#29933
Opening PDF Documents in Full Screen Mode
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.
Shea, Dan. PlanetPDF (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#19528
Opening Up to OpenOffice: Finding an Alternative to Microsoft Word 
When OpenOffice reached version 1.0 in May 2002, I did my journalistic duty and had a look. It wasn't what I expected. Aside from a few minor disappointments, I liked what I saw. I quickly became convinced that OpenOffice.org's Writer (OOo Writer) is a practical alternative to MS Word. Thirteen months of use has only cemented that impression. Four minor releases have been made since I started using OpenOffice.org, and, with each one, the program has become quicker and more stable.
Byfield, Bruce. TECHWR-L (2003). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#26101
Opening Up to OpenOffice.org: Finding an Alternative to Microsoft Word
When OpenOffice.org (www.openoffice.org) reached version 1.0 in May 2002, I did my journalistic duty and had a look. It wasn't what I expected. At times, the duplication of MS Word in OpenOffice.org seemed to extend to the faults, but the first impression is misleading. While MS Word users can be comfortable in OpenOffice.org within minutes, OpenOffice.org's interface is by far the tidier. More importantly, OpenOffice.org not only matches MS Word almost feature for feature, but often exceeds it, and provides working versions of features that have been broken or overdue for overhaul in MS Word for several releases.
Byfield, Bruce. TECHWR-L (2003). Articles>Word Processing>Software>OpenOffice
#26102
OpenOffice.org and Me: An Introduction
When I first tried OOo, it was at around version 1.0.0 or 1.0.1. The help files were pathetic in those days; I described them at the time as 'badly written, badly organized, badly indexed, and frequently wrong.' To be fair, the help has improved a great deal since then, though the indexing still needs a lot of improvement.
Weber, Jean Hollis. O'Reilly and Associates (2004). Articles>Word Processing>Software>OpenOffice
#24077
OpenOffice.org Off the Wall: It's Numbering, But Not as We Know It
Like any word processor, OpenOffice.org's Writer automatically adds numbers and bullets to paragraphs for you. Unlike typical word processors, however, Writer does not make lists a part of paragraph styles. Instead, lists have styles of their own. These styles are called numbering styles. Separating list styles from paragraph styles gives list options more room for custom settings without burying them deep in the menus.
Byfield, Bruce. Linux Journal (2004). Articles>Word Processing>Software>OpenOffice
#25985
OpenOffice.org Writer vs. Microsoft Word
OOo Writer scores most of its victories in features that make the creation and maintenance of highly formatted or long documents easier. This pattern is not accidental. According to Elizabeth Mathias of Sun Microsystems, the documentation of OpenOffice.org has a long history of being written in Writer itself. As a result, the program's developers had the incentive to include the tools they needed. This legacy continues to give Writer advantages over competitors like Word.
Byfield, Bruce. NewsForge (2005). Articles>Word Processing>Software>OpenOffice
#20012
#18350
Optimize Adobe PDF Files for Palm OS Devices
You can read any Adobe® PDF document on a Palm OS® device by simply dragging the file into the Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm OS application window. But if you want to optimize the PDF file for the best possible display on a handheld device, combine the power of Adobe Acrobat® 5 with Microsoft® Office 2000 or later.
Adobe (2003). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#20201
The new operating system is bringing a whole new design trend and the glass-look of OS X is a very desirable look that people have been begging to learn how to recreate.
Kelby, Scott. Mac Design Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#14047
#28069
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
#18955
How to generate 1 PDF file base on these 2 files but with only 1 page. If I am reading this correctly, you would like the contents of two separate/single page PDF files to be located within a single PDF file.
Leonard, Norman. PDFzone (2003). Design>Publishing>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#27239
"Page X of Y" Gives Wrong Numbers
If you have applied the latest service release for your version of Word, and you still have the Page X of Y problem, any of the solutions mentioned below will work for you.
Rado, Dave and Suzanne Barnhill. Word MVP Site, The (2002). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#21943
Opening somebody else's PageMaker publication? Here's an explorer's guide to the discoveries and dangers that may be lurking.
Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1996). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker
#13062
PageMaker for Desktop Publishers
The home page of the PAGEMAKR mailing list, an internet resource for desktop publishers, particularly users of Adobe PageMaker software. Our subscription base varies in size from 1,400–2,000, with a core of wonderfully knowledgeable and helpful members. Mail messages can be received as they are posted or once daily as a digest. You will find subscription instructions on the subscription help page, or you can write to a listowner at pagemakr-request@listserv.iupui.edu.
Makingpages.org. Resources>Mailing Lists>Software>Adobe PageMaker
#18335
PageMaker Past, Present, and Future
For millennia, humans have struggled to communicate, first with grunts and sign language, then with speech. But it was when humans learned to write that civilization became possible. First we painted on cave walls, then chiseled in stone, then wrote on more practical and portable things, like wood, papyrus, and finally paper. Hand printing ink on paper was the state of the art for hundreds of years until mechanical inventing was invented, first with engraving and then with movable type. But setting type with metal was still slow, dangerous, and difficult work. This was not dramatically changed until the twentieth century with machines like the Mergenthaler and Linotype. In 1984, the state of the art was phototypesetting on large, complex machines that were expensive and where what you was was nothing like what you would get. Then three companies -- Apple Computer, Adobe Systems, and the Aldus Corporation -- changed everything.
Adams, Peter C.S. Makingpages.org (2002). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker
#24733
PageMaker Scripting for Non-Programmers
Scripting is simply a method of automating complex or time-consuming tasks in PageMaker.
Haugen, Diane. Document Design (2001). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker
#12950
A PageMaker to PDF: Converting Your PageMaker Files 
A three-page manual for creating Acrobat PDF files from page-layout files.
Carpenter, Amy. TECHWR-L (2009). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker
#27446
Painless Functional Specifications - Part 1: Why Bother?
Why won't people write specs? People claim that it's because they're saving time by skipping the spec-writing phase. They act as if spec-writing was a luxury reserved for NASA space shuttle engineers, or people who work for giant, established insurance companies. Balderdash.
Spolsky, Joel. Joel on Software (2000). Articles>Writing>Specifications>Software
#13957
Is Linux in your technical writing future? The possibility is becoming too strong to ignore. Companies like Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston are using Linux now, and countries ranging from Germany and France to Pakistan and Venezuela are adapting it and other open source software for government business. In high-tech, IBM reports that over one thousand of its business partners became Linux-certified in 2001, and the Linux applications listed in the IBM Global Solutions Directory rose from 2300 to 2800 in the six months between June 2001 and January 2002. In a little less than three years, Linux has captured over a third of the server market, and, while its share of the desktop market seems stalled at four percent, growing concerns about security, the cost of commercial software, and restrictive licensing practices are starting to change that.
Byfield, Bruce. TECHWR-L (2002). Articles>Software>Open Source>Linux
#14808
If you're expecting to be lost in the interstellar darkness of the command line, you're in for a surprise. Although Linux includes some handy command line tools, today most of Linux's install programs, desktops, and programs now boast graphical windows. The desktops and the windows look a little different from the ones you see in other operating systems, but they're recognizable for what they are. As you'll see in this article, you have to look deeper to see the differences: They lie not only in the performance, but also in a design philosophy that favors small tools over monolithic ones, customization over standardization, and a hands-on approach over hidden complexity. Once you adjust to the novelties, even the command line is not the empty vacuum you expected, but a teeming ecology that in many ways is more powerful--and empowering--than the GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces). If Linux is somewhat rougher in patches than Windows, many people feel that this design philosophy more than compensates. After all, one day in the next few years, Linux is going to have the GUI sophistication, too.
Byfield, Bruce. TECHWR-L (2002). Articles>Software>Operating Systems>Linux
#26477
U ovom jednostavnom tutorialu naučiće∫ kako da pomocu photoshopa napravi∫ jedan ovakav efekat na nekoj fotografiji.
Emir, Isovic. Superemir (2000). (Bosnian-Croatian) Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
#30189
The rapid growth in the use of PDFs on Websites has lead to increasing concerns about accessibility, particularly for the users of screen reading technology, which converts text into synthetic speech or electronic Braille.
Hudson, Roger. WebUsability (2004). Articles>Accessibility>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#22307
PDF Author Creates Spoof of Nielsen's Misguided Alertbox
Doug Alford responds in kind to Jakob Nielsen's 2003 essay 'PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption.'
Alford, Doug. PlanetPDF (2003). Humor>Usability>Software>Adobe Acrobat
#30110
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
