Thank You Adobe Customers! - Nov 26

Source: Adobe in Technical Communication and eLearning by RJ Jacquez

This year, I have a long list of reasons to be grateful for, including my family, my son, my wife, my parents (my dad will turn 80 years young in January), and my brothers and sisters.

I'm also thankful for my job, which I absolutely love, and which is only possible because of our Adobe customers. At Adobe we are very fortunate to have some of the most passionate users in the world and for that we are very thankful!

So today whether you are in the States celebrating Thanksgiving with your families, or outside the United States,

• I thank you for using our Adobe products!
• I thank our Certified Trainers around the world for being great Evangelists of our products!
• I thank our Adobe partners for building technologies, which take out products beyond the included out-of-the-box functionality!
• I thank our Twitter followers for being tuned in and engaged with us!
• I especially thank my eLearning Suite and Technical Communication Suite customers

For our US customers, we hope today you have a great day with your family and Happy Thanksgiving!

thank you,adobe,customers,thanksgiving

Adobe FrameMaker: Smart Running Heads - Nov 25

Source: I Came, I Saw, I Learned... by Kevin Siegel

1. Choose View > Master Pages.
   
   
2. Click in one of the header or footer background frames.
   
   
3. Choose Format > Headers & Footers > Insert Other.
   
   
4. Scroll down through the list of variables until you find Running H/F 1. Click on it once to select it.
   
   
5. Evaluate the Definition to see if it will work for you as is. The default definition reads: <$paratext[Title]>.
   
   In English, this says "go get the paragraph text of the paragraph format called Title and put it at the cursor position." As long as you are using the default chapter title name Title, that will work. But what if you opted to call all of your titles ChapterTitle? Then you better update the definition to read <$paratext[ChapterTitle]>. Remember, if the format names don't match exactly, they won't work.
   
   
6. If you need to update the definition, click the little gear button on the Pod toolbar (button number 3).
   
   
   
   
7. Edit the Definition to match your spelling of the title format, and then click Edit.
   
   
   
   
8. To insert the variable into the background frame, click the Insert button on the Pod toolbar (button number 1).
   
   
   
   
9. Repeat for the facing page, if you'd like, and then return to the Body pages.
   

Using Variables in Captivate 4: A Simple Page Counter - Oct 07

Source: Captain Captivate by captivatehero

Hello fellow Captivaters!

This week I’m going to create a simple page counter using Captivate 4 variables that will keep track of the current slide that you are on and the total number of slides in your presentation.  (Example: Slide 3 of 20) This is a straightforward way of letting your audience members track their progress, and is especially helpful is you decide to ditch Captivate’s Skin for your own custom navigation controls.

In prior versions of Captivate I created a Flash movie that would grab the existing slide variables with ActionScript 2.0 code and display them in an imported SWF. This was always a big hit in Captivate classes, but anyone who was not inclined to program was a little put off. Well no worries about code anymore. All you will need to pull this off is just a Text Caption and few clicks. Let’s get Captivating!

1. On the Captivate opening screen under the Create Project column select Blank Project.

   Select Blank Project.

2. The New Project dialog box appears. From the drop down list on the right choose 790 x 545 Browser.

   Choose 790 x 545 in the New Project dialog box.

3. Click the OK button.
4. A new untitled CP file is created. Save your work as SlideCounter.cp
5. Add three blank slides by selecting Insert > Blank Slide three times. This will take you to the Edit View automatically.

   Create three Blank Slides.

6. Select Slide 1 in your Filmstrip.
7. Choose Insert > Standard Objects > Text Caption…

   Insert a Text Caption.

8. The New Text Caption dialog box appears.
9. Set up some simple Text Caption Properties
   • Caption type: [transparent]
   • Font: Arial
   • Size: 14
10. Type the word “Slide” in the Caption editor.

    Select the Insert Variable button.

11. Click on the Insert Variable button. The insert variable dialog box appears.
12. Select System for the variable type.
13. View by Movie Information.
14. From the Variable list choose cpInfoCurrentSlide.

    Select the cpInfoCurrentSlide variable.

15. Click the OK button.
16. Type in the word “of” right after the inserted variable.

    This is what your text should look like.

17. Click on the Insert Variable button again. The insert variable dialog box appears.
18. Select System for the variable type.
19. View by Movie Information.
20. From the Variable list choose rdInfoSlideCount. You now have the variable in place. When these variables render they will display “Slide 1 of 4”. The first variable will resolve the current slide that you are on and the second will keep track of the total number of slides.

    Select the rdInfoSlideCount variable.

21. Click the OK button in the Insert Variable dialog box to close out.

    Text Caption with variables added.

22. Now it’s time to set up an object attribute to make sure that we can see our Simple Page Counter on all slides.
23. With the New Text Caption dialog box still open click the Options Tab.
24. In the Timing section – change the Display for: value to Rest of Project. This will allow the Page Counter to be visible on all slides.

    Display the Text Caption for "Rest of Project".

25. Click the OK button.
26. Preview your example by hitting the F4 key.

You should now see your page counter read 1 of 3, 2 of 3, and 3 of 3 as it progresses through the slides.

This is the final variable text rendered in the caption.

If you see these results – well done!

Sample File (520K)

Now that’s real Captivate variable power.

FrameMaker: Making comments stand out - Jun 30

Source: Technical Communication Suite by Samartha Vashishtha

Consider this scenario: you're working in a FrameMaker document that uses a lot of conditional tags, including the conditional tag defined for comments and editorial notes. If you need to work on incorporating comments, you can display all the conditional content in the document with the condition indicators visible. However, browsing your way through the multi-colored text to look for comments may be difficult.

A simple workaround here could be applying a character tag to the comments and editorial notes in addition to the conditional formatting. This way, even when the condition indicators are hidden, the comments and editorial notes in the document stand out from the rest of the content.

The screenshot below illustrates the character tag Comment-text applied to editorial notes.

Further reading

If you need help creating a new character tag in FrameMaker, refer to "Character Formats" in FrameMaker web Help. To understand how to apply and manage conditional tags, see "Working in conditional documents".