes the concept of WebHelp to the next level by employing the prowess of Flash to provide visually stunning Help systems. FlashHelp projects will display correctly across all browsers and platforms, and Help components, such as toolbars, the TOC, the Index and Search, are animated. And unlike WebHelp output, FlashHelp layouts can appear in a vertical orientation, where the Navigation area is stacked above the Help content to save screen space.

Which layout should you generate? Having considered both, I much prefer FlashHelp. Why? Simply put, I think FlashHelp looks really cool. But that's just one Help author's opinion. Having cast my vote for FlashHelp, I'm betting you are licking your chops and will elect FlashHelp as well. Not so fast. First, you should at least consider using WebHelp. Why? Read on...

If you choose FlashHelp over WebHelp, your output will not be 508 Compliant. That's a deal-breaker if your organization is required to provide a compliant Help system. On the other hand, WebHelp output is compliant. (Of course, I've had more than one person tell me that that isn't 100% true, a subject for a future article.)

 

If you elect to generate FlashHelp, your customers will need the Adobe Flash Player 6 or newer to view the FlashHelp output. WebHelp does not have this requirement and will easily work on most computers with or without the Flash Player. Should you be concerned? According to Adobe, the vast majority of computers in use today have the free Flash Player installed. Even so, your most important customer may not have the Flash Player, rendering the Help system useless. Ouch!

Even more important to the Flash Player issue is your ability to change the way WebHelp and FlashHelp layouts look when generated. While WebHelp can be easily customized using the Skin Editor (included with RoboHelp), you'll need significant skill using Adobe Flash (and the Flash Developer kit) to make changes to the way a FlashHelp skin looks when generated. Given that significant limitation, I think you'll be happier with WebHelp. Of course, Adobe could make this a very tough decision if they one day include a Flash Skin Editor comparable to the WebHelp Skin Editor in RoboHelp. But that is another RoboHelp version (or two, or three) away.

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Looking to get trained on Adobe RoboHelp? Need the training quickly? Click here to learn about our live, two-day online RoboHelp classes (there's one more class this year... it's not too late to sign up).

Adobe Captivate: Yo, Need a SCO? Share a TOC via the SCORM Packager!

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I talked about the Aggregator, which allows you to present multiple SWFs under one uniform TOC. The Aggegator is perfect if you are uploading the SWF lessons to a Web server and you don't have the time to create a menu. But what if you want to combine SWFs under a single TOC and you're uploading your lessons to a SCORM compliant LMS? No worries... use the SCORM Packager.

The SCORM Packager ships with Adobe Captivate 4, but it's an often-overlooked program. To start the Aggregator, simply choose Start > All Programs > SCORM Packager. I'll show you how to use the SCORM Packager soon enough. First, let's discuss a few terms you should be familiar with.

LMS stands for Learning Management System. An LMS handles issues related to providing access to the content, delivery of the content and student performance tracking/reporting. In short, an LMS is the backbone of a Web-based training system.

SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. Developed by public- and private-sector organizations, SCORM is a series of e-learning standards that specify ways to catalog, launch and track course objects. eLearning courses and LMS's that follow the SCORM specifications allow for sharing of courses between federal agencies, colleges and universities. Although SCORM is not the only eLearning standard (AICC is another), SCORM is one of the most common. There are two primary versions of SCORM--version 1.2, released in 1999, and version 2004.

SCO stands for Shareable Content Object. Once you Enable reporting in a Capitvate project and publish the project as a zip  file, you've got yourself a SCO. Each SCO will be added to the SCORM Packager and then uploaded into your LMS.

The Manifest file allows your published Captivate projects to be used and launched from a SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compliant LMS. When you publish projects, you can have Captivate create the manifest file for you. The manifest file that Captivate creates will contain XML tags that describe the organization and structure of the published project to the LMS.

Publish SCOs to be Used in the SCORM Packager

The first step in combining multiple lessons under one TOC is to publish each of the individual lessons as SCOs.

1. Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences.
   
   The Preferences dialog box appears. Reporting is selected from the Quiz category.
   
   
2. From the Quiz: Reporting area, select Enable reporting for this project.
   
   
3. Select Standard from the Learning Management System (LMS) area.
   
   
4. If necessary, select SCORM from the drop-down menu to the right of Standard.
   
   The Manifest button activates. You'll come back to this later.
   
   
5. Speak with your LMS vendor and set the Report Status options, Report Data and Reporting level to meet the requirements of your LMS.
   
   
6. Click the Manifest button to display the Manifest dialog box.
   
   
7. From the SCORM Version drop-down menu, select the appropriate version.
   
   
8. Leave the Course Identifier set to the default.
   
   The Identifier specifies a name used by the LMS to identify different manifests.
   
   
9. Type a title into the Title area.
   
   The Title specifies a title that can be viewed by students using the LMS. While you must add a title here, not all LMS's support Titles. In that case, the Title you add will be ignored.
   
   A Description is not required. Some LMS's support and show this text, some don't. If the feature is not supported by the LMS, it will be ignored, just like the Title. You'll leave it blank for this lesson.
   
   The Version number can be used to distinguish manifests with the same identifier.
   
   There are two other optional areas in the Course area: Duration and Subject. Duration lets you show how long it takes to complete the Captivate project. Subject allows you to specify a short description. When the course is displayed via a browser like Internet Explorer, the description can be searched like any Web page.
   
   
   
   
10. Leave the SCO Identifier area set to the default.
    
    The Identifier specifies a name used by the LMS to identify different SCOs. No spaces are allowed in a SCO Identifier.
    
    
11. Type the same title you used earlier into the Title area.
    
    
    
    
12. Click OK to close the Manifest dialog box.
    
    
13. Click OK to close the Preferences dialog box.
    
    
14. The final step to creating your SCO is to Publish the lesson as a SWF (File > Publish) and select Zip Files from the Options area.
    
    
    
    Repeat this process for each lesson you'd like to include in the menu.
    

Package the Published SCOs

After publishing all of the lessons (SCOs) you'd like to include in the menu, start the SCORM Packager (Start > All Programs > SCORM Packager).

The first thing you will see is the Course Manifest Details dialog box. Select your SCORM version, type a Course Identifier, a Title and a Description.



Click OK.

All you'll need to do now is add your SCOs to the Package, which is a process almost identical to using the Aggregator (you can review that article to learn the step-by-step process).

Your published SCOs will be packaged into a single ZIP file, which can then be uploaded into your LMS.

***

Looking to create killer eLearning lessons with Adobe Captivate? Join one of IconLogic's Captivate classes, or contact me for custom group or onsite training rates. Click here for more information about our 2-day Captivate Essentials class. Looking for more Advanced Captivate 4 training? We have you covered. Click here for more information.

Worried about your class canceling? You'll be happy to hear that we never, ever cancel our classes (even if there's just one student registered).

Acrobat 9: Unity Unveiled!

by David R. Mankin 

 

Acrobat.com has been online long enough for me to have written about it several times. Online PDF conversions, online file storage and experimental apps like Presentations & Tables have all made me a regular user of this free service.

From the service's interface, one can manage files, share files and even create a new Buzzword document. The experimental (beta) presentation software & spreadsheet, however, had to be approached through the Acrobat.com Labs. Not anymore!

Acrobat.com has received a major feature boost, and Presentation and Tables are now included in the main interface. Adobe has also added some sorely needed organizational capabilities. You can now organize your files into groupings called "collections." Think of collections as your folder metaphor and you're off and running with them, but they are really more like iTunes playlists because files can be assigned to multiple collections instead of having to belong in just one folder.



You can now import Google or Flickr images directly into your Buzzword files. An "import and edit" feature lets you open external files directly into the appropriate program so you can begin to work on them online.

The coolness factor takes a quantum leap forward with an acrobat.com mobile application for Blackberry and iPhone customers. Not only will you have your files at your fingertips from anywhere, you will be able to use your phone's camera to capture an image which can then be converted to PDF. Nice!

While this update was in development, it was called 'Unity.' Unity is now online. Your already existing files on the old acrobat.com are automatically transferred into the new interface, and you're ready to share, track, create and dazzle your co-workers and friends.

If you are not yet an acrobat.com subscriber, RUN to acrobat.com. The basic service is free, and will allow you to convert five files to PDFs online, and store 2 gigabytes of files.

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Learn what PDF technology is all about, and how to use Acrobat 9 Professional to create, edit and enhance your PDF files. Click here for more information and class dates.

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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.