Thursday Night Program
Structured Authoring Without Framemaker or DITA
“Structured authoring” is a hot topic in tech comm. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of uncertainty about something as basic as what structured authoring even is. For several factions in tech comm, the answer to any question about structured authoring is either “get Frame” or “use DITA.” But what if budget limits or company culture or politics prevent you from switching to Frame or DITA?
This presentation explains why structured authoring is important at all. It then looks at three definitions of structured authoring that don’t involve Frame or DITA, discusses the cultural, political, and strategic issues that will drive your selection of one of those definitions, and ends by discussing, at a high level, a process for moving to structured authoring.
AM Workshop 8:30-12
Adobe Captivate 2 – Tricks With Advanced Features
Captivate wasn’t the first tool that let us create on-screen movies showing how to use a piece of software. That honor goes to Lotus ScreenCam in ‘93, then Qarbon Viewlet Builder in the late ‘90s. But Captivate has become a standard tool for creating such movies because it’s cheaper than mainstream eLearning tools and a lot faster and easier to learn and use.
If you’re self-taught on Captivate, there may be some uses for it or features that may not have occurred to you. Or you may be finding some features that might be useful but are not clearly explained. This workshop will look at some of those advanced and hidden features and give you hands-on practice with them. Rather than being a random collection of tips and tricks, the workshop is structured into three areas:
-
Taking Captivate beyond software movies by creating role-playing simulations.
-
Customizing the output by using the skin editor and modifying the auto-caption text feature.
-
Working with audio and closed captioning.
Several notes about this workshop:
This workshop is intensive and heavily hands-on. It assumes you have either taken a course in Captivate basics or are self-taught and experienced. Neil can answer some basic questions during the workshop but will not have much time to do so. If you’re unsure about whether you have the background for this workshop, contact Neil at nperlin@nperlin.cnc.net or 978-657-5464.
The workshop covers Captivate 2 rather than 3 because 3 will only have been out for about a month and some attendees may not have upgraded yet. Neil will discuss the major changes in version 3.
Attendees must bring a laptop with the following hardware configuration:
-
Pentium III 600 MHz or (preferably) higher.
-
512 Mb RAM or (preferably) higher.
-
100 Mb or more of free disk space.
-
A screen resolution of at least 800 x 600, preferably 1024 x 768.
-
A sound card and a headset with a boom mike (preferably), or speakers and a mike.
-
A CD drive or USB drive.
And the following software configuration:
-
Windows 2000 or XP.
-
A Flash-enabled browser, preferably IE 5+ or above.
-
Flash Player – any version from 6.0 through 9.0
- Captivate 2. To download a trial copy, go to www.adobe.com/products/captivate /, click the Download Free Trial link, and follow the instructions on the screen. You may not be able to download a trial copy of Captivate 2, since Captivate 3 may have replaced it. If that’s the case, contact Neil at nperlin@nperlin.cnc.net or 978-657-5464.
PM Workshop 1-4:30
Comparison of RoboHelp and Flare
RoboHelp has had a few rough years – ignored and seemingly left for dead by Macromedia, then brought back to life as version 6 by Adobe earlier in ’06, with version 7 now in the wings. In the meantime, MadCap Flare stepped into the apparent RoboHelp vacuum and went from a 0% market share in January 2006 to an apparent second place in the help authoring tool world, according to last year’s WritersUA survey.
The result? Confusion. If I’m a RoboHelp user, should I stay with it? Switch to Flare? Switch to some other help authoring tool? A DITA authoring tool with a CMS? (Whatever that is…) If I’m a new author, which tool should I pick? Should I pick either of these tools?
This presentation starts by discussing the changes affecting tech comm – XML, CMS, DITA, structured authoring, single sourcing, and others – in order to provide a context for the tool-specific discussion. The presentation then looks at Flare 3 and RoboHelp 6 to compare their design philosophies and feature sets. (Note that the presentation may look at RoboHelp 7, if Adobe releases it in time for this workshop. If not, Neil will discuss some of version 7’s high points per Adobe’s sneak peeks at the annual STC conference in May.)
Several notes about this workshop:
-
Unlike the morning workshop, this one is lecture- and demo-based. A familiarity with online help and documentation authoring is helpful but not necessary – e.g. you can also attend if you’re just getting ready to move your material online.
-
Neil is a certified trainer for both RoboHelp and Flare. However, this workshop is not a sales pitch for either tool and may wind up recommending other authoring tools in some cases.
Pre-Register Now and Save!
