The Adobe Technical Communication Suite provides new possibilities for single-source publishing and integrated workflows for producing print, PDF, and online information deliverables. During this workshop, you will learn to improve your productivity and create interactive content using the new integration features in Adobe FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and Adobe Captivate.

This workshop will provide an introduction to using the components of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite for single-source and multi-channel publishing. Students will learn:

• How to plan FrameMaker documents for single-source publishing.
• Basics of RoboHelp for creating online user assistance.
• Importing FrameMaker documents by reference into RoboHelp projects.
• Mapping styles and importing FrameMaker TOCs.
• Using FrameMaker conditional text and RoboHelp conditional build tags to customize published content.
• Using user-defined variables in FrameMaker and RoboHelp to represent commonly-used names and phrases.
• Embedding 3D (from Adobe Acrobat 3D) and multimedia content (from Adobe Captivate) into FrameMaker and RoboHelp projects.
• Publishing RoboHelp projects.

Note: Students should bring a laptop computer with the Adobe Technical Communication Suite installed. A fully-functional trial version is available at http://www.adobe.com/go/trytcs. Trial software will be provided at the workshop in DVD (_not_ CD-ROM) format. The installation process may be lengthy, so students are advised to install the software before the workshop begins.

For years, software training was largely text-based; add screen shots in a document, add some text with descriptions and instructions, and voila!  The result worked, but how much more effective might it be if “someone” actually “walked you through the steps” on the screen?  That’s where visual help authoring tools like Mimic come in, letting you create that “someone”.

Mimic’s primary use is to capture what’s on the screens as you perform application-related tasks like using a feature in Word. That series of screen shots is effectively a series of frames that users can play back as a movie that shows how to perform the task. To make the movie more useful, you can add explanations and instructions in text or audio form, special effects, even interactivity features that simulate real software operation. With these features, Mimic lets you create demonstrations, sales training simulations, and marketing presentations and tutorials.  And Mimic offers two additional benefits – it supports text variables in text captions, and is programmatically integrated with Flare and Capture, two other components of MadCap’s MadPak suite.

Mimic can create movies in Flash format, Microsoft’s Silverlight, and other formats, but you don’t have to touch or even know any code. Better still, Mimic is quick and easy to learn, two days to get up and running, and cheap—US$299.

This workshop presents a quick overview of Mimic’s basic features in order to provide an overview of the tool as a whole.  In a busy three and a half hours, you’ll:

• Look at uses for Mimic
• Design and plan a movie
• Record a movie to be used as a demonstration
• Enhance a movie with text captions and other frame “annotation” features
• Publish the finished movie
• Look at Mimic’s use of variables and its integration with Flare

The only prerequisites are a basic knowledge of Windows, Internet Explorer, and PC skills in general.

Students should bring a laptop preloaded with Author-it. A trial version can be downloaded at http://www.author-it.com/index.php?page=freetrial

One of the foundations of single sourcing is the ability to reuse the content that you or other authors produce in multiple information products. This approach requires changes in the way that content is produced. Large blocks of content such as chapters are rarely reusable in their entirety between different outputs, however the smaller components that make it up - paragraphs, sections, graphics - may be used in many information products.

Author-it allows you to maximize reuse by creating content in small, independent chunks, then combining and arranging them as needed for the intended output.

This workshop introduces you to the features of Author-it that allow your content to be created once and reused in many different places, and to the Conditional strategies you can use to achieve the results you want.

• Strategies for reuse
• Strategies for conditionality
• Embedded topics
• Variables
• Publishing Profiles
• Author-it Xtend

There’s more to managing a Web site than selecting the right technologies. Web Operations Management (WOM) is based on the principle that an organization’s Web site is not a project with a clear beginning and an end, but rather an integral operational component. WOM moves Web site management away from daily tasks, mini-projects, and silo’d technology implementations and into the more mature operations arena. It is here where an organization understands what resources it is investing in its Web products and is allowed to manage them in a less reactionary, more strategic manner through the application of traditional business planning and budgeting processes.

Based on extensive experience working with clients in the public and private sector, this tutorial will focus on the fundamentals of Web Operations Management (WOM). Explore these four dimensions of WOM and get practical tips and suggestions for managing Web Operations:

Strategy

* Developing Guiding Principles
* Developing a Mature Web Strategy

Web Governance

* Defining a Governance Framework
* Web Policies
* Web Standards
* Implementing your Governance Framework

Execution

* Key Components of Web Management
* Harnessing your Web stakeholder community
* Web Implementation Oversight

Measurement
* Defining metrics and reporting schema
* Driving Strategy with metrics

With Author-it, you can publish directly to a number of sources, easily creating HTML pages from standard content within the Author-it database. However, sometimes you may have specific requirements for your organization, or client, that require customizations. Almost any aspect of the HTML output can be changed. The only limitations are your own knowledge of HTML. Join Char James-Tanny for some great tips and tricks on customizing HTML in this workshop which include: 

• Modifying styles in the underlying CSS
• Customizing the frameset
• Creating and using your own HTML templates
• Using Publishing Profiles to modify theme (for example, for different clients)

Students should bring a laptop preloaded with Author-it. Download a trial version. 

The first hour of this session will be a high level overview of just what CSS means to the modern author and its importance and role in the evolving world of XML based content. Following this overview, specific techniques for controlling the look and feel of Flare published content will be presented. The demonstration will include techniques for using CSS for online and for print publishing with maximum control.

While primarily targeted at using CSS within the MadCap Flare authoring environment this session will also provide a good grounding on general CSS information for authors using any tool chain.