Adobe TCS3 is here with new XML and Social Media features!

© 2011 Ugur Akinci I’m excited to hear that Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite 3 is introduced with exciting built-in DITA/XML and social media/networking features. I understand both FrameMaker 10 and Robohelp 9 are being shipped as we speak. Here is a great intro by Adobe Senior Product Evangelist RJ Jacquez. It looks like this version…

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How to Punctuate Items Listed in a Table Cell or Unordered List

Punctuation of table cell or unordered list items presents a special problem in technical writing since more often than not such lines include technical specs. Punctuation questions, like whether to end each line with a period or not, acquires a special significance since Parallelism “Parallelism” is one of those cardinal rules in technical writing. In…

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How to Create an e-Learning Project in Adobe RoboHelp

Adobe RoboHelp has a pretty good e-Learning start-up module that you can use to build your e-Learning systems. 1) Launch RoboHelp. 2) Click e-Learning from the Create New menu on the Starter screen to launch the New Project Wizard: (Click images to enlarge them) 3) Enter a title for the project and click Finish to…

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Compare Help Authoring Tools with HAT-Matrix

© 2010 Ugur Akinci Here is an interesting web site to compare your favorite HATs (Help Authoring Tools): HAT-Matrix The site has 2 drawbacks: 1) Only those vendors who paid to be on the site are represented (WebWorks, for example, is missing). 2) The owners of the site rely on the vendors’ own product descriptions…

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How to Create, Insert and Edit User-Defined Variables in RoboHelp

User-defined variables are one of the many wonderful features of Adobe RoboHelp. When you first launch RoboHelp, the STARTER screen offers many types of help projects to create: (Click on images to enlarge them) All these project types offer a User Defined Variables pod. Some of these pods come with pre-defined default user-defined variables; and…

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Tips for Converting FrameMaker Files into RoboHelp Files

FrameMaker and RoboHelp work together pretty well. The integration between these two applications (that come with Technical Communication Suite) is smooth and relatively problem-free, if not perfect. Advantage of RoboHelp over Web Works One obvious advantage of RH over FM’s old-mate Web Works is this: WW is basically a conversion platform custom designed for FrameMaker.…

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A Basic RoboHelp 8 HTML Tutorial

© Ugur Akinci A. Introduction This Adobe RoboHelp HTML 8 tutorial shows the basic steps required to create a RoboHelp project. (Robohelp comes in two flavors: Robohelp for Word, and Robohelp HTML). In this tutorial, we will use RoboHelp 8 HTML and generate a  help file, starting from a “Blank Project”. NOTE: Robohelp is a…

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Document Menu of Adobe "Writer" (Professional)

I know —  the good and hard-working folks over at Adobe do not like me refer to Adobe Professional as “Writer” but there are 2 good reasons why I do so: 1) “Writer” is a term well-established within the technical writing community. Every tech writer I know refers to Adobe Professional as “Adobe Writer.”  I’m…

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A Basic "RoboHelp 8 for Word" Tutorial

© 2010 Ugur Akinci A. Introduction This introductory Adobe RoboHelp tutorial shows the basic steps required to create a RoboHelp 8 for Word project. (Robohelp comes in two basic flavors: Robohelp for Word, and plain Robohelp HTML). In this tutorial, we will use RoboHelp 8 for Word and generate a  Help file in Winhelp 2000…

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