Captivate Getting Started: Create awesome demo videos in a Flash!

April 12th, 2011 Posted in Adobe Captivate, Announcements, How to, Technical Communication Suite
1 Comment »

If you haven’t already caught the wind, Adobe Captivate Getting Started is a multimedia series of articles, tutorials, and instructional videos that put you on the path to accelerated Cp learning. The series includes:

  • 100 short articles/tutorials that would help you get started with Adobe Captivate features
  • 30+ videos and demonstration that explain the procedures to perform the tasks

Yup, we didn’t mistype those numbers — 100 and 30!

The Getting Started series is workflow-based. You, the user, are guided step-by-step to create and publish projects using Cp. The workflows are categorized as Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, keeping in mind users at different skill levels.

For example, a Basic user is presented with a simple workflow with four quick steps to create a sample demo. An Advanced user begins a notch higher — learning how to design and set-up a video-publication process, and then creating final, professional-quality video output.

Wondering where to begin? Use the table below to determine your existing expertise level and jump right in.

Task Basic Intermediate Advanced
Design

Create storyboards and standardize the look and feel for your projects using templates. Create standard styles for objects that you use in your projects.
Set up

Set up the content development environment by customizing the workspace. Specify the preferences for your projects, such as the publishing location, reporting options for quiz results, and default recording settings.
Create Learn how to record your actions in an application or a screen area.
 

Learn how to create different types of projects.

Create projects by leveraging the existing content, such as MS PPTs or images, or by creating new content and recording your demonstrations.
Edit and Enhance Learn how to add text captions and adjust the timing of these text captions. 

Learn how to choose the preferences for your projects. Also, how to add more slides and objects, and edit them in your project.

Engage your users with interactive objects and widgets, videos, and narration.
Enrich Learn how to make the objects and slides interesting by adding effects and transitions to them. 

 Make your projects interesting and engaging by adding effects to objects and slides. 
Aggregate Integrate multiple courses into a single course using Aggregator. 
Preview Learn how to preview your project before publishing it. 

 Learn how to preview a project or only the required slides during content development. 

 Know how your project looks when it is played to your users. Preview specific slides to refine and tweak interactivity and branching of slides. 
Share Colloborate with your co-workers and reviewers by sharing your projects. 

 Share your projects with other co-workers and reviewers. 
Publish Learn how to publish your project as a SWF file. 

 Learn how to publish your projects in different formats such as SWF, EXE, APP, and F4V. Also, learn how to host your projects on Adobe Connect Pro or an FTP server. 

 Publish your projects in different formats, such as SWF, EXE, APP, and F4V. Learn how to host your projects on an LMS, Adobe Connect Pro, or FTP servers. 

So, get started right away!

If you know other resources that will help, add the links as comments below.

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Join me at STC Summit 2011

April 1st, 2011 Posted in Announcements, Community Help, Downloads, Events, General, Technical Communication
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I’m excited to share that I’ll be part of STC Summit 2011, presenting the following two sessions:

A session summary for the second session is available from the STC Learning Center. If you want to read it right away, download the PDF from this URL.

I look forward to meeting you at the Summit!

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Checked out Adobe Forms Central yet?

March 16th, 2011 Posted in Announcements
3 Comments »

If you haven’t done that already, take a look at the new Adobe Forms Central web application that lets you easily create, distribute, and analyze online forms.

Interested in knowing more? Watch the demo below.

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The Adobe TV Community Translation project

February 2nd, 2011 Posted in Announcements, Community Help
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Adobe has just launched an innovative project, Adobe TV Community Translation. The project, as described on the Adobe TV site, extends the reach of Adobe TV content by enabling volunteer translators worldwide to translate videos into any language. I have already signed up as a translator for Hindi.

Nandini Gupta, my colleague, has shared information about the project at the Technical Communication Suite blog.  I am including the details verbatim below:

Participants in the program use a simple, intuitive interface provided by our partner dotSUB to translate the closed-captioning titles line-by-line. The translation becomes available as a closed-captioning track on the video, and also appears as a searchable, interactive transcript alongside the video.

The Community Translation page on the Adobe TV site has detailed information about the project, including translator resources such as guidelines and FAQ. For your quick understanding, here are some excerpts from the FAQ.

Who can translate for Adobe TV?

Anyone with fluency in English and at least one other language can apply to be a translator. To apply to be a translator, visit the Become a Translator page and fill out the questionnaire. Once you are approved, you will receive instructions on how to set up an account with our technology partner dotSUB. You will perform all your translations through dotSUB’s website.

Will you get paid to translate Adobe TV content?

Adobe TV translators are volunteers, so there is no payment for completing translations. For every minute of video you translate, you will earn 50 Adobe TV points. Translators with at least 2,000 Adobe TV points get their profile featured in the Translator Showcase, which will launch soon.

How much time do you get to complete your translation?

When you choose a video to translate, you will have 30 days to complete the translation.

When I finish my translation, will it automatically be posted?

All translated episodes go through a review process before they can be posted to the site.

So if you’re aware that an audience in a language that you know can benefit from translated videos, sign up and get going. There have already been 154 translations completed, in 25 different languages. A list of translated videos is available at http://tv.adobe.com/translations/watch.

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Technical Communication Suite 3 is here!

January 12th, 2011 Posted in Announcements, Technical Communication Suite
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Technical Communication Suite 3 has now gone live!

Some of the new features include:

  • Robust single sourcing and publishing to multiple devices including ePub from both FrameMaker and RoboHelp environments (TCS special versions).
  • Seamless review and collaboration.
  • Improved cross-product integration.
  • Complete suite supports scripting, thus strengthening automation workflows.
  • Improved search capability in the outputs.
  • Ability to directly link DITA files.
  • Rich multi-media support
  • And More…

For updates and helpful information, stay tuned to this blog! Visit the product page here on Adobe.com.

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RoboHelp 9 and RoboHelp Server 9 are now out!

January 11th, 2011 Posted in Announcements, Technical Communication Suite
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RoboHelp 9 and RoboHelp Server 9 are now out! Excerpt from the introductory blog post by Ankur Jain, Product Manager – RoboHelp:

With version 9, we are taking RoboHelp and RoboHelp Server to the next level by helping our customers incorporate important industry trends taking place today into their TechComm workflows. Trends such as user-generated content, community-based user assistance, Rich Internet Applications, content personalization, single-sourcing, multidevice publishing, rich media, the Cloud and many others.

Read the complete blog post here.

And yes, if you aren’t already aware, Technical Communication Suite 3, comprising five of Adobe’s industry-leading technical communication products, is now available as well.

Stay tuned for more updates!

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Sneak peeks: FrameMaker 10 and RoboHelp 9

December 1st, 2010 Posted in Announcements, Technical Communication Suite
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Sneak peeks into Adobe FrameMaker 10 and Adobe RoboHelp 9 are now out, courtesy RJ Jacquez, Adobe’s senior product evangelist.

  • First Adobe RoboHelp 9 Sneak Peek: SharePoint & Cloud-based Reviews – visit this URL
  • First Adobe FrameMaker 10 Sneak Peek: Rich Media – visit this URL
  • [Edit: December 2, 2010] Second Adobe RoboHelp 9 Sneak Peek: How RoboHelp lets you publish directly to a Microsoft SharePoint workspace – visit this URL and scroll to the bottom (same URL as the first RoboHelp 9 sneak peek)

Hope you enjoy watching these videos. I’ll share more information about these exciting releases in the weeks to come. Stay tuned!

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Quick Tweets, Big Prizes!

November 10th, 2010 Posted in Announcements, Community Help, Technical Communication Suite
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An opportunity for you to win the full license copy of Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2.5!

Here’s how:

  1. Log on to your Twitter account (if you don’t have one, create one in a jiffy, and it’s free).
  2. Send prize-worthy tweets with hashtags #tcscontest #stcindia:
  • Best practices for FrameMaker 9, RoboHelp 8, and TCS 2.x
  • Top reasons to buy or upgrade to FrameMaker 9, RoboHelp 8, and TCS 2.x

The contest closes at 4 PM on November 12, 2010. Keep tweeting till then!

What/who is prize-worthy?

  • The best tweet – Decided by judges at Adobe
  • Most popular tweet – The most retweeted best practice or buy/upgrade reason
  • Most prolific tweeter – The person with the maximum number of valid tweets

The results will be announced at the STC India Conference in New Delhi on 13 November, 2010, and the prizes will be awarded to the winner(s) by Naresh Gupta, MD, Adobe India.

Questions? Tweet them to me at @samarthav.

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Tutorial article on designing interactive PDF forms

November 4th, 2010 Posted in Acrobat, Announcements, How to, LiveCycle, Technical Communication Suite
26 Comments »

In 2010, I contributed a tutorial article on designing interactive PDF forms using Adobe Acrobat/LiveCycle Designer to the IEEE Professional Communication Society Newsletter. Later, STC’s Intercom published a version of this article revised for Acrobat X.

Read the Intercom version of the article at this link.

As always, your feedback is welcome.

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LiveCycle ES2 Service Pack 2 available for download!

October 12th, 2010 Posted in Announcements, Downloads, General, LiveCycle
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We recently released LiveCycle ES2 Service Pack 2 (SP2), a significant update to the LiveCycle server components. You can access the download page here. To download the service pack, you’ll need to log in using your Adobe ID and agree with the EULA.

The updated LiveCycle ES2 documentation is now live at the LiveCycle Developer Center. The Service Pack 2 ReadMe (PDF) describes how you can install the service pack. The ReadMe also lists the many customer-reported issues that were addressed in this service pack.

To review the Service Pack 2 release notes for LiveCycle components, see this page. A related announcement on the LiveCycle Product Blog is here.

Follow this blog to catch more updates and announcements from the LiveCycle documentation team.

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