• First is an interactive map of US unemployment published on Forbes.com.
• The second, simpler example is a map of The Who's 1997 Quadrophenia Tour in Europe."

Adobe has worked on accessibility standards committees in the U.S. and internationally, including: the W3C's WCAG 2.0, ATAG 2.0, Timed Text/DFXP, HTML5, and Protocols and Formats working groups; the U.S. Access Board's TEITAC subcommittee; and the PDF Universal Accessibility work group at AIIM. Two important goals of our participation are to help ensure that accessibility standards are effective at meeting the needs of those with disabilities and to promote technological neutrality. From an accessibility perspective, we believe that developers should be able to use any technology as long as they are able to deliver content that meets accessibility standards and end-user needs.

Adobe Flash and PDF (which is now an ISO standard - ISO 32000-1) both provide support for accessibility, but it is important for authors and developers to learn best practices and understand user needs in order to deliver results that take advantage of the unique capabilities of the formats and that allow all users to access the information and functionality. Authors sometimes will make a trade-off between producing a visually interesting application in a timely fashion and adhering to accessibility requirements. Other times, accessibility gets left to be dealt with at the end of a project that has a firm end-date and when other features take longer than expected, accessibility or other items fall off the schedule. Government agencies don't get to make these trade-offs as they are bound by law to make their services accessible, but commercial entities don't have the same requirements and often overlook the needs of people with disabilities when creating web experiences and documents.

Despite our best intentions, Adobe overlooked the needs of people with disabilities in our recently-launched Open Government web site, which failed to meet certain accessibility best practices. Some customers have contacted us and a few bloggers pointed out the issues and we are working to improve the Open Government site. We apologize to everyone who attempted to access the site and was unable to do so. With the benefit now of seeing the site in its present state rather than the initially-planned more dynamic and interactive version, the team is recreating the site using a combination of HTML and Flash. Several improvements to the current Flash-based site have been addressed already. My hope for this post and the intention of the Open Government site is to help other developers learn from this example, and improve their own development practices of visually rich web sites for access by all users.

Whether users need to use assistive technologies such as screen readers or magnifiers, operate their computer with the keyboard alone, view larger text sizes, view captions or subtitles for audio information, or utilize many other accessibility features, these features already exist in Adobe products. And while these are not perfect in all products yet, we are dedicated to enabling our tools to handle accessibility in robust and reliable ways.

If you are interested in learning more about accessibility in Adobe products, I'm providing some interesting links below. As always, we value the feedback of our customers and end users, so let us know your thoughts.

For more information about PDF accessibility:

• http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat
• http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/reader

For more information about Flash accessibility:

• http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/flash

PDF and Flash accessibility training resources:

• http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/tutorials.html
• http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/best_practices.html

Adobe accessibility compliance statements:

• http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/compliance/

Community members can contribute tips, movies, code snippets, and more with easy-to-use templates. Contributions are moderated by community experts. Plus, everyone in the community can rate and comment on contributions.

Contributing is easy
1. Download the Community Publishing AIR application.
2. Author your content using a simple template.
3. Publish it to Adobe.com.

Content goes live within minutes and is automatically added to community help search. Exceptional contributions will be promoted in Help & Support pages, Developer Connection, Design Center, and considered for inclusion in Adobe partner publications.

You can see all of the submissions here: Community Publishing index page.

So give it a try. I'll link to especially good contributions in Acrobat Help.

Our friends at BrightIdeas have been instrumental in making this site a success. We're excited to see the recognition for both companies.

And of course, we're looking forward to hearing more bright ideas from our users. Thanks for being part of what's next!

Supply-Chain Relationships

According to a 2006 survey of manufacturing executives conducted by IBM, CEOs believe that over 70% of new product innovation comes from customers and suppliers.  In some industries, as much as 95% of the value-added content represented by end-user products comes from from suppliers.  Shouldn’t processes and systems support these supply-chain relationships that can be so vital to success?

Some industries have moved from a traditional model of suppliers manufacturing parts and subsystems from the OEM’s design to deeply incorporating tier one suppliers in the design process. This is a step in the right direction to be sure. Unfortunately supply-chain collaboration often imposes processes, formats and applications on suppliers.   The cost and complexity driven into the supply-chain to access and use needed information can be prohibitive. 

Relational product creation seeks to address these shortcomings.  By sharing contextual information, relying upon open standards and enabling process interoperability through information interoperability, Relational Product Creation can take new product development to a much greater level of performance.  Horizontal collaboration and interoperability are the keys.  

PDF Provides the “Container” for Interoperability and Contextual Collaboration

Imagine a world in which information is shared horizontally and vertically across the entire value chain in a totally secure manner.  Imagine that all of the up-to-date information is available securely to “trusted partners” to access and use. Imagine that information format barriers no longer exist fundamentally representing an opportunity for true collaboration.

PDF is a super container for virtually any 2D or 3D information that needs to be shared between suppliers and OEMs.  Adobe and its partner companies are addressing the needs of companies that choose to more to the Relational Product Creation Model.  Here’s how:

Many people associate PDF with the static presentation of 2D information, usually at the conclusion of an authoring and approval cycle.  PDF is chosen in those instances because of its ability to “lock” the contents so they cannot be altered later.  People may know that PDF is already the ISO 32000 Open Standard for Engineering Information, but they may not fully comprehend the power of PDF.  However, the presentation layer not only supports text and graphics, but audio and video content and fully interactive 3D models.

The 3D models represent data extracted from virtually any 3D format, and can contain the product structure, precise and tessellated geometry, product manufacturing information and attribute data.  Data can also be extracted, depending upon security settings, in standard formats including Parasolid, IGES, STEP, VRML, U3D and STL. 

All of these data types can also be combined into informal and higher-end workflows for things like product creation collaboration, supplier collaboration, field service and manufacturability.  JavaScript and XML forms data can interact to support extensions of processes across the entire extended enterprise, and the ultimate user requires is the ubiquitous, free Adobe Reader to interact with data that once would have required specialized applications.

Lastly, security is fully comprehended.  Security can be enabled through password and certificate encryption, but LiveCycle Rights Management can provide dynamic access control, manage permissions, monitor activity, manage revisions and even revoke information anywhere it may be shared.  PDF fully supports digital signatures, so authenticity is never an issue.

I realize that this article is high-level.  In future articles, I will be focusing on each of these areas in more detail to explore examples and customer successes. 

Photoshop.com Mobile for Android offers features only available on Android phones. Users can automatically upload pictures to Photoshop.com albums in the background, even when the Photshop.com Mobile application is not running. Photoshop.com accounts provide 2GB of free online photo storage, which equates to over 1,500 photos. Made possible by the Android API, the new tab-based user interface enables users to view local and online content. Also, the Android Photo Browser makes maneuvering through photos fast and convenient, bringing users' complete photo collections right to their pockets.

• Cue Point Support.  OSMF now has support for all types of cue points (event, navigation, and AS).  Cue point support is built on top of our new support for temporal metadata, which can serve as the basis for defining (and responding to) metadata along the media's timeline.  (We'll cover this in greater detail in a separate post.)
  
• Tracking Download Progress. We've introduced a new trait for following the download progress (in terms of bytes) of media.  The relevant properties and events are exposed on the MediaPlayer class, and can be used to represent the portion of the media which is immediately seekable (e.g. the red seek track in YouTube's player).
• Package Renaming + Refactorings.  You may notice that the package for the OSMF classes is now "org.osmf".  (Yes, we finally got around to fixing that!)  As part of this renaming, we took the opportunity to do some general cleanup of code and APIs.
  

• Source ZIP
• Release Notes
  
• ASDocs
• SVN: Sprint7-Stable Release
  

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nov. 6, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced the Photoshop.com Mobile for Android™ software, extending Adobe® industry-leading digital imaging technology to users of the Google Mobile™ operating system. The release comes less than a month after the launch of Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone, which quickly established itself as one of the “Top Free” applications on the Apple mobile platform. The Android application equips consumers with quick and easy image-editing tools, color adjustments and instant photo-sharing capabilities. Photoshop.com Mobile optimizes the camera-phone experience by allowing users to browse for their photos online and on their phone, directly from the application. The application is free and available today at the Android Market.

The Photoshop.com team shared the following screenshots of the app,
which I have made into a Captivate Slideshow. Click Play below to check them out.

Additional Resources:

If you have an Android phone, I'd love to get your feedback regarding this app, please send me a Tweet @rjacquez

photoshop.com,Android,iPhone,Droid

• 17:00 - 17:15 : InDesign CS4
• 17:30 - 17:45 : Flash CS4 Professional
• 18:00 - 18:15 : Photoshop CS4 Extended
• 18:30 - 18:45 : Illustrator CS4
• 19:00 - 19:15 : Photoshop Elements 8

• 12:00 - 13:00 : 「Photoshop Elements 8 で写真の楽しみ方、再発見！」
• 13:00 - 14:00 : 「Illustrator CS4 はロゴデザインが出来る!?」
• 14:00 - 15:00 : 「 始めよう、Flash 制作。」
• 15:00 - 16:00 : 「 Photoshop CS4 で創る・魅せる！フォトレタッチのポイント」
• 16:00 - 17:00 : 「Photoshop Elements 8 で写真の楽しみ方、再発見！」
• 17:00 - 18:00 : 「InDesign CS4 はどんなソフト？」

• 13:00 - 14:00 : Photoshop
• 13:00 - 14:00 : InDesign
• 14:00 - 15:00 : Flash
• 14:00 - 15:00 : Illustrator
• 16:00 - 17:00 : Photoshop
• 16:00 - 17:00 : Illustrator

Here's the problem description:  Your data arrives in two separate data files.  You need to import them both into your form.  Problem is that importing new data replaces existing data.  Loading the second data file will discard the data from your first import. 

Let's set up a specific example -- Suppose my data looks like:

<multidata>
  <set1> ... </set1>
  <set2> ... </set2>
</multidata>

We want to be able to load set1 and set2 from different data files.

There are a couple of solutions to this problem.   But first some review on dataset handling within XFA/PDF forms.  Normally form data gets stored under $data -- which is a shortcut to: xfa.datasets.data.  If the root node of your form is "multidata", then your data appears under xfa.datasets.data.multidata.

The XML hierarchy looks like this:

<xfa:datasets xmlns:xfa="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-data/1.0/">
  <xfa:data>
    <multidata>
      <set1> ... </set1>
      <set2> ... </set2>
    </multidata>
  </xfa:data>
</xfa:datasets>

When Acrobat performs a data import, it replaces the <xfa:data> element. But it *appends to* any other datasets. 

Solution 1: Preserve/Restore data before/after import

If during import you could arrange your data to look like:

<xfa:datasets xmlns:xfa="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-data/1.0/">
  <xfa:data>
    <multidata>
      <set2> ... </set2>
    </multidata>
  </xfa:data>
  <set1> ... </set1>
</xfa:datasets>

In this case, <set1> would be preserved and only <set2> would be replaced.  Then after the import is complete,  you'd move <set1> back where it belonged.  The way to control the import is to use the Acrobat script function: importXFAData();  Here's the outline of the script to import set2:

1. Copy set1 data to be a child of xfa:datasets
2. Remove the set1 subform
3. Call importXFAData() to load set2
4. Move the set1 data back under <multidata>
5. Re-add the set1 subform

There are a number of tricky parts:

• When importXFAData() is successful, it causes a remerge.  When remerge happens, any script commands after the call to importXFAData() will not execute.  The workaround is to perform steps 4 and 5 in a separate form:ready script.
• importXFAData() does not return a status.  You have no way of knowing if the user cancelled.  If they did cancel, you need to restore set1 without depending on the form:ready script.
• If the user is running in Reader, then importXFAData() will throw an error.  We need to catch this error and restore set1 data.
• If the user imports data from the Acrobat menu (Forms/Manage Form Data/Import Data) then all your clever script won't run and set1 data will get cleared.  You need to figure out how to remove this option from the Acrobat menu.

Note that this specific example assumes you are loading data in the order set1 then set2.  The form could be coded more generally to load the data in any order.  It would just be a bit more complicated.  You'd need to move both set1 and set2 and then after the load you'd figure out which one(s) need to be moved back.

Here is a sample form.  Here is sample set2.xml data you can load.  Have a look at the button click and form:ready events for all the gory details.

Solution 2: Bind set1 outside of xfa:data

Instead of temporarily arranging your data so that set1 is under <xfa:datasets>, you could permanently arrange your data this way.  In the binding expression for the set1 subform, specify "!set1" -- which is a shortcut for xfa.datasets.set1.  Now whenever you import data for set2, it will leave set1 untouched.  However, this introduces a new problem.  Whenever you import new set1 data you will end up with multiple copies of set1.  You need a form:ready script that will delete all but the last copy.  This also means that the data file holding set1 needs to include the <xfa:datasets> element so that it can correctly specify the location for set1. 

Here is a sample file with set1 data and set2 data. The script to trim back the extra copies of set1 data is found in the multidata form:ready event.

My personal preference would be to use Solution 2.  The script is simpler.  The user can use the menu commands for loading the data.  But this approach might not be possible if your data is bound to a schema.

This is a stadium-busting number of people which would fill some of largest venues in the world - a statistic which was noted by a number of observers.

This 'stadium' analogy got me thinking about just what 80,000 people really looks like and how you can put that into context.... Well fellow fact fans, after a little desk research (and the wonders of Google) I have some answers. You'll be interested to know that when packed to capacity - as it will no doubt be this weekend - Twickenham Stadium holds 80,000 fervent, rugby-loving enthusiasts. In addition to this the new Olympic stadium for London 2012 is expected to hold 80,000 people, willing on our Olympic hopefuls.

These stadiums are outperformed in the UK only by the new Wembley Stadium which holds 90,000 fans. They are all however, dwarfed in comparison by the Rungrado May Day Stadium in North Korea which holds a whopping 150,000 people, although I'd rather not speculate on what they watch there.

For non-sports fans the magic 80,000 number crops up elsewhere too... the population of The Isle Man - give or take a few - is 80,000 men, women and children. So if they wanted to, every resident of the Isle of Man could now join an Adobe Connect conference session and communicate, share ideas and collaborate with one another from the comfort of their PC.

Of course that's a fairly unlikely application for Connect.... But where the extended conferencing capacity will prove invaluable is for brining together large groups of individuals from multiple locations, for example large company webinars, distance learning lectures or large-scale corporate training sessions.

Connect 7.5 of course also has many other new features and benefits, including improved integration capabilities with other audio conferencing providers and enhancements to security and compliance functionality.

But for me though, the idea of an Acrobat web conference uniting the whole of the Isle of Man is still an irresistible proposition... watch this space!

Ben Forsaith

• Batch processing or merging one or more records with a form design to create multiple documents.

Specifying different print formats and label printers.

• Controlling of printer settings, such as stapling, label printers, collating, and so on.


• Using pattern matching to specify different form designs to merge with the data with.


• Creating a filled and non-interactive PDF file that is useful for archiving.


• Sending the output to a printer.

If you are merging XML data with a form design where the merged output is used by people, such as an PDF form for an approval process, use the Forms service. For example, if I wanted to merge XML data with a form design to create a PDF form, that PDF form would be an interactive form that could be displayed to person. That person could add data to the form and perhaps click a button so that the form could be handled electronically. In summary, use the Forms services when you require these features:

• Using form design scripts to transform the appearance of the form, perform calculations, and dynamically generate or retrieve data.


• Providing mechanisms to render file attachments and to other formats, such as HTML or form guides (8.2).


• Handling electronic form submissions.


• Providing mechanisms to pre-populate a form with data.

Hopefully I have whet you appetite with some of the features that the Output and Forms services provide. If you find that you have similar needs in your process, check out the Output service and Forms service sections in LiveCycle ES Services guide for more detailed information.

Flash Professional CS5 のベータ公開お知らせサービスも Adobe Labs に公開中です。こちらはメアドの登録のみです。（Flash Professional CS5 Beta Notification）

どちらも英語版になりますので、ご注意ください。

Click-thru agreements rely on the recipient clicking "OK" or "I agree" to accept the terms of the agreement.

I recently received this email message about Click-thru PDF agreements:

Is it possible to create a message that appears prior to a [PDF] document being opened to accept terms and conditions? If the user would click "Yes" the PDF would open. If the user click "No" the document would close.

Short answer: Yes!

Do Click-thru Agreements have Legal Precedent?

Yes, there are a number legal decisions on the subject.

The earliest reference I found was to ProCD v. Zeidenberg (text), which established that clicking a button in a software program constituted acceptance of terms.

A number of relevant court decisions may be found here: Click-Wrap Agreement - Internet Library of Law and Court Decisions.

In this article, I'll show you how to create an alert message that pops up when a PDF is opened:

One powerful feature of Acrobat is the ability to extend capabilities using the JavaScript scripting language.

You don't need to know anything about scripting to do this, just use a bit of cutting and pasting from the document below:

Click-thru Instructions.pdf (89K)

You'll need to click the YES button or the document will close immediately.

Save the link below to your desktop, then open it in Acrobat (not in your browser).

Grab the Click-thru Script from the Sample Document

1. Open Pages Panel of the Click-thru Instructions.pdf
   —Select the first page of the document
   — Right-click and choose Page Properties
   
   
2. Click the Actions tab
   A) Click the Run a JavaScript action
   B Click the Edit button
   
   
   
3. In the JavaScript Editor window
   — Select all the text
   — Right-click and choose Copy
   
   
4. Click OK twice.
5. Close the document.
   
   

Add the Message JavaScript to your own Document

1. Open the PDF to which you want to add the Click-thru agreement.
2. Open the Pages Panel
   — Select the first page of the document
   — Right-click and choose Page Properties
3. Click the Actions tab
   — From the Select Action menu,  choose Run a JavaScript
   
   
4. Click the Add button
   
5. Right-click and choose Paste
   To change the text, see note below
6. Click OK twice.
7. Save your document

Limitations

There are a few limitations associated with this technique to add a Click-thru to a PDF.

If the Adobe Reader user turns off JavaScript in user preferences, the document will still open. They will see this message however:

They can enable the JavaScript for any the document and the message will appear. Most users do not disable JavaScript, so it is rare that you would run into this.

The message window does not scroll, so there is a practical limit to the amount of text you can add. On a 1024 X 768 monitor, that limit is about 14-16 lines of text:

Ideally, you'd want to place the entire text of the agreement into the message window. If it doesn't fit, you have a couple of choices:

1. Add a URL to the agreement in the message window. For example:
   
   Read our User Agreement at http://www.YOURSITE.com
   
   It won't be a clickable link, however.
2. Add the user agreement to the first page of the document, so it is viewable behind the message.
3. Add a link to the User Agreement using Headers or Footers

One final note: In addition to the Click-thru, you could optionally have security on the document to prevent unauthorized changes.

今天去參加Photoshop的研討會, 好久沒參加event因此今天有空就去逛逛. 聽說請來的是Photoshop 的催生者Adobe資深總監Russell Brown, 這套軟體已經有名到比Adobe還出名了. 雖然今天的活動要繳費, 不過還是吸引了很多人參加, 看來大師出手所向無敵.

現場看到本人年紀好像蠻大了, 在他身上可以看到Adobe的歷史. 我轉貼一下來自myAdobe對他的介紹:

Adobe Photoshop 可說是當今世界上最暢銷的圖像編輯工具，這套建立許多業界領先標準的軟體最早是由 Knoll 兄弟於 1987 年編寫而成，隨後在一次展示中，奧多比資深創意總監 Russell Brown 看到這程式的莫大潛力，進而促使 Photoshop 成為奧多比產品的一員。歷經多次產品革新， Adobe Photoshop 如今已是奧多比產品線中最重要的軟體之一。

Russell Brown 不僅是 Photoshop 的教父，對於 Photoshop 產品演進具諸多卓越貢獻， 他本身更是產品功能以外的最佳行銷利器，在 Photoshop 推廣初期即用幽默風趣的演繹方式讓使用者覺得 Photoshop 容易又好玩，進而讓軟體極短的時間內席捲市場。

Russell Brown 總是說：「學習 Adobe Photoshop 向來就不會是件枯燥無聊的事情」。

After doing the first version of the floating field editor, I tackled some issues/enhancements:

1. A bug in the script where if you tabbed out and tabbed back in, the editor stopped working.
2. Enforce constraints associated with the referenced fields
3. When the editor does not have focus, display the field values using the formatted values of the referenced fields
4. When the editor has focus, display the field values using the edit values of the referenced fields

I have updated the previous sample form -- as well as the Editor fragment.

Enforcing Field Constraints

Since the floating fields are all presented inside a single text field, there was originally no constraints on any of the user input.  Now the form will look at the referenced fields and will restrict user input:

• Respect the max chars constraint of text fields (in the sample, they're all limited to 10 characters)
• For numeric fields, limit input to valid numeric characters
• For choice list fields, limit input to the set of valid choices

Locale-sensitive Numeric Fields

When restricting the set of valid characters for numeric input, it is tempting to just go with the obvious set:
[0-9\-\.]  However for many locales, the radix (decimal) and minus symbols will be different.  In order to know which symbols to use, the form queries the locale definition.  You XML source peepers will be aware of the <localeSet> packet in your XDP files.  This has all the data for the locales that are explicitly referenced on the form. 

The symbols are stored in a format that looks like:

<localeSet xmlns="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-locale-set/2.6/">
   <locale name="de_DE" desc="German (Germany)">
      <calendarSymbols name="gregorian"> ... </calendarSymbols>
      <datePatterns> ... </datePatterns>
      <timePatterns> ... </timePatterns>
      <dateTimeSymbols>GjMtkHmsSEDFwWahKzZ</dateTimeSymbols>
      <numberPatterns> ... </numberPatterns>
      <numberSymbols>
         <numberSymbol name="decimal">,</numberSymbol>
         <numberSymbol name="grouping">.</numberSymbol>
         <numberSymbol name="percent">%</numberSymbol>
         <numberSymbol name="minus">-</numberSymbol>
         <numberSymbol name="zero">0</numberSymbol>
      </numberSymbols>
      <currencySymbols> ... </currencySymbols>
      <typefaces> ... </typefaces>
    </locale>
    <locale> ... </locale>
</localeSet>

I was able to extract the number symbols with this function:

function findLocaleNumberSymbols(vRefField) {
    var oSymbols = {decimal: ".",
                    minus: "-"
                   };
    var vLocale = localeSet[vRefField.locale];
    if (typeof(vLocale) !== "undefined") {
        var vNumberSymbols = vLocale["#numberSymbols"].nodes;

        for (var i = 0; i < vNumberSymbols.length; i++) {
            oSymbols[vNumberSymbols.item(i).name] =
                                     vNumberSymbols.item(i).value;
        }
    }
    return oSymbols;
}

Using the numeric symbols the form is able to more accurately restrict input for numeric fields.

Choice List Fields

The last field in the sample is a reference to a choice list with the American states.  Try out the editing experience here.  It's pretty cool:

• Input characters are limited to the set of valid choices
• As soon as you type enough characters to uniquely identify a state, the rest of the input is completed automatically

Use Formatted and Edit Values

In the updated sample. the editing field now behaves like any other widget.  When you tab in, referenced field values display in their edit format.  When you tab out, the referenced fields display their formatted value.  In the sample you will notice that the currency and date values change when you tab in/out.  This is functionality that happens automatically on normal fields but had to be emulated in script for this sample.

You don't have to read through all the script to figure out how it works, but it is worth noting that you can access a field value in three different ways:

• field.rawValue -- the canonical value as it is stored in the data
• field.formattedValue -- the value with the display pattern applied
• field.editValue -- the value with the edit pattern applied

Note that if a format or edit picture/mask is not supplied, there are default patterns for numeric and date values.

Hook up via the enter event

Previously, the editor field tapped into the script object by delegating its initialize, change and exit events.  it now also needs to delegate the enter event:

form1.LetterEdit::change - (JavaScript, client)
scEditFF.handleChangeEvent();

form1.LetterEdit::enter - (JavaScript, client)
scEditFF.handleEnter();

form1.LetterEdit::exit - (JavaScript, client)
scEditFF.handleExit();

form1.LetterEdit::initialize - (JavaScript, client)
scEditFF.initialize(this, Letter, "#c0c0c0", 10);

Futures

There are more constraints that could be enforced, e.g. digits before/after decimal but those

Thanks for the feedback that you have shared with us on RoboHelp 8. We have tried addressing the pressing issues via RoboHelp 8.0.1 patch. In addition to resolving the RoboHelp issues, this patch also improves the FrameMaker-RoboHelp interaction for the Technical Communication Suite users. Robohelp 8.0.1 patch is live now and is available through Adobe Update Manager (AUM). RoboHelp 8 users can check for updates through Help>Update Menu in RoboHelp 8.

List of major issues resolved in this update:

1. Slow loading of topics in display panel
2. Data loss on spell checking project when all topics are closed and 'User Defined Variables' (UDV) Pod is open
3. Popup showed blank on applying a CSS to multiple topics after importing a topic from previous version of RoboHelp.
4. Popup Window for related topics not opening near the related topics button when a large topic is created.
5. Table loses its width setting in Printed Documentation
6. Table with straddled rows and columns are lost on mapping it with any RoboHelp table
7. User defined indent changes and gets incorrect in case of a multilevel list
8. Table displays an extra column in some situations
9. Vertical alignment not shown properly when explicitly set using CSS.
10. RoboHelp HTML crashes when executing sample script for "UDV converter with UI"
11. All the panes are not visible in Browser based AIR Help using startpage.htm#path/targettopic.htm url.
12. RoboHelp 8 does not add space between the expanding Hotspot and the expanding text.
13. Dropdown text not suppressed by Conditional Build Tag in Printed Documentation
14. Different options e.g. Font, font size, zoom etc stop working on changing the image of any icon on the formatting toolbar and restarting RoboHelp.
15. Remove Unused Index Keywords menu item was disabled and hence the functionality wasn't available
16. Show/Hide in a MiniTOC in a Topic placed inside a folder works only in Internet Explorer
17. Clicking on Home breadcrumbs in child project in Browser Based Merged AIR Help opens up default topic of child project.
18. Incorrect order of topics displayed or RoboHelp HTML crashes on toggling between folders and TOC on TOC page layout when multi level Folder architecture is present in Project Manager.
19. RoboHelp 8 Compiler not working properly with the RoboHelp 8 Command Prompt.
20. CSH call of offline help for non-Unicode applications doesn't work for second time

21. Slow response time to Link multiple .fm files (e.g. two 7 MB files) as compared to linking single (14 MB) .fm file
22. Some images set in the FrameMaker's Anchored Frame missing in RoboHelp.
23. Some of the cross references not getting converted into hyperlinks for FrameMaker Book9
24. Multiple instances of FrameMaker launched on generating FrameMaker book with multiple big documents.
25. CBT is applied wrongly in RoboHelp if the conditional expression is applied on any anchored frame in the FrameMaker document.

Thanks,
Ankur
ankujain@adobe.com

影響を受けるのは 11.5.1.601 とそれ以前のバージョンです。Windows, Mac ともに更新が推奨されています。

詳細は、セキュリティブリテン （Security updates available for Shockwave Player） に公開されています。日本語版もすぐに公開される予定です。

Some of the new capabilities include the ability to integrate with any audio conferencing provider, allowing organizations to leverage existing investments. Telephone audio can be recorded along with a Web conference and streamed to VoIP-only meeting participants and advanced integrated audio teleconferencing capabilities include call controls, participant management and synchronized recording. In addition to Acrobat Connect Pro's existing integrations with Premiere Global, MeetingOne, Cisco, and Avaya, Adobe is releasing a new integration with InterCall, the world's largest conferencing and collaboration services provider, to offer customers the ability to deploy Acrobat Connect Pro with InterCall audio conferencing.

Increased webinar capacity will enable users to engage up to 80,000 participants in high-impact sessions that can incorporate rich media demonstrations, live and recorded video and interactivity. This new capacity will support use cases ranging from large marketing events and product launches, to global town hall meetings and effective eLearning programs.

Further enhancements to security and compliance functionality includes more secure desktop sharing that offers increased control and enables regulation compliance and new administrative tools allow customers to define which applications can be screen-shared; users can collaborate with ease without the risk of an inadvertent breach.

With this release, we are offering a new implementation model. In addition to current hosted and on-premise deployment options, Acrobat Connect Pro will be available as a managed service, offering customers the ability to outsource IT support while realizing the benefits of security and control.

Other key areas of additional functionality include: native support of PDF that offers advanced document controls and improved workflow through increased integration with Adobe Acrobat; functionality that enables users to schedule and manage Acrobat Connect Pro meetings directly from Lotus Notes; easy account migration for installed customers who wish to change deployment configurations; and certification that offers on-premise customers the ability to run Acrobat Connect Pro on VMware infrastructure. Additionally, work is currently underway on the Acrobat Connect Pro Mobile application, which will enable meeting participation from mobile devices. The first devices that Adobe is working to enable are the Apple iPhone and iPod touch.

Check out the new release!

A key piece of successful rich internet application (RIA) design is ensuring that the application meets the needs of the end user. User experience design therefore plays a key role in any RIA implementation.

George Neill is a member of Adobe's Technology and Experience Innovation group. With over 20 years experience as a designer he has an extensive understanding of users' needs and behaviours, and a deep insight into how that understanding can be applied pragmatically to create innovative experiences that achieve clients' business objectives.

This months talk at the Enterprise RIA User Group is on the 18th November and will be given by George. You can register for the free talk here.

Hope to see you there...

Ben Forsaith

Most of the HTTPeek code is dedicated to implementing just enough of the HTTP protocol to be an effective proxy, but the socket portion of the code is actually not all that complex. And the creation of the ServerSocket itself is very simple. The function below gets called when the user clicks on the "Listen" button:

private function onListen():void
{
    this.sockets = new Array();
    this.server = new ServerSocket();
    this.server.addEventListener(Event.CONNECT, onConnect);
    try
    {
        this.server.bind(Number(this.portNumber.text), String(this.interfaces.value));
        this.server.listen();
        this.listenButton.label = "Close";
    }
    catch (e:Error)
    {
        Alert.show(e.message, "Error", Alert.OK);
        return;
    }
    this.debugButton.enabled = true;
}

HTTPeek is open-source and hosted here on Google Code. Feel free to check out the source to see how it works.

For example, see Todd Kopriva's comment at the bottom of this page: High-definition (HD) video. The comment takes the reader from a Help page about HD video straight to an informative article about HD video on the videoguys site.

Sound interesting?

The only guideline is that the tutorials must be relevant, and must be located on pages requiring no password or payment to access. However, the free, password-less page can contain links to materials that do require users to subscribe or pay for access. Go ahead and use Help comments to promote your materials.

Let me know if you need help getting started with this.

I started the eSeminar making a case for why Twitter is the perfect platform for Technical Communicators.  Here are some reasons I listed:

• Twitter is the perfect platform for you to become an Information Facilitator
  
• Twitter gets you closer to your end-users
  
• Twitter gives you unbiased feedback about your products and services
  
• Twitter enables you to drive traffic to your documentation
  
• Twitter can raise your corporate visibility
  
• Twitter enables you to follow conferences without being there
  
• Twitter is an essential business tool
  
• Twitter enables you to discover new information
  
• Twitter is Simple: Anyone can follow you and you can follow anyone else
  
• Twitter is FUN
  

I also shared my personal reasons why I use and love Twitter.

If you missed Twitter 101 for Technical Communicators, or want to watch it again, heres' the recording.

TIP: I typically set my desktop resolution to 1024 x 768 for best recording results, however because I was showing apps, which require high resolution, you will notice some distortion in the demonstration part of the recording. Something you may want to try is to click the "Scroll" button at the bottom left of the Connect Pro window, which will help you zoom in closer and follow the action around the presenter's mouse.  To the right is what the button looks like in all Connect Pro recordings.

Related Blog Post(s):

• A running list of Twitter Best Practices

twitter,technical communicator,rjacquez,tcuk09,stc

It's a simple question that has a slightly complex answer. There are actually two settings that can control how a PDF looks when it is opened. One setting can be set by the PDF author. The other setting can be set by the PDF consumer.

Let's start with the consumer...

Reader (and Acrobat) has a "Select and Zoom" toolbar which controls the magnification of the PDF you're viewing.

There are a few tools shown by default. But if you want to display additional Select and Zoom tools, you can right-click on the toolbar and see additional tools.

Similarly, Reader (and Acrobat) as a "Page Display" toolbar which controls how many pages you see on your screen at once and how those pages behave when you scroll. And again, you can right-click on the toolbar to see additional tools.

However, it can get annoying resetting the magnification and page display settings each time you open a PDF file. For that reason, under Preferences (Edit > Preferences > Page Display), we give you the ability to control the default magnification and page display settings for every PDF file you open.

If you prefer that every PDF opens at a zoom level of "100%" or "Fit Width", set it here. Then, every PDF file you open will open at this zoom level. Even if you open that PDF file in the browser!

More information about Page Display Preferences can be found in the Acrobat Help File here.

However, that takes us to the author...

There are cases where the author of the PDF file feels that his file is best consumed with a certain page layout or magnification. For example, if the file is a 75 inch by 100 inch map of the United States, he may want to make sure that you don't open it at "100%" (which would likely only show a portion of the map). Instead he'll want you to open it at "Fit Page" so that you'll be able to see the entire map by default. An Acrobat user can specify the magnification and page layout for his PDF file by going to Document Properties (File > Properties > Initial View) and setting these properties.

When he saves the file, the file will inherit these properties. Then, when the PDF is opened by someone else, the file will open with the author's properties. In other words, the author's properties will override the consumer's preferences for that particular file.

More information about Initial View properties can be found in the Acrobat Help File here.

There you have it. A complex answer to a simple question. But now you're better armed (as an Acrobat or Reader user) to control exactly how your PDFs look when you open them.

Let us know what you think. There's already a discussion on this topic on the Acrobat User Community Forum here. And let us know if there are additional questions which we can help answer for you.

Dave

Come see Lee Brimelow and Mark Niemann-Ross demonstrate unexpected things you can do using Flex and Creative Suite.Grab some popcorn and your 3D glasses as we demonstrate how Creative Suite applications can be programmed using Flex and Adobe AIR,and more.

Find out about the many languages and tools available for both designers and developers to customize and automate Creative Suite for integration in larger workflows.

Users could make a document searchable using Acrobat in 2 different ways. Subsequent sections provide more details on each of these ways.

1. During Scan process
2. On an already scanned PDF/Image

OCR during Scan process itself

If you have a paper document, that you need to scan and also make searchable, you can use Acrobat to do both in a single step. Go to Taskbar Create >> PDF from Scanner and choose any of the 3 document presets (Black & White Document, Grayscale Document, Color Document). These 3 Presets have OCR option enabled by default so you can get a fully searchable scanned PDF in a single click.

To verify if the OCR option is enabled in the chosen preset, you can click on "Configure Presets" menu option (shown in the screenshot above Create >> PDF from Scanner >> Configure Presets). Choose the appropriate preset in Preset textbox, and verify if Make Searchable (Run OCR) checkbox is on. If it is not checked, check it, save the preset and then press Ok to close the Configure Presets dialog.

Click on Options (next to OCR checkbox) to view and change the OCR settings. Change the Primary OCR Language, if required and then choose the PDF Output Style from the following style options.

• Searchable Image / Searchable Image (Exact): Use this option if you want to keep the scanned image, but still want the text to be searchable. In this case, Acrobat adds a hidden text layer on top of the image. This text is searchable using Acrobat or other desktop search engines.
• ClearScan: This is a new option added in Acrobat 9. Use this option, if you want to keep the look of the document same but still want to convert the scanned image to text so as to reduce the file size. Rick Borstein has more details on Clearscan in his blog posting here.
  

Once the preset is saved after making changes to OCR option, place the paper in the scanner's feeder, click on same preset from Create Taskbar (Create >> PDF from Scanner >>...), and you will get a scanned PDF which is fully searchable.

To verify if the OCR is successfully completed, and document is indeed searchable, you can try selecting text using the select tool in Acrobat. If text is selected, then OCR has completed successfully. You can also copy this text and paste it in other applications like Word, Notepad etc.

Tip for improving OCR accuracy during Scanning process

You can improve OCR accuracy while scanning by modifying the compression options under Optimization frame either in Configure Presets dialog or in Custom Scan dialog.

On clicking Options, you will get Optimization Options dialog. Change to Custom Settings, and under compression frame, choose Lossless compression for Color/GrayScale and CCITT Group 4 for Monochrome images. This will ensure that OCR gets to work on highest quality image thereby improving the OCR accuracy. This is especially useful in low resolution scans (<=150DPI).

If you do not want to use presets for scanning, and instead want to use your own scanning settings, you can also use Custom Scan option (Create >> PDF from Scanner >> Custom Scan), which will prompt you to provide all scan related settings and then proceed for scanning. Also note that this is the only option available for Scanning if you are using Acrobat Pro on a Mac (Create >> PDF from Scanner).

Check the OCR option here if you want your scanned PDF to be searchable.

OCR on already scanned PDFs/Images

If you already have a scanned PDF that you received from someone, and you want to make it searchable, you can do so by going to Document >> OCR Text Recognition >> Recognize Text using OCR.

Choose the pages that you want to OCR, click on edit to choose Primary OCR Language, and PDF Output Style, and then click OK and OK again to initiate the OCR process for currently open Scanned PDF.

Another Tip for Improving OCR accuracy if you have a scanned image in TIFF format

If you have a scanned image in an image format like TIFF, you can make this image searchable in Acrobat by first converting it into PDF and then running OCR. Before you convert this image into PDF, you should change the compression options that are used in converting this image to PDF. To do that, go to Edit > Preferences > Convert to PDF, select the image format (e.g. TIFF), click on Edit settings and then change the image compression options here.

• For Monochrome, change the compression to either JBIG2 (Lossless) or CCITT G4
• For Grayscale/Color, change to ZIP which is a lossless compression format.

After changing the compression settings for the image format, you can convert the image to PDF, either by dragging this image and dropping onto Acrobat or using Create PDF from File and then run OCR from Document menu as explained above.

This is a broad overview of how you can make your scanned documents searchable using Acrobat. Let us know if you have any questions.

Aman Deep Nagpal, Acrobat Product Manager

We currently get nearly three million visitors to this page each month from people who are looking for the Flash Player for their iPhone or iPod touch, many of whom were leaving the download center believing that either (1) Adobe didn't want Flash on the iPhone or (2) the iPhone was somehow technically incapable of playing Flash content. Since neither of those is true, we are now explaining to those visitors that Apple holds the key in getting Flash Player onto the device.

The language was compact and to the point both because of the constraints of the page (this is displayed only to the iPhone) and the audience (consumers who are looking for the Flash Player aren't interested in reading a long piece of text). I also want to mention that Apple and Adobe have a strong partnership in many areas, but, Apple has not provided the level of support required to deliver the Flash Player to the iPhone. Nearly every other industry player is working with us in getting Flash technology onto their devices and platforms. These partners are making critical, high value investments in delivering Flash Player on mobile devices, on netbooks, and in the digital home.

To be clear, Adobe wants to make Flash Player 10.1 available for the iPhone and with Apple's support we're ready to do the work -- just as we and our partners are doing for Blackberry, Palm webOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and many other platforms to give users uncompromised access to the web.

A key piece of successful rich internet application (RIA) design  is ensuring that the application meets the needs of the end user.  User experience design therefore plays a key role in any RIA implementation.

George Neill is a member of Adobe's Technology and Experience Innovation group.  With over 20 years experience as a designer he has an extensive understanding of users' needs and behaviours, and a deep insight into how that understanding can be applied pragmatically to create innovative experiences that achieve clients' business objectives.

This months talk at the Enterprise RIA User Group is on the 18th November and will be given by George.  You can register for the free talk here.

Hope to see you there...

Ben Forsaith

Also be sure to check out the newly released Day 4 of our popular video training, Flex 4 beta in a Week, to learn about extending events, accessing remote data, and creating a typed data model.

Apart from the data-centric capabilities, Flex 4 support, and other great features, Flash Builder 4 beta 2 introduces some new and updated features to improve developer productivity and make writing MXML and ActionScript code faster and easier. Read the article by Jason San Jose, Developer productivity improvements in Flash Builder 4 beta, to learn about the Call Hierarchy view, enhanced states syntax support, changes to code hints, and editor improvements.

Developers interested in sharing open standards and best practices for video player applications built on the Adobe Flash Platform may wish to check out the Open Source Media Framework and then follow R Blank's tutorial presentations, Building video players in Flash with the OSMF, to get a feeling for how the OSMF helps standardize the way that media players—particularly video players—are built on the Flash Platform.

Utterly tangential: In March, Stephen Colbert said, "I'm coming in like a lion, and going out like a lamb-fed lion."

If you've been visiting the ColdFusion Help pages lately, the version pods should have caught your eye.  To begin with, let me explain what a version pod is - a version pod looks like a sticky note and contains links to other versions of the documentation.

A version pod lets you quickly navigate between different versions of the documentation - all from within the Help system. For example, if you're in the ColdFusion 8 Help system, the version pod will offer you links to ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion 7 documentation.

If you find the pod distracting, you can simply hide the pod - by clicking the little triangle highlighted below, and, presto, the pod's hidden! Clicking the triangle again, unhides the pod.

• Open ParadiseIsland.indd
• Locate the image files in Bridge, select them all, and drag and drop them onto the InDesign document. (If you hold down both the Command and Shift key while doing so, you'll be able to place them in a grid. At this point it is important that we see them all, and that they all have the same size.
  

• Transform each of your images into a button by applying a [Normal] state from within the Buttons Panel (Window > Interactive > Buttons). Name the buttons: Image1, Image2, Image3, etc...
  
• Select all and copy paste them somewhere else on the page and rename the buttons: ButtonImage1, ButtonImage2, ButtonImage3, etc...
• You can now also add cool rollover effects. What I did here is set the [Normal] state of the ButtonImage instances to 50% transparent, and [Rollover] to 100%.
  
• This is a good time to use the Event "On Rollover", so that when your user will move the cursor over the button (with no need to click) the main images will change. Apply this Event to all ButtonImage instances.
• For Action choose "Show/Hide Buttons" and for each ButtonImage choose to Show the Image that should be showing, and Hide all others.
  
• Resize the button images to the size need for them to act as buttons.
• Now you can enlarge all Image instances and place them so that they exactly overlap each other (the top most image will be the first image your users will see when opening the PDF or the SWF file).

3. Getting to know the Flash export dialog

• Choose File > Export and select SWF as your format.
  
• The only thing that we want to be careful about is that "Include Buttons" is selected. Otherwise all of our effort would have been in vain.
• If you also select "View SWF after Exporting" your browser will open and show you how your web gallery works.
• This is a very simple procedure, which will unleash far more creative designs than the one demonstrated here. Personally, I used this technique to create rollover tool tips in some of my publications where the user would hover over a text and other information would appear in a separate box, which allowed me to put much more information onto the page itself.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.

ColdFusion Functions.htm

I ran the script again the other day (after some updating since screen scraping scripts always break), and here's what I found:

Some things to keep in mind about this data:

• I was only able to test applications that were listed on the Adobe AIR Marketplace. These stats don't include the (hundreds? thousands?) of AIR applications not listed.
• I was only able to test applications that have direct links to their AIR files on the Marketplace. 121 applications only have links to their sites rather than links to their AIR apps, so that's a fair percentage of missing data (16.7%). Maybe I'll fix that limitation in the future.
• I don't have any statistic on "hybrid" apps, or applications that load a SWF as their main content, but then load HTML/JS into an HTMLLoader (or the opposite -- HTML apps that load Flash content). I've personally written several applications that combine Flash/ActionScript/HTML/JS, and I suspect a substantial portion of the SWF-based applications on the Marketplace are hybrids, as well.

I plan on updating the script to look for any HTML/JS files in the application bundle in order to give an indication of the number of hybrid applications out there. I'll post the results when I have them.

So my questions for you guys are:

• Any other statistics you'd like to see?
• Anything we can do for the HTML/JS/Ajax developers out there to get more HTML-based apps?
• Will any of the new HTML features in AIR 2 give HTML devs what they need to build on AIR?

The Russell Brown Show - Halloween Monster Make-Up Kit

In this special "Halloween" edition of the Russell Brown Show, you'll learn how to turn people into monsters. Russell even gives you the files you'll need to do it!

MAX 2009 Design - Photoshop CS4: Essential Techniques and Killer Tips with Terry White

Learn the must-have skills for working with Photoshop and digital images, including color correction, masking, image restoration, and retouching. Terry White will answer the most frequently asked questions on working with digital images and more.

Visual Design - Photoshop CS4: The Essentials of Image Enhancement for Web and Flash Designers

Learn essential skills for using Photoshop CS4 to produce images that look great and load fast for the web and for use with Flash Professional. We'll reveal hidden optimization tools and quick techniques for making images look their best, and more.

Visual Design - Edit Quicker and Faster in Illustrator CS4

Join Design Evangelist Rufus Deuchler as he shows how you can save time when applying and editing fills, strokes, effects and more with the new Appearance panel in Illustrator CS4.

• To load a video, double click the player's chrome.
• To switch between windowed mode and full-screen, press the 'f' key.
  
• To quit the player, bring it into focus and press ALT-F4 on Windows, or CMD-Q on OS-X.
  
• The player doesn't scrub: the progress bar merely indicates the play-head's position.

• Play button maps to IPlayable,
• Pause button maps to IPausibe,
• Position bar maps to ITemporal,
  
• Volume up / Volume down maps to IAudible.
  

Acrobat ConnectPro User Community is a great community site which is free and a place where you'll find a wealth of resources that will help you learn the technology and connect with others who are passionate about the Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional Suite. The site is broken down in five main sections: Community, News, Events, Learning Center, and Forums. The Community section offers User Group management, connecting you to others in your geographic or industry, a Member Directory, Community Gallery where you'll find Adobe Presenter Presentations, recorded Connect Pro meetings, Partner Showcase, and Spread the Word. The News section offers the ability to Subscribe to the News RSS Feed to any News and/or Blogs that are happening within the community. The Events section alerts anyone to upcoming Meetings, Seminars, and lists an archive of past records of key meetings and presentations. In addition, the Learning Center contains tutorials, topic of the month, Connect Pro Extensions, and Additional Resources. Finally, the Forum section allows for the ability to community members to post important information, announcements and events. I started Connect Fridays for the Adobe Education Leadership Program and now have moved over to manage a monthly ConnectPro User Group meeting for K-12. Please join me every third Thursday of each month, 11:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time to learn about the ConnectPro suite. Everyone is invited! Meeting URL: http://www.connectusers.com/groups/k12/events/389/.

My Connect Card

There are some good demos/videos listed below:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/livecycle_dataservices3/videos/

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2009-develop/modeldriven-development-using-flash-builder-4-and-livecycle-data-services-es/

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2009-develop/highperformance-realtime-messaging-with-flex-and-livecycle-data-services/

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2009-develop/integrating-spring-with-blazeds-and-livecycle-data-services/

Jim Tierney is from plug-in maker Digital Anarchy. He will demo a range of their products, such as Primatte Chromakey, Knoll Light Factory, Backdrop Designer, Texture Anarchy, 3D Invigorator and more.

Jim McCrary was Chief Photographer at the A&M Records photo studio for many years. He shot over 300 album covers along with related publicity and advertising work. Among his many classic album covers are Carole King's "Tapestry", Lee Michaels' "5th" and Joe Cocker's "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and many others. From 1974 through 1990 he operated his own studio on La Brea Avenue in Hollywood, specializing in technically difficult photographic still-life problems, as well as difficult personality portraits.

The meeting will start at 7:00, in the Park Conference Room of Adobe Systems' East Tower, 321 Park Avenue, San Jose. To park underneath the Adobe building, use the Almaden Avenue entrance, under the East Tower. If the security guard at the parking entrance asks for an Adobe contact, use Bryan O'Neil Hughes's name. Please RSVP to Dan Clark. See you there.

Photoshop Lightroom,BETA,Adobe Labs

We here at the Adobe Education Technologies blog like to think of ourselves as amateur photographers (except for Rick—who is a real photographer, but the rest of us try to keep up). We are all VERY excited bout the next release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom—version 3 BETA, and you can see it yourself on Adobe labs: (link to the Labs Lightroom 3 BETA site)

Some of the new features included for you to play with in the Lightroom 3 beta are:

• Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image libraries
• State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
• Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
• Portable sharable slide shows—with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slide shows as videos and include audio
• Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
• Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you want
• New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
• More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta

Read on for more resources and information about the next release of one of our Adobe favorites:

For more details on the new functionality in the Lightroom 3 beta:

• Watch 3 short videos about what is new in the beta: (link to the videos)
• Read the blog post from the Lightroom team to learn about the vision behind the features included in the beta: (link to the Lightroom team's blog posting)
• Find helpful resources on the new NAPP Lightroom 3 beta Resource Center: (link to NAPP site)
• Read the release notes (PDF) for detailed information: (link to the release notes)

So, interested? Try it out now: (link to download the beta)

Oh, and I probably don't have to mention this, but I will anyway. The software id still in BETA, so please don't use it with real work. Test it with copies. Please.

Adobe Contribute

Contribute CS3 and CS4 are compatible with Windows 7. For details please check the Creative Suite FAQ for full Windows 7 at http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/faq/

    Adobe Contribute  Contribute Publishing Server

To clear the change bars in a book, follow these steps:

• Select Format > Document > Change Bars.
• Select Clear All Change Bars | (No Undo) and then click Set.
  

1. Open the book file and open all files in it.
2. Select all files in the book. Now, in the book view, click Edit > Find | Any Text Inset.
3. Double-click the first text inset that you find and click Convert to Text.
4. Repeat step 3 for all text insets in the book.
   

FrameMaker,XML,Technical Communication,Topic,PDF,DITA,Publishing,UI,Review

Dear members of the TCS family

Many of you write to me about getting more information on the XML power present in TCS2.

This year I presented at the summer XML conference and talked about topic based documentation using TCS2 in XML way. This complete solution lets you author, review and manage content effectively whether you want to work in an unstructured fashion or want to work with XML or standards based on XML like DITA.

My presentation below gives more details on these workflows.

If you wish to download the presentation along with attachments, please visit the link https://share.acrobat.com/adc/document.do?docid=3dc8f616-2d88-4ea8-8c77-cf69da5b6a7f

Amit Agarwal from our engineering recently conducted an e-seminar on what's new in FrameMaker. It focuses on key enhancements like the user friendly new UI, DITA, Hierarchical books and Review workflow.

I recommend that you watch this recording which is available to you at http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p61231065/

I am really excited to meet all of you who'll be present at Tekom. Even if you are not, please be in touch.

Take care

- Mahesh

Despite that, I'm hearing from more and more law firms that would like to use Acrobat to capture, review and produce email as part of a case.

A great solution is an Email Portfolio. Acrobat can convert an entire folder of email in Outlook or Lotus Notes into well-organized PDF Portfolio which lets you sort, filter and search.

The Outlook integration provide by Acrobat offers the following:

1. Convert individual email messages to PDF
2. Adds attachments in their native format into the PDF of the message
3. Combines all of the converted messages into a PDF Portfolio
4. Adds a full-text index to the PDF Portfolio

Acrobat's email archiving feature is intended to be a personal email archiving tool, however with a bit of tweaking (and perhaps a plug-in like Evermap's AutoPortfolio), you may be able to use it successfully to manage small EDD productions.

New to Email Portfolios? Learn about the basics of Email Portfolios by watching this short movie.

In this article, I'll discuss:

1. How to create a new User Account for production
2. Setting up a "null user" in Outlook
3. How to load PST and MSG files into Outlook
4. How to convert email messages into an PDF Email Portfolio
5. Reviewing documents in the Email Portfolio
6. Producing Documents from the Email Portfolio
7. Converting an Email Portfolio to a PDF Binder
8. How to use Evermap's AutoPortfolio tool to move data to a litigation support product like Summation or Concordance

Getting Started

First, you will need to make sure that Acrobat 9 is installed on your system. Out of the box, Acrobat installs for all users on the computer.

Next, make sure you have access to the PST or MSG files via a network, thumb drive or other method.

Creating a new User Account
I recommend that you create a new user account before processing email. This way, you avoid mixing discovery data with your own personal messages. This might help avoid chain of custody issues.

You will need administrator privileges to create a new account.

1. Go to Start—> Control Panel
2. Double-click User Accounts to create a new Administrator account.
   
3. Create a new Administrator account.
4. Choose Start—> Log Off, then log into the new account you created.
5. Copy the email data files (PSTs, MSGs) to the desktop (or other convenient location) in the new user account

Setting up Outlook

After logging into the new User Account you set up above, you will need to configure Outlook as a "null" user.

The steps below are for Outlook 2007, but it should be similar for earlier versions of Outlook.

1. Start Outlook.
   The New Account Wizard will open. Click the Next button.
   
   
2. On the Account Configuration screen, click the No radio button and do not configure an account.
   
   
3. On the Cancel Configuration screen, check the box labeled "Continue with no email support">
   
   
   
4. Outlook will ask you for a Name and Initials. I suggest you add the case name and abbreviated initials for the case, although neither will affect conversion.
   
   
   

Loading PSTs and Message Files

You will need to load the messages into Outlook for conversion.

You may receive Outlook email in different types of container files:

To load a PST

1. Choose File—> Open—>Outlook Data File . . .
2. A new Personal Files folder will appear in Outlook
   
   

To load MSG files

Multiple MSG files can simply be dragged from the desktop into a folder in Outlook.

Simply select all the MSG files inside a folder on the the desktop and drag them into an Outlook folder:

Unfortunately, you cannot drag folders from the desktop into Outlook.

If preserving the folder structure is important to you, you might try a utility which converts nested folders of MSGs into a PST such as MSG 2 PST ($14.95 US).

Converting Email

Once you've loaded the email into Outlook, it is simple to convert it to PDF:

1. Select the Folder you wish to convert in Outlook
2. From Outlook, choose Adobe PDF—>  Convert Selected Folders—>  Create New PDF . . .
   
   
3. The Conversion Window opens. Check off any additional folders you wish to convert:
   
   
4. Click OK.
5. Save file to the local hard drive.

Conversion Speed and Size

I tested the conversion of a large PST containing multiple folders. I used Outlook 2007 on a Intel Quad 6700 desktop with 2GB RAM on Windows XP SP3.

Here are the results:

Acrobat has a limit of 10,000 emails per conversion. If you have larger productions, you will need choose smaller subsets of files for conversion.

After the conversion, Acrobat will open the PDF Portfolio. Acrobat can take a 2-6 minutes to completely load the PDF Portfolio.

Watch the upper right corner to check the total number of emails loaded:

Working with the Email Portfolio

If you have never worked with Email Portfolios, I'd suggest watching my Email Archiving movie first.

After you watch the movie, you'll have a good idea how to sort through and work with a PDF Portfolio.

I will limit my observations here to how you might review items in a PDF Portfolio How you will use these features will vary whether you are:

1. Producing your client's email to the other side
2. Analyzing discovery data sent to you from the other side

Folder Views

A PDF Portfolio can be viewed in a flattened or foldered view. The default view is the Flattened view showing all emails from all folders and recipients.

You can change the Folder view by clicking on the appropriate icon at the top of the Portfolio window:

Filtering

Applying Filters to your data allows you to narrow down email messages to a smaller subset.

Press the Filter button at the top of the Portfolio window

Here's what you can do:

• Choose a field to filter
• Choose operators
  • Contains
  • Does not contain
  • Starts with
  • Ends with
  • is
  • is not
  • is blank
  • is not blank
• Add Search text

You can have multiple levels of filters, too. So, for example, you could find:

All messages from John Smith where the subject line contained "Jill" or "Bob" or "Ice Cream".

Marking Files

Whether you are reviewing email from the other side, or reviewing for privilege, you will need a way to mark the key files that are important. After you have reviewed all of the files, it is easy to filter to your key documents.

You can add a new column to the Email Portfolio to do this.

Here's how:

1. From the top of the Portfolio window, click the Modify—> Edit Portfolio
   
   
2. From the panel on the right, click Specify File Details
   A) Insert your cursor to name the new column
   B) Choose the type of column (Text, Number or Date)
   
   
3. You can change the order of the columns, by click arrows at the bottom of the Edit Portfolio panel:
   
   
4. From the top of the Portfolio window, click the Modify—> Edit Portfolio to turn off editing mode

Adding Text to the Column

1. Switch to List View by clicking the List View button
   
   
2. Insert your cursor in the field to type text
   
   

What about email attachments?

Acrobat does not convert email attachments to PDF. Instead, they are embedded in each PDF email message in their original format.

You'll need to review them separately in the native application.

To open an attachment, click the attachment link within the message:

You can also open the Attachments panel of the message to view the attachments or save them out.

Selecting and Producing Documents from the Email Portfolio

After reviewing the email in the portfolio, you may wish to create a subset that includes only the key messages that are of interest in the case.

There's two ways to do this:

1. Delete unwanted email from the Portfolio
   - Select a message (s)
   - Hit the DELETE key
2. Save target files from the Portfolio
   This copies the email message PDFs outside of the Portfolio to a location of your choosing
   - Select a message (s)
   - Choose File—> Save Files from Portfolio

In either case, you can sort based on on any column, including ones you create.

Converting an Email Portfolio to a PDF Binder

A PDF Binder is a single PDF document with multiple pages and (optionally) attachments. You may wish to produce documents from the Portfolio as a "flat" PDF instead of as a Portfolio.

After this conversion, all of the attachments will be available in the Attachments panel of the document and the links to them will still operate.

Acrobat can convert Email Portfolios to PDF Binders by following these steps.

1. Close the email Portfolio if it is already open
2. Choose File—>  Combine—>  Merge Files into a single PDF . . .
3. Click the Add Files button at top of the window
   
   
4. Locate the email Portfolio you wish to convert
5. You'll see the warning below. Click OK
6. Click the Combine button

Unfortunately, Acrobat can only sort by File Name in this window. A workaround is to Bates Number the emails in the Portfolio in date order before conversion.

How to use Evermap's AutoPortfolio tool to move data to a litigation support product like Summation or Concordance

Acrobat does not include tools to export to litigation support systems like Summation or Concordance or convert attachments.

Fortunately, there is an Acrobat plug-in, Evermap's AutoPortfolio ($199, free trial version available), which can help fill the gap.

AutoPortfolio can do the following:

• Flatten all individual messages and attachments into a single PDF document
• Extract attachments
• Convert attachments to PDF (from Word, Excel, etc.)
• Export portfolio lists to a spreadsheet
• Create TIFF/TEXT combos for litigation support systems
• Create load files for litigation support systems
• De-duping

Installation

AutoPortfolio takes less than sixty seconds to install. Just quit Acrobat if it is open and double-click the installer.

Testing Methodology

I used an Intel Quad 6700 desktop with 2GB RAM for testing and a large PST file with 3995 items and 1090 attachments. Attachments were of many types including .msg, .doc, .xls, .ppt, .dwg, .catia5, .fdf, .txt and others.

I probably used a wider variety of attachment formats than most people.

How it Works

AutoPortfolio adds a Plug-Ins menu to Acrobat. From the menu, you can access the AutoPortfolio functions:

I experimented with several options.

The Extract Files from Portfolio function pulls all embedded attachments out of the email portfolio and optionally converts them to PDF. This is a simple process, just choose a destination folder and click OK.

My PDF Portfolio had 1090 attachments total, but the program could not convert 99 of them to PDF. Most of the failed files were embedded .msg files. It's easy enough to import those into an Outlook folder for conversion.

Convert Portfolios into Regular PDF converts all of the email messages to a single, flat PDF with a lot of pages.

A conversion dialog opens which offers several options. You can even choose to convert more than one Portfolio and you can optionally choose to:

1. Extract attachments
2. Convert attachments to PDF

A Sorting window allows you to choose individual messages to convert or sort on any column. This would be a useful way to sort on a column you might have created, too.

I tried this option with and without converting attachments.

The version without attachments was over 6000 pages and reasonable in size (260 MB).

Results

Since Acrobat is doing the work, you will get better performance on a faster machine with more RAM.

Files which didn't Convert

As noted above, 99 files did not convert. AutoPortfolio placed these in a folder on my hard drive.

Issues

AutoPortfolio did stop on some occasions when it did not know what to do:

• Video Files
  Acrobat stopped to ask how I would like video files to be converted. Since AutoPortfolio uses Acrobat's standard conversion routines, it is not possible to change this.
• 3D and AutoCAD Files
  Initially, Acrobat stopped to ask me about converting these files. I was able to change the Convert To options in Acrobat Preferences for DWG and 3D files so that this did not occur again.
• Progress Notification
  Although AutoPortfolio offers progress bars when converting attachments, there isn't really any way to know how long the entire process is going to take and at times, I wasn't sure if the machine had hung. Fortunately, I quick look at the my hard disk indicator light confirmed that items were still processing.

Conclusions

I suggest you try the techniques outlined above on your own PST before diving into an EDD project on deadline. This way, you'll know how the process works and how long it might take you to review documents. If you are a paralegal, you'll need to know how to present the workflow to the attorney(s) you service.

Processing email in discovery is probably for more advanced users of Acrobat. You'll need some technical knowledge and a fast machine.

If your production is small in size, you may find some of the techniques outlined here to be helpful. If all of this scares you, you may want to hire a professional service provider to process email for you.