http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Document-Design/Software A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Document Design and Software in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Document-Design/Software http://tc.eserver.org/35539.html http://tc.eserver.org/35539.html New FrameMaker documents have default Master Pages. Single-sided documents have one, called "Right," and double-sided documents have two, called "Left" and "Right." We use these pages to place the objects we want to repeat on all the Body Pages, things like our running heads, page numbers and repeating graphics. But what do you do when you need a different look for a Body Page, on a repeating basis? For example, no page number on the opening page of each chapter? You set up a custom master page. Here's how. http://tc.eserver.org/35149.html http://tc.eserver.org/35149.html Working with InDesign is interesting. On the one hand, it’s not really a tool built for technical writers. It’s intended for people laying out magazines, brochures, other heavily designed print matter. As such, some things can be confusing. Cross references, figure references, a table of contents — get ready to search the help to figure these out. On the other hand, the power of the InDesign is somewhat captivating. You’re only limited by your own ignorance. http://tc.eserver.org/34735.html http://tc.eserver.org/34735.html There’s simply no way to learn InDesign (or any other major application) all at once. If you’re a frustrated newcomer to InDesign, or even if you’ve been using it for some time and want to expand your knowledge, here’s a suggestion: Set aside about 15-20 minutes every day to learn the basics of one feature. It doesn’t really matter what that feature is. http://tc.eserver.org/34337.html http://tc.eserver.org/34337.html Given how hard it is for students (and their programs) to afford the expensive tools in our profession, I thought it might help to pass along these alternatives to commercial products. I think anyone breaking into the field (or a new type of tool) would do very well to train up on these open source tools and create portfolio pieces with them. http://tc.eserver.org/33421.html http://tc.eserver.org/33421.html Debates about Microsoft Word vs. Adobe Framemaker appear with regular frequency on the tech-writing mailing lists I am subscribed to. Everyone agrees Frame is an awesome publishing tool. Yet, everyone keeps cribbing about it. So, why does a bright bunch of people who are masters at figuring out stuff, otherwise known as tech-writers, only hesitatingly agree Frame is “kind of great”? I think it’s mostly because Frame is so difficult to use. http://tc.eserver.org/31753.html http://tc.eserver.org/31753.html What distinguishes the underlying strategies of Adobe InDesign from QuarkXPress is the absence or presence of a content management system (CMS). And each company asserts that it’s following the less-traveled road. The problem is they’re both taking roads most traveled because of their respective stances towards integrated content management systems, and I’ll show you how after looking at their respective strategies. http://tc.eserver.org/31149.html http://tc.eserver.org/31149.html Wer kennt das Problem nicht? Aus einem riesigen Dokument wurde ein PDF erzeugt. Nun muss es auch noch für den Druck aufbereitet werden. Dafür fehlen aber die Druck- und Schnittmarken. Acrobat 7 hilft hier aus der Patsche. http://tc.eserver.org/31151.html http://tc.eserver.org/31151.html Mit dieser Technik steht Ihnen eine einfache Methode zur Verfügung, Webseiten oder einzelne Bereiche eines Webs downzuloaden und als PDF zu speichern. http://tc.eserver.org/30382.html http://tc.eserver.org/30382.html Recent research focusing on a minimalist approach to computer software documentation has explored ways to design computer software tutorials and workbooks for users with an active learning style. The principles of minimalism and active learning styles, however, are less frequently applied to traditional reference manuals. This paper reviews several elements of minimalism and suggests ways to apply strategies for active learners to traditional reference manuals. http://tc.eserver.org/30192.html http://tc.eserver.org/30192.html Customize how Acrobat works for you by building and using batch sequences. The beauty of a batch sequence is that you can modify or run it as you like. http://tc.eserver.org/30074.html http://tc.eserver.org/30074.html When faced with having to respond to increased demands for online documentation using outdated tools, the technical writing staff of Hughes Network Systems (HNS) realized the need for a whole suite of state-of-the art tools and techniques. The challenge lay in convincing management to spend the time and money to acquire them. By coupling an understanding of their own needs as well as those of their customers with an appreciation for the HNS corporate culture, the writers were able to effect a strategy that guaranteed success. http://tc.eserver.org/29936.html http://tc.eserver.org/29936.html If you are posting your PDF document to a web site, you'll generally want to upload a clean copy that will streamline the viewing experience for your site visitors. This tip outlines a quick way to remove unnecessary annotations, widgets, JavaScript, links, bookmarks and attachments, along with optimizing your documents for fast web viewing. http://tc.eserver.org/29937.html http://tc.eserver.org/29937.html When you receive a PDF that contains, say, an image that is surrounded by text, how do you highlight the image? One way is to export the graphic to an imaging application such as Photoshop, but that involves additional applications and the associated loading times. A great 'quick and dirty' fix here is to use the 'Crop' tool to hide the content that surrounds the image, leaving you with PDF which displays only an image, just the way you wanted it. This tip explains how. http://tc.eserver.org/29931.html http://tc.eserver.org/29931.html While Acrobat comes pre-loaded with a selection of stamps, including 'Approved', 'Declined' and 'Accepted', users can also create custom stamps of such things as company logos for use on their PDF documents. Complex or graphically rich stamps can be created or prepared in imaging applications before being added to Acrobat's selection. This tip explains how to create a custom stamp using an existing file. http://tc.eserver.org/29934.html http://tc.eserver.org/29934.html Using Acrobat, PDF has been established as a popular and user-friendly medium for collaborative workflows. Not only can you add sticky notes or highlight text, you can even draw polygonal or freehand annotations. This tip explains how. http://tc.eserver.org/29933.html http://tc.eserver.org/29933.html Adobe Acrobat allows users to configure the opening settings of PDF documents to display them in full screen mode. It's as effective as a PowerPoint display and very easy to accomplish. This tip explains how. http://tc.eserver.org/29932.html http://tc.eserver.org/29932.html Are you looking to remove all distractions to read your PDF content? Perhaps you just want to remove all distractions so that you can skim through your PDF document before signing off on it and sending it off? This tip explains how to reduce on-screen clutter in Acrobat to allow you to focus your attention completely on the content. http://tc.eserver.org/29313.html http://tc.eserver.org/29313.html With a few free tools from software companies and other users, you can carve out more time for what you really love -- creativity. http://tc.eserver.org/28737.html http://tc.eserver.org/28737.html FrameMaker seems to be Adobe's best-kept secret. A tremendously powerful desktop-publishing program, FrameMaker has been ritually ignored by reviewers who instead concentrate on the big three DTP apps: QuarkXPress, InDesign, and PageMaker. Adobe positioned FrameMaker as a niche 'word-processing' product appropriate only for long-document production. http://tc.eserver.org/28736.html http://tc.eserver.org/28736.html In Adobe FrameMaker, it is necessary to use special keyboard combinations to insert special typographic characters in your work. You can find an extensive list of special characters in FrameMaker's online help. You also can paste in special characters from Word or HTML. http://tc.eserver.org/28187.html http://tc.eserver.org/28187.html One of the more tedious and error-prone processes in technical writing is that of collaborative document review. Even when documents are shared electronically, keeping track of comments, suggestions, and changes contributed by multiple team members can be exasperating. Too often errors due to collaborative review lead to delays, missed deadlines, misunderstandings and an inaccurate final document. http://tc.eserver.org/27656.html http://tc.eserver.org/27656.html At the 2004 WritersUA and STC Conferences, structured FrameMaker and XML were among the more popular session topics. There is obviously significant interest in the user assistance community about authoring XML documents with structured FrameMaker. This is not surprising, as many organizations are struggling with the problems of creating and delivering increasing amounts of user assistance in multiple formats, and managing their content in a way that maximizes their capabilities to reuse content across multiple publications. http://tc.eserver.org/27554.html http://tc.eserver.org/27554.html If you ever create multi page layouts such as brochures, newsletters or booklets there is an application that is made for you. InDesign, which can be purchased as a stand alone product or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite, has many, many tools for streamlining the process of setting up and working on these types of projects. In this article we will look at what InDesign is for and highlight some of the features that set it apart from other applications. http://tc.eserver.org/27183.html http://tc.eserver.org/27183.html The natural tendency of most users of word processing applications is to create a document and use it as a model for future documents. That is, you format a letter the way you want all (or most) of your letters to look, save it, and then, when you want to write a letter, open this document and save it under another name as the starting point for your letter. In WordPerfect, until recently, this was the only way to create a template. Word uses a different approach. http://tc.eserver.org/27089.html http://tc.eserver.org/27089.html Autonumbering had changed as new versions of FrameMaker have arrived. What worked in FrameMaker 5 might have broken in 5.5. This is due to changes Adobe made in the restart building blocks (request presentation). While our examples below use the maximum building blocks (meaning a little extra work), the result is numbering schemes that are more flexible for multiple versions of FrameMaker. http://tc.eserver.org/27090.html http://tc.eserver.org/27090.html Everything that is in FrameMaker is in FrameMaker+SGML. FrameMaker+SGML has capabilities that FrameMaker does not have. http://tc.eserver.org/25420.html http://tc.eserver.org/25420.html Let's start with some basics. Here you will learn how to create a new document, add pages and other basic functions. A second tutorial will follow to complement this one. http://tc.eserver.org/25421.html http://tc.eserver.org/25421.html This tutorial goes through the different parts that compose InDesign's work area. If you want to drive a car, you want to make sure that you know where the break is, where your wheel is, where your indicator is and so on. The same is for InDesign. You want to know where you can find all the tools that you will be using to create your InDesign documents. http://tc.eserver.org/25417.html http://tc.eserver.org/25417.html If you use Microsoft Word, you are used to the fact that if when your text will get to the end of a page, another page will be automatically added. With InDesign and most layout programs, this is a little bit different. This is because layout programs work with text boxes (or tex frames) which allow you more freedom when you lay out your document. http://tc.eserver.org/25140.html http://tc.eserver.org/25140.html How content is combined from multiple sources quickly and easily. http://tc.eserver.org/24990.html http://tc.eserver.org/24990.html FrameMaker is the industry standard for writing book-length documents. It is a powerful program capable of creating books of well over a thousand pages. The learning curve for the program is significant. FrameMaker is a much different animal than Microsoft Word and other word processors. http://tc.eserver.org/24988.html http://tc.eserver.org/24988.html Using Acrobat, you can make minor edits to a PDF file, but Acrobat documents are very sensitive. Typing a single character can throw several lines off, destroy tables and cause all sort of other troubles. Alternately, it can be relatively uneventful and painless. You will not know until you type in that character. http://tc.eserver.org/24676.html http://tc.eserver.org/24676.html Whatever the subject of lists I follow, two basic questions usually come up about every three months. Usually the person posting the question has to make a decision between: Pagemaker or Quark (and often FrameMaker), or Macintosh or PC. http://tc.eserver.org/23867.html http://tc.eserver.org/23867.html The Usability SIG is always interested in new ways to put publish our newsletter on the Web. When an upgrade to Macromedia’s Contribute 2.0 included a new program called FlashPaper, we decided to give it a try. http://tc.eserver.org/23459.html http://tc.eserver.org/23459.html We recently converted our documents from Word to FrameMaker. Most of the people in my department had been using Word for years and had grown accustomed to applying character formatting using key commands or buttons on the toolbar. I was afraid that they would use the same methods in FrameMaker simply out of habit, rather than using character tags. http://tc.eserver.org/22780.html http://tc.eserver.org/22780.html Can somebody explain what the process of distilling is -- in simple terms? http://tc.eserver.org/22591.html http://tc.eserver.org/22591.html The goal: to launch Acrobat Reader from an external application, automatically highlighting some words. http://tc.eserver.org/22303.html http://tc.eserver.org/22303.html A six-part sample lesson on how to use Acrobat and PDF for document review. Included for download are several files referenced in the exercises. http://tc.eserver.org/21902.html http://tc.eserver.org/21902.html How can I reduce the size of several PDFs at once? http://tc.eserver.org/21894.html http://tc.eserver.org/21894.html Is there a quicker way of making screen PDFs from print-ready PDFs? http://tc.eserver.org/21531.html http://tc.eserver.org/21531.html QuarkXPress is categorized as page layout software - software that lets you easily place text and graphics on a page. Using well-designed page layout software has the feel of moving actual columns of text, blocks of color, and images around and pasting them into place. Unlike a word processor, which is driven by a continuous text flow, QuarkXPress gives you complete control over the elements you place on each page. QuarkXPress is a standard at most publishing companies and advertising agencies. http://tc.eserver.org/21525.html http://tc.eserver.org/21525.html The following is a step-by step tutorial outlining how to make a technical manual suitable either for print or for screen display as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. http://tc.eserver.org/20893.html http://tc.eserver.org/20893.html FrameScript is a lot like FrameMaker; it has a fairly steep learning curve, but once you learn it, you’ll find it a real workhorse. The best way to start is to read the FrameScript Scriptwriter’s Guide. And the Quick Reference will provide you shortcuts to learning the FrameScript syntax. This tutorial will introduce some foundational concepts of writing scripts that will help you get started. http://tc.eserver.org/20888.html http://tc.eserver.org/20888.html There are two types of cross-references in FrameMaker: paragraph cross-references and spot cross-references. (There is a third type, element cross-references, available only in FrameMaker+SGML. This tutorial will not discuss element cross-references) Both paragraph and spot cross-references are similar, in that you have to insert an Xref object that points to a Cross-Ref Marker. The Xref object has an XRefSrcText property that must exactly match the marker text of the Cross-Ref Marker. Let’s start with spot cross-references, since they are a little simpler to work with. http://tc.eserver.org/20892.html http://tc.eserver.org/20892.html In the previous lesson, we introduced a simple FrameScript loop to process all of the paragraph formats in a document. In this lesson, we will introduce a variation of the loop, and the important concept of linked lists' of FrameMaker objects. http://tc.eserver.org/20891.html http://tc.eserver.org/20891.html Being able to navigate paragraphs in FrameMaker documents is an essential FrameScript task. This tutorial will explore several methods. For background information, see the Loops and Lists tutorial. http://tc.eserver.org/20890.html http://tc.eserver.org/20890.html Here is a simple script that proportionately scales a table to fit the text column that contains it. This script works with the current table but can be easily expanded to work with all of the tables in a document or book. http://tc.eserver.org/20889.html http://tc.eserver.org/20889.html If you are making a lot of FrameMaker graphics, such as lines with arrowheads, the thought of having to change them later can give you nightmares. Wouldn’t it be nice to have 'stylesheets' for graphic objects? With FrameScript, you can apply 'styles' to your graphics so that their properties can be globally changed. http://tc.eserver.org/20501.html http://tc.eserver.org/20501.html I'd like to vote in favor of dispelling the MYTH that FrameMaker is difficult to learn. http://tc.eserver.org/20507.html http://tc.eserver.org/20507.html In the publishing world--when every word counts--knowing exactly how much space you have to work with is crucial. Because Adobe InDesign® 2.0 and Adobe InCopy 2.0 are tightly integrated and share the same composition engine, content. http://tc.eserver.org/20506.html http://tc.eserver.org/20506.html With a little forethought, placing text in InDesign becomes almost effortless. http://tc.eserver.org/20502.html http://tc.eserver.org/20502.html Instructions for installing Adobe PS 4.26 for Windows 95/98 and attaching it to Acrobat Distiller for use with FrameMaker 5.5x. http://tc.eserver.org/20505.html http://tc.eserver.org/20505.html Create file versions on the Adobe Web Workgroup Server using your favorite Adobe application. Restore any version using Adobe GoLive. http://tc.eserver.org/20503.html http://tc.eserver.org/20503.html This article centers on a single-source documentation process that involves authoring structured, chunked documentation in Adobe FrameMaker 5.5.6 and converting it 'just in time' to a WinHelp online help system using ForeHelp Premier 2000. http://tc.eserver.org/20477.html http://tc.eserver.org/20477.html With both Adobe InDesign® CS and Adobe InCopy® CS in your publishing workflow, writers and editors can compose stories in InCopy at the same time designers are laying out the pages using InDesign—without overwriting each other’s work. http://tc.eserver.org/20481.html http://tc.eserver.org/20481.html Wrapping text around objects—from basic shapes or frames to images with clipping paths—can give any publication a unique look and feel. In this tutorial, you’ll learn several ways to work with text wrap in Adobe InDesign® to achieve the look you want. http://tc.eserver.org/20444.html http://tc.eserver.org/20444.html I admit that my intelligence is easily insulted. It’s probably because I’ve got so little of it left – raising a child, running a business, and working in the software industry take their toll, after all – that I’ve got to defend it with the ferocity of a rabid fruit bat. But, as I review the state of the art in desktop publishing software, I’m left with one nagging question: Just exactly how dumb do these guys think I am? http://tc.eserver.org/14927.html http://tc.eserver.org/14927.html Have you ever wanted to check a large set of FrameMaker files to make sure all the borders, text- symbols, and rulers are turned off? What about hyperlinks? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to automatically validate all the hypertext links within a large set of FrameMaker files? Did you ever wish there was a way to automatically convert a set of data into FrameMaker tables? You can do all these things, and more, using the Maker Interchange Format (MIF). This article presents some of the main features of MIF and gives an overview of some of the ways you can make use of MIF. Additional articles will delve deeper into using Perl to process MIF, providing details on specific applications. http://tc.eserver.org/13053.html http://tc.eserver.org/13053.html FrameMaker may be the current standard for technical publication, but that doesn't mean it's a perfect program. Many writers who've used FrameMaker find that it's complex and quirky, with a lot functionality hidden in its now somewhat dated interface. So where do you go when you need help? This article will give you some suggestions. http://tc.eserver.org/12950.html http://tc.eserver.org/12950.html A three-page manual for creating Acrobat PDF files from page-layout files.