How to Create a New Paragraph Style in a FrameMaker Document

Adobe FrameMaker is the information design platform of choice for most professional technical writers and technical communicators across the globe. Like all powerful software applications, FrameMaker also has a lot of features and configuration possibilities. One of those features is the ability to create new paragraph styles. Each paragraph style in FrameMaker is represented by a “Paragraph Tag.” So to create a new formatting style you actually create a “tag.” Here is how you can create a new paragraph style/tag for your FrameMaker (FM) document.

Akinci, Ugur. Technical Communication Center (2008). Articles>Document Design>Style Sheets>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker 9 User Interface onDemand eLearning Session

An explanation of the logic behind the new FrameMaker interface and a tour of how it works.

Jacquez, R.J. Adobe (2009). Presentations>Document Design>Video>Adobe FrameMaker

Fluid Grids

Fluid layouts are an undervalued commodity in web design. They put control of our designs firmly in the hands of our users and their browsing habits. They’ve also utterly failed to seize the imagination of web designers.

Marcotte, Ethan. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Document Design>User Centered Design

Enhancing Your Written Works by Producing Effective Charts

Producing effective charts is essential to any document that conveys technical, scientific, or financial data. Here are four suggestions to ensure that your charts are effective and enhance rather than detract from your document.

Davidson, Jeff. Carolina Communique (2009). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Charts and Graphs

The Newest Tool for Technical Communicators: Redux    

Discusses color properties and color systems. Re-examines and supports Jan V. White's advice to technical communicators to use color to increase document usability. Discusses what technical communicators should know about color to work effectively with professional printers.

Mackiewicz, Jo M. Technical Communication Online (2009). Articles>Document Design>Prepress>Color

The Case for Simple Numbering

Rather than spend hours coming up with a complex numbering scheme, this might be an excuse to implement something far more straightforward discovered by an extensive readability study at IBM, of which I was a part. My work involved sitting behind a one-way mirror with a stopwatch, watching people take tests that involved, among other things, "how fast can you find Figure 3-4?" We had cameras mounted over the participant's shoulders and could watch them thumb through the documents, and we also monitored eye movements. Then we followed up with a short interview where we got feedback.

Techknowledgecorp (2007). Articles>Document Design>Information Design>Technical Writing

Kindle Content Design

Writing for Kindle is like writing for print, the Web, and mobile devices combined; optimal usability means optimizing content for each platform's special characteristics.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Document Design>Usability>Online

Open Source Alternatives To Tech Pubs Tools

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.

STC Austin (2009). Articles>Document Design>Software>Open Source

The State of Structured Authoring in Technical Communication

In this podcast, Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium Publishing explains the results of their recent survey about the state of structured authoring in technical communication. In the survey, they found that 84% of respondents are either thinking of moving to structured authoring, are in the process of moving to structured authoring, have already adopted structured authoring, or are undecided. Only 16% of respondents said they were not moving to structured authoring. She also discusses other survey results, such as the adoption of DITA and mistakes people make in moving to structured authoring.

Johnson, Tom H. and Sarah S. O'Keefe. Tech Writer Voices (2009). Articles>Interviews>Document Design>Podcasts

Webpage Layout: Right Hand Side Blindness

In several recent websites we have user tested, the site designers have placed important task critical links and information on the right hand side (RHS) of three column page layouts. The user testing was conclusive, users ignore any information presented on the RHS. We think this is a similar effect to the well documented banner blindness. It is essential to ensure that import links or information is not positioned on the RHS as they will surely be ignored.

Frontend Infocentre (2009). Articles>Web Design>Document Design>Usability

Publication Management

A graduate seminar in intensive work developing and using systems to manage documents delivered electronically and in print using single-sourcing technologies. Theory and practice of managing publication projects across groups and organizations.

Stolley, Karl. Illinois Institute of Technology (2009). Academic>Courses>Document Design>Publishing

Form and Function

A musing on the need to balance documenation that looks good with documentation that has substance.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Documentation>Document Design>Technical Writing

Designing for a Non-English Audience

Through experience, I've discovered that foreign language typesetting can be very challenging--even when using the right software and platform, or having the help of a very experienced foreign typesetter. Through solving the problems encountered in the process, I also developed a new appreciation for simple, "internationalized" designs that are much easier to "localize" than others. Many problems can be avoided if the graphic designer keeps in mind that the document may be later translated into other languages. Sometimes, an attractive and very professional design in English can be a "nightmare" in other languages.

Bratu, Felicia. STC International TC SIG (2005). Articles>Document Design>Localization>Language

Review: Page Layout and Design Tips from Jean-luc Doumont’s Trees, Maps, and Theorems

Given the engineering audience, one can’t hope for too much style and flair in the prose, but it reads like a college textbook, outlining basic principles in a flat way. It is too focused on “clarity, accuracy, correctness, etc.” (p.79) to make for a fun or engaging read.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Reviews>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

Learn InDesign One Feature at a Time

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.

Levine, Bob. InDesign Secrets (2009). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

The Appeal of Adobe InDesign

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.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe InDesign

Unwebbable

It’s time we came to grips with the fact that not every “document” can be a “web page.” Some forms of writing just cannot be expressed in HTML—or they need to be bent and distorted to do so. But for once, XML might actually help.

Clark, Joe. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Document Design>XML

A Strident Defense of Mediocre Formatting

Formatting automation removes cost from the process of creating and delivering content. For technical documents that change often and are perhaps delivered in multiple languages, it removes a lot of cost. Essentially, we can produce documents inexpensively and give more people access to them as a direct result of lower cost, or we can climb on our typographic high horse and whine about word spacing. I’m with the noisome fanboys.

O'Keefe, Sarah S. Scriptorium (2009). (Afrikaans) Articles>Document Design>Typography>Minimalism

Duct Tape Technical Writers

In reality, the user just wants a brief, clear explanation of a concept or task. The user will glance and skim — reading behaviors hardly worthy of the elitist grammarian who argues the finer points of “which” versus “that” in restrictive clauses.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Document Design>Technical Writing>Minimalism

Adobe FrameMaker: Refining the Type Size List

The sizes listed in the picture above are the default type sizes listed in FrameMaker's Paragraph and Character Designers. If your favorite choices are listed, great! If not, you have to type the size you want into the Size field. If you'd like to modify the Size list so that it includes your favorite Sizes, read on.

Binder, Barbara. Blogs.com (2009). Articles>Document Design>Typography>Adobe FrameMaker

Form and Function, Revisited

While I'm a firm believer in the primacy of content over appearance, aesthetics are definitely a part of drawing people into documentation and engaging them. There's nothing wrong with making online assistance or a printed manual attractive. It doesn't need to be a beautifully-designed work of art, but it should be something a little more than blocks of black text on a white page.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Documentation>Document Design

Ten Pre-Press Tips For Perfect Print Publishing

A lot of designers think CMYK is the way to go when designing for print. We will, of course, always use CMYK-based ink, but this does not mean you have to work with CMYK files. You can work with RGB images to perfectly optimize your print colors.

Kramer, Marco. Smashing (2009). Articles>Document Design>Prepress>Printing

Printing and Prepress Basics

While art and design schools do an impressive job of teaching the importance of form, function, and how to use flashy Photoshop techniques, it's rare that designers have been taught the skills necessary to pass off their projects to printers so that they may not only successfully, but smoothly, produce a designed work. In this article, I'll discuss the basics when it comes to translating your brilliant ideas (and surely hours of your precious time and energy) into successfully printed projects with a printer, making it easier to keep your deadlines and maintain a blissfully happy and healthy relationship with your vendor.

Stanley, Brandi. Tuts Plus (2009). Articles>Document Design>Prepress>Printing

Design a Magazine Cover

It may sound like a simple thing, but you better believe that a lot of thought goes into the design of a magazine cover. Covers compete for attention next to dozens of other magazines on the rack. In this tutorial, we’ll not only take you through the process of creating a cover, but also reveal techniques that designers use to make their covers stand out.

White, Terry. Layers Magazine (2009). Design>Document Design>Graphic Design

Text Wrap and Text Formatting in InDesign

The most frequently asked questions I get from people who are new to InDesign revolves around Text Wrap; however, there are also questions about text formatting that don’t get asked. But I know they exist because when I’m presenting in front of an audience and I start formatting text, I can see the look of amazement on some folks’ faces as if they’re thinking, “Hey, I didn’t know you could do that!”

White, Terry. Layers Magazine (2009). Articles>Document Design>Typography>Adobe InDesign