We brought out the camera crew again for Lavacon 2013 held a few weeks ago in Portland, Oregon. We interviewed over 20 thought leaders, and captured some highly original insights, suggestions and mini-case histories. Read on and view these mini-videos to see what our first collection of thought leaders have to say. Alyssa Fox: Adjust read more…
In this blog, we explore a recent “guest video” created for us by certified Adobe expert, Matt Sullivan @mattrsullivan. This brief video explores the simple steps to create an entire RoboHelp 10 topic from a Captivate video. Watch this: you can do it too! RoboHelp 10: Making a topic from imported Captivate demo RoboHelp 10 read more…
RoboHelp 10 has many exciting features that add “sizzle” to your content, like DHTML special effects for expanding inline content. One of the most dynamic things you can do to your RoboHelp projects is to add software simulations or videos created with Captivate. In this “guest video” blog, certified Adobe expert Matt Sullivan (@mattrsullivan) shows read more…
Our guest, Neil Perlin, returns to complete his 3-part series of blogs summarizing his 3-part series on advanced aspects of RoboHelp. _____________________________________________ Welcome to the last of three posts covering questions that I often hear about RoboHelp. In this post, I’ll look at structured, topic-based authoring – what it is, whether and how RoboHelp supports read more…
Overview of a new solution with the goal of reducing human performance issues during execution of procedures and tasks related to maintenance, operations, servicing etc. This post also talks about how to participate in the beta program of this solution
First of all, a big thanks to all those, who participated in The Adobe Tech Comm Content Strategy & Tool Survey, which ended on 4th Oct 2013. We got an overwhelming response and your inputs helped us understand the current state of the tech comm industry and provided a number of insights, some of which read more…
Regular webinar guest Neus Lorenzo provides us with a highly thought provoking guest blog on how our swiftly changing, connected world is influencing both consumer perception of our brand, and the concept of “ethics” in business. Read on to benefit from this thoughtful, highly original essay. ________________________________________________ Some initial questions: Would you change your car read more…
In this guest blog, Certified Adobe Expert and Trainer, Kevin Siegel of ICONLOGIC, covers a powerful technique when publishing from FrameMaker through RoboHelp via Tech Comm Suite 4 (TCS4). In this blog, Kevin touches on many principles he shared in one episode of his 3-part webinar series, “2) Explore TCS4: FrameMaker to RoboHelp to eBook… read more…
In this guest blog, Certified Adobe Expert and Trainer, Kevin Siegel of ICONLOGIC, covers a powerful technique when publishing from FrameMaker through RoboHelp via Tech Comm Suite 4 (TCS4). In this blog, Kevin touches on many principles he shared in one episode of his 3-part webinar series, “2) Explore TCS4: FrameMaker to RoboHelp to eBook… read more…
Even FrameMaker veterans sometimes forget simple little tricks than can save a tremendous amount of time. If you frequently convert Word documents into FrameMaker, or import/paste copy from HTML and other sources, you probably find dozens of stray, blank paragraphs. Blank lines can wreck havoc with page breaks; you should always control space around paragraphs read more…
Overview of a new solution with the goal of reducing human performance issues during execution of procedures and tasks related to maintenance, operations, servicing etc. This post also talks about how to participate in the beta program of this solution
Our guest, Neil Perlin, returns to continue his series of blogs summarizing his current 3-part series on advanced aspects of RoboHelp. _____________________________________________ Welcome to the second of three posts covering questions that I often hear about RoboHelp. In this post, I’ll look at single sourcing – does RoboHelp support it and with what features. As read more…
Help maven, Neil Perlin, is delivering a 3-part webinar series on Advanced RoboHelp. This is the first of 3 guest blogs by Neil that summarize his guest webinars. This blog covers highlights of “Setting the Help Hooks: Context Sensitive Help Using RoboHelp.” If you click on the webinar title in the previous sentence, you will read more…
In this blog, our guest, Mark Baker, shares several revealing guidelines from his book “Every Page is Page One.” Now that so many of you are publishing to multiple screens via RoboHelp and Tech Comm Suite, it is time to rethink how we author topics or sections so that any portion of our project may read more…
This blog in our series of “how to” videos with FrameMaker covers two simple, but often overlooked capabilities. The first video covers how to face the challenge in which your document is peppered with a specific font override you wish to replace with a character tag. The second video featured couples a very old keyboard read more…
FrameMaker 11 can save you a great deal of time and money over seemingly “less expensive” XML solutions, due to the reduced time to create full formatting for all of your outputs. This blog introduces you to a very brief video that walks you through a carefully researched “Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator” that will read more…
Hello Tech Comm Professionals, Hope you are well! I am sure many of you would have come across the announcement made by Adobe in May of this year, about the Creative products. Since this announcement was made, there has been plenty of lively discussion in the Tech Comm user community as well about the strategy read more…
Linking FrameMaker files as source into RoboHelp projects is easy. However, you may hit a glitch if you decide to change fonts for lists; if the CSS style was based on formatting in FrameMaker, you may need an extra step to fix the number’s font when you change fonts for list items. Adobe Certified Expert, read more…
Our summer school 3-part webinar series on FrameMaker was such a success, that many attendees asked for a “part 2″ on more advanced topics. This blog summarizes what you can expect in the 3 episodes we’re delivering in September and October. You can register at: http://adobe.ly/1710Z6W Advanced RoboHelp Sess 1) Advanced tools for Navigation, Graphics read more…
Some months back we began our “douwriteright” campaign to make FrameMaker more accessible to Microsoft Word users who have workloads that challenge their current product. Since our blogs have been scattered over many months, this simple blog is a “collection” of resources specific to sharing FrameMaker with people who have Word as a frame of read more…
Overview of a new solution with the goal of reducing human performance issues during execution of procedures and tasks related to maintenance, operations, servicing etc. This post also talks about how to participate in the beta program of this solution
First of all, a big thanks to all those, who participated in The Adobe Tech Comm Content Strategy & Tool Survey, which ended on 4th Oct 2013. We got an overwhelming response and your inputs helped us understand the current state of the tech comm industry and provided a number of insights, some of which read more…
Hello Tech Comm Professionals, Hope you are well! I am sure many of you would have come across the announcement made by Adobe in May of this year, about the Creative products. Since this announcement was made, there has been plenty of lively discussion in the Tech Comm user community as well about the strategy read more…
The Adobe Tech Comm Marketing Team is excited to announce a FREE upcoming thought leadership and networking event “Adobe Day @ LavaCon 2013“! This half day event, which includes Continental Breakfast and a networking lunch takes place Sunday morning, October 20th, in Portland Oregon’s downtown Hilton Hotel (the Lavacon conference venue). Registration begins at 8:00 read more…
Adobe Tech Comm periodically posts “in depth” white papers to help you choose strategies, master tools and overcome production challenges. One paper we posted a few months ago merits a second look. This blog touches on some key points you will discover when you download the paper. You may download the white paper by clicking read more…
Regular webinar guest Neus Lorenzo provides us with a highly thought provoking guest blog on how gamification can be applied to content design. Read closely to capture every nuance of Neus’s unique world view and strikingly original examples. A kitten, a ball and a beach … A kitten chasing a ball of yarn; a beach read more…
Dear Framers, We are happy to announce the availability of CMS connector between FM 11 and CQ 5.5. If you recall, in September 2012, we had released a sample CQ connector with FrameMaker 11, for which Kapil blogged here. The sample connector was based on the new CMS Connector Framework and was open source so read more…
In this week’s installment of more Thought Leader interview’s from this year’s STC Summit, we cover a variety of topics, ranging from how leadership can be achieved within a TechComm Group, important ingredients required in teaching TechComm and what is the difference between editorial “copy” and intelligent, searchable content. Neil Perlin: Merging of Mobile read more…
In this week’s installment of more Thought Leader interview’s from this year’s STC Summit, we cover a variety of topics, ranging from why TechComm students should learn HTML5, how to unravel the “hairball of content” to why it is so important to just writer shorter sentences. Ray Gallon: Untangling the Hairball of Content “There read more…
In this week’s installment of more Thought Leader interview’s from this year’s STC Summit, we cover a variety of topics, ranging from why “tech writers” should reclaim content strategy, why we should focus on business issues, and how important it is to think globally. Rahel Baile: Reclaiming Content Strategy Rahel Baile reminds of something read more…
Guest Bloggers
C
olum McAndrew
Senior Technical Writer, IDBS
Twitter: @robocolumn
Colum is a Technical Author based in Guildford, UK. A user of Adobe RoboHelp since 1999, he can frequently be found on that product’s support forums offering advice to other users. He also writes the RoboColum(n) technical authoring blog which focuses largely on RoboHelp, RoboHelp Server and other Adobe Technical Communications Suite products.
J
ohn Daigle
President, Evergreen Online Learning, LLC
Twitter: @hypertexas
A frequent speaker at national online help conferences, John is an Adobe Certified RoboHelp, Captivate and Acrobat Connect Professional Instructor. He has taught RoboHelp since 1992 and Adobe Captivate since it was introduced. His speaking engagements include the STC Manhattan Chapter, STC Summits in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, WritersUA and LavaCon conferences. John is a member of the Society for Technical Communication (Rocky Mountain Chapter) and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Houston. He began his career in broadcast news as a reporter for the NBC television affiliate in Houston, Texas.
K
evin Siegel
Founder & President, IconLogic, Inc.
Twitter: @Kevin_Siegel
Kevin has written more than 100 step-by-step computer training books including Essentials of RoboDemo 5, Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 9, Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 8, Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 7. Kevin spent five years in the U.S. Coast Guard as an award-winning photojournalist and has more than two decades experience as a print publisher, technical writer, instructional designer and eLearning developer. He is a certified technical trainer, has been a classroom instructor for more than 20 years and is a frequent speaker at trade shows and conventions. Kevin holds multiple certifications from companies such as Adobe and the CompTIA.
S
cott Prentice
Founder & President, Leximation
Twitter: @saprentice
Scott is a specialist in online documentation development and efficient publishing processes. He has spent 19+ years as a technical publications application developer, overlapping with 8 years as a technical writer of user and developer documentation. Extensive design experience gives Scott the ability to creatively solve unique problems on short notice. His specialties include custom web application development, online document interface design, and authoring productivity enhancements. He is also adept at creating innovative solutions that facilitate content localization into many languages.
W
illam van Weelden
Technical Writer, Centric IT Solutions
Twitter: @WvWeelden
William is a technical writer and a part time Philosophy student at the University of Utrecht. He creates help, demonstrations and commercial documentation using a variety of tools, including Captivate, FrameMaker and RoboHelp. You can visit him at www.wvanweelden.eu
Adobe Bloggers
A
nkur Jain
Product Manager (Technical Communication Suite, RoboHelp, and RoboHelp Server )
Twitter: @ankurjain8
Ankur is responsible for Adobe’s business strategy, product roadmap, and partner and customer relationships for his Technical Communication products. He is a popular speaker at technical communication conferences around the globe. Prior to Adobe, Ankur worked as a Senior Product Manager at Trilogy, where he specialized in solving industry’s toughest problems and delivering business value through relentless innovation and technology-powered business services. Earlier in his consulting role, he served over a half dozen clients in the US and the UK on various strategic initiatives. Ankur holds an MBA and enjoys traveling.
K
apil Verma
Senior Product Manager (FrameMaker, FrameMaker Server)
Twitter: @KapilVermaAdobe
Kapil is responsible for the overall FrameMaker product strategy and roadmap, partner ecosystem management, and customer relationships. Prior to Adobe, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co., where he served Fortune 500 technology and telecomm corporations on a variety of strategic topics. Earlier, he worked at Capital One in Virginia, where he developed and shaped marketing strategy.
M
axwell Hoffmann
Product Evangelist
Twitter: @maxwellhoffmann
Maxwell has continually worked with FrameMaker software in several capacities for over 20 years. He has provided hands-on sales and customer training to over 1,200 people in North America, Europe, Australia and South America. Maxwell spent the last 15 years in the translation industry, where he managed consulting, DITA/XML migration and multilingual publishing production with FrameMaker, RoboHelp and the most common competitive products. A prolific blogger and white paper author, Maxwell has been a frequent featured speaker at conferences relating to technical communications. He was designated an Adobe Community Expert in 2007 and a 2011 inductee to the Adobe Community Professional program as a recognized expert in FrameMaker. Maxwell has also been designated one of the Top 25 Most Influential Content Strategists for 2010 by MindTouch and LavaCon.
Parth Mukherjee
Product Marketing Manager
Twitter: @parthsm
Parth manages marketing activities for the technical communication products. In his capacity he manages marketing strategy, investments, lead generation and partner relationships. Parth also manages social media and web content for the business. In this capacity, he creates as well as manages web content and technical documentation for Adobe products. Parth holds an MBA in Marketing and has been a branding expert in the consulting services space before joining Adobe.
T
om Aldous
Director – Business Development and Evangelism
Twitter: @tmaldous
Tom leads the business development activities for Adobe’s technical communication tools. Before joining Adobe in January 2011, he worked for over 20 years as a managing partner and consultant at an Adobe business partner company called Integrated Technologies, Inc. (InTech). While at InTech, Tom successfully implemented large-scale XML solutions at several Fortune 500 companies.
