Altova Authentic: Tip of the Iceberg  

Reviews Altova Authentic, a free, WYSIWYG, Windows-based, forms-based XML editor.

Wersan, Fred. Intercom (2004). Design>Information Design>Software>XML

Choosing an XML Editor

More and more people are working with texts and documents in XML format. With the increasing popularity of XML, the number of XML editors is also increasing and it can be difficult to choose the editor that best suits a particular user or task. The aim of this Information Paper is to provide an introduction to different features XML editors can have and the extent to which these features are implemented in various editors. It also presents the result of an evaluation exercise where different user groups tried a number of the editors.

van den Broek, Thijs. AHDS (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML

Converting Word Documents with Embedded Files  

How can I convert Word documents to PDF and ensure their embedded Excel documents also get converted?

Boulay, J.R. PDFzone (2004). Design>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

COTS: The New Challenge of Information Integration  

Systems engineering is moving away from specially-designed and built systems to integration of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software. COTS brings new challenges to technical communicators. In the past, we found all our information in-house, now it comes from many sources. We must change our process from pure development to information integration, and we must be part of the COTS selection process.

Lenk, Donald S. Jr. STC Proceedings (1998). Presentations>Information Design>Software

Creating Dynamic Stamps

Dynamic stamps consist of the PDF image of the stamp and a text form field that contains JavaScript to make your stamp dynamic. For example, the Dynamic Stamp 'Approved' contains a form field that generates user name, time and date.

DeFurio, Lori. PlanetPDF (2003). Design>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Creating XML Trees with the XmlTextWriter and XmlDocument Objects

So you know all about reading and parsing XML files, and even checking if they're well-formed and valid. Now, take a step into more advanced territory with this expose of two objects that let you dynamically create well-formed XML documents in your ASP.NET scripts.

ASP Free (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML

DC dot: Dublin Core Metadata Editor

This service will retrieve a Web page and automatically generate Dublin Core metadata, either as HTML META tags or as RDF/XML, suitable for embedding in the HEAD section of the page.

University of Koln. Resources>Information Design>Software>Metadata

Detecting JBIG2 Compression

How can I tell if JBIG2 compression was used on my PDF file?

Rosenthol, Leonard. PDFzone (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

DocBook and DITA Editors: Is Their Future Online?

Thanks to my Google News Alert service, I recently discovered some on-demand XML Editors supporing DITA. While Salesforce democratized software on-demand in the CRM market, I am still perplexed on the future of on-demand pure play software. So let's see first what makes on-demand software, also known as Saas (Software as a Service), so attractive nowadays. I see five compelling reasons.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Information Design>Software>DITA

Focus on PDF Layers

How you can combine layers and scripting to power up PDFs to deliver richer, more versatile content.

Wraight, Dave. PlanetPDF (2004). Design>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Grokker, o la Navegación Visual

La aparición de navegadores cada vez más visuales y mejor estructurados como Vivísimo, Grokker o TouchGraph está empezando a agitar un mundo que parecía estático. Pparece que el referente en este campo está aún más allá del horizonte, pero cada día estamos más cerca.

Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2004). (Spanish) Articles>Information Design>Software

A Lesson in Templates for Adobe Acrobat

Although Templates have been around since version 3 of Acrobat there was never any really useful supporting information or technical documentation to make use of them. Version 5 and 6 of Acrobat changed all that making it possible to take full control of Templates to create truly dynamic PDF documents.

Wraight, Dave. PlanetPDF (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Making PDFs Searchable

Is there a way to take a regular PDF and make it searchable?

Rosenthol, Leonard. PDFzone (2004). Design>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Overcoming Objections to XML-Based Authoring Systems

During a recent development effort, one of our clients was alarmed at the conversion costs of the proposed XML-based content management system compared to the existing MS Word-based process. This was just one instance of an alarming trend of balking at XML-based systems in favor of using public web folders, indexed by some full-text search engine, as part of a local intranet. In the short run, these edit, drop, and index solutions have some appealing features, including low development and conversion costs. But they are short-lived systems that either wither from lack of functionality or rapidly outgrow their design.

Buehling, Brian. XML.com (2001). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML

PDF Bookmarks: Surveying the Options

Most PDF files do not include bookmarks. This is a pity, because they are so easy to add, and because the real-world usability of longer PDF files suffers significantly by their absence. And there's no shortage of tools for creating and managing bookmarks, as this product survey article explains.

Johnson, Duff. Adobe (2007). Design>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Software for Information Architects

Information professionals have a love-hate relationship with technology. We love IT because it has made our jobs necessary by enabling the creation and connection of tremendous volumes of content, applications and processes. We hate IT because it constantly threatens to replace the need for us.

Morville, Peter. Argus Center (2001). Careers>Information Design>Software

Three Visio Tips: Special Deliverables

No column on information architecture deliverables would be complete without at least some mention of tools. Dan Brown offers three tips on using Visio, Microsoft's diagramming application, that should make your life easier and more efficient.

Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Information Design>Software>Visio

Tips from the Acrobat Dirty Tricksters

Demonstrates and explains a collection of handy tips dealing with various tools and features of Adobe Acrobat.

Foss, Kurt. Adobe (2007). Design>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Toggling Shapes in Visio

This article will expand upon the Visio techniques presented in the last Special Deliverable and will build on them, showing how to create a widget that can be toggled between two states.

Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Information Design>Software>Visio

Using XML as an Application-Level Protocol

In one of my past articles, A Pattern/Framework for Client/Server Programming in Java, I discussed a pattern for client/server development using java. That article does not answer exactly how the two parties, client and server, communicate with each other. We require an application-level protocol to do the talking between two entities. It sets up rules about how the two applications/entities communicate and understand each other over a network. If you happen to know the TCP/IP networking model or the OSI networking model, you will observe that network-based communication is implemented in layers, with the application layer at the top and the physical layer at the bottom. This article discusses issues you must face when implementing an application-level protocol and how XML proves to be an excellent choice to represent and implement the application-level protocol.

Saleem, Usman. Developer.com (2002). Design>Information Design>Software>XML

Visio Glue: Not For Sniffing

Spend any time with Visio and you'll find yourself wondering how glue works. In the real world, it's pretty straightforward: put glue between two things and they'll stick. Although glue is used for sticking shapes together in Visio, the metaphor ends there.

Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Information Design>Software>Visio

Wireframe Annotations in Visio

Few information architects tap the full power of Visio. For the IA, Visio is a means to an end—a mechanism for capturing some ideas on paper before they are transformed into graphics, HTML, and code.

Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Articles>Information Design>Software>Visio

XQuery Your Office Documents

New office document standards like the OpenDocument Format(ODF) and Office Open XML (OOXML), however, are making office document integration in business processes a reality. A key benefit of ODF and OOXML for developers is the reuse of existing standards.

Van Cappellen, Marc. Dr. Dobb's (2007). Design>Information Design>Software>XML

Your Dais Will Come  

Keep calm for presentations by taking a little PDF.

Thompson, Audrey. Adobe Magazine (1999). Presentations>Information Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat