All Events

Exploring RoboHelp: Dynamic "boilerplate" with Snippets and UDVs (Variables)

May 31, 2013

Reusable content is a huge timesaver with any HAAT or publishing system: discover how RoboHelp employs "snippets" (subtopics or tracts of text) and UDVs (User Defined Variables) to leverage this technique. Simple drag n' drop allow you to plant globally "update-able" lists, cautions, warnings. You may also do the reverse by selecting sections of legacy data in your project and moving it into a new snippet.

Discover strategies for using UDVs (variables) to cover changeable data like product names, versions, office locations, etc. Again, a simple drag n' drop may be used by beginners or simple keyboard shortcuts for more advanced users. With these techniques you can swiftly customize your RoboHelp project to publish multiple versions for external or internal audiences.

About the Presenter: Maxwell Hoffmann, Adobe's Global Product Evangelist for Tech Comm Suite, has extensive tech comm publishing experience, having worked for a variety of publishing vendors and translation agencies before coming on board with Adobe. He is a former FrameMaker product marketing manager with Frame Technology (before Adobe acquired the product), and has trained over 1,200 people in scalable publishing solutions over the years.

Beyond Help: Aggregating content with RoboHelp

RoboHelp 10 is an ideal solultion for publishing to multiple devices: HTML5 output expands publishing to a variety of tablets with "device aware" layouts. But RoboHelp is also an ideal authoring tool for collecting and aggregating content from a variety of common file formats.

In the webinar see how to:

import or link files from Word
import or link files from FrameMaker
import legacy files from formats like PDF

Many people producing policies and procedures or help desk sites must capture critical information from many legacy files. This brief webinar will show you examples of just how easy it is to bring files in from multiple formats into a simple RoboHelp project. Naturally, you can still author topics "from scratch" within RoboHelp itself, or combine those new topics with the legacy source file data mentioned above.

Join our special guest, RoboHelp expert Willam van Weelden, for this dynamic presentation, which will be filled with many short, simple, live examples. Willam van Weelden is from Amsterdam and expert in CSS3 design and the new HTML5 standards. (www.wvanweelden.eu)

Towards an Agile authoring methodology: learning from the Lean methodology

Agile development is a way of managing IT development teams and projects that was introduced around 2001. It is a set of principles that aims to result in more successful projects by breaking a project down into a series of incremental and iterative stages. As Agile has become increasingly popular, technical communicators have needed to learn how they can work effectively within these projects.

In this session, thought leader Ellis Pratt will share key highlights from a White Paper he has written on this topic. The session covers topics that include:

Features of Agile
Agile's affect on writing
Learning from Lean
Writing in an Agile environment
Load leveling
Minimize the need for rework

Slides and notices in the recording will give you the link to the white paper itself.

About the presentor: Ellis is Director and Help Strategist at Cherryleaf, a technical writing services and training company based near London, in the United Kingdom. He has over fifteen years’ experience working in the field of documentation, has a BA in Business Studies, and is an Associate of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Ranked the most influential blogger on technical communication in Europe, Ellis is also an author and editor of two books: ‘How to Write Instructions’ and ‘Trends in Technical Communication’.

Optimizing your RoboHelp content for best SEO results

RoboHelp 10 swiftly creates beautiful WebHelp, HTML5 or other types of web and Help files. In nearly all cases, your users are going to use search to locate desired content. In some cases, your RoboHelp published results may allow search to go outside of your files and bring up results from other website. Obviously, you would not want information from a competitor’s website to appear at the top of the list. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a high priority for the success of your projects.

Fortunately, RoboHelp 10 provides a number of easy-to-use tools to help refine and control the search experience for your users. In this session you will see live examples on how to use a variety of tools and techniques, including:

•    Metadata menu to define search keywords
•    Linguistic synonyms
•    Stop lists

Join our special guest, RoboHelp expert Willam van Weelden, for this dynamic presentation, which will be filled with many short, simple, live examples. Willam van Weelden is from Amsterdam and expert in CSS3 design and the new HTML5 standards. (www.wvanweelden.eu)

HYPERWRITE Sess 2) The importance of metadata

Partly due to the advent of XML, many parts of the documentation process can now be automated. And one of the keys to accurate “processing” and “transforming” of text is metadata. Metadata is data about data. Information that describes or classifies information. Even if we've never used the term "metadata" before, we've actually know it well. An index is metadata. It helps describes the information, but it is not part of the core information itself. When we look deeper, we find metadata in document styling, in semantic mark-up, in SEO, in translation, in content management systems, and even in file names. By improving our knowledge and application of metadata, we can raise the quality of our documents.

About the Presenter: Based in Melbourne, Australia, Dr Tony Self (@hyperwrite) has over 30 years of experience as a technical communicator. For over 20 years, Tony has worked in the areas of online help systems, computer-based training, and XML documents. In 1993, he founded HyperWrite, a company providing training and consultancy in structured authoring, Help systems, DITA, and technology strategy. Tony completed his PhD in semantic mark-up languages in 2011, and his book The DITA Style Guide was published in the same year. He is a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee (and chair of the DITA Help Subcommittee), is an adjunct teaching fellow at Swinburne University, and is the Director of Training for TCTrainNet, a training initiative of tekom, the German professional association for technical communicators.

Adobe TCS: Blending Captivate with RoboHelp

There’s more to Adobe Tech Comm Suite than just RoboHelp and FrameMaker; there is also Captivate! This dynamic, almost “self-training” eLearning tool is a tremendous “value add” to the suite for both products previously mentioned. This webinar will focus on the many ways in which Captivate videos or screen simulations can be integrated with RoboHelp. You may pause during the creation of a RoboHelp project to initiate a Captivate movie for inclusion in that project. You may also import previous saved Captivate projects into RoboHelp for step-by-step learning. RoboHelp and Captivate expert Rick Stone of Show Me Solutions will show you how.

About the presenter: Rick Stone is the instructor and co-owner of ShowMe Solutions, based in Kansas City, Missouri. Rick became an Adobe® Certified Instructor for the Adobe® RoboHelp HTML™ and Adobe® Captivate™ products after first being a long time power user. Rick is well known among the user communities and is also recognized as an Adobe Community Expert for both products. He is also recognized as a Microsoft Help MVP as well as a member of the Adobe® Captivate™ Advisory Board.

Introduction to CSS in RoboHelp

RoboHelp's cascading style sheet (CSS) editor offers a powerful, flexible way to format content in your projects. For example, if you format all the subheads in a project one at a time using the formatting toolbar, then have to reformat them one at a time for a font change, you'll love being able to reformat them all at once with a dozen mouse clicks by using styles. This power applies to any RoboHelp project output, and is crucial if you want to go mobile or use the HTML5 outputs in RoboHelp 10.

Some find CSS to be arcane and mysterious. What is a <div> anyway? And more… This webinar answers these questions. You'll get:

An overview of CSS concepts, new concepts like absolute vs. relative size units, and trends like CSS2 vs. CSS3 and media queries.
A light overview of CSS coding.
A review of the eight style categories offered by the RoboHelp 10 style editor.
A review of why bulleted and numbered lists in old projects may break when opened in RoboHelp 8, 9, or 10, and what to do about it.

About the presenter: Neil is an internationally known consultant, strategist, developer, and trainer for online content in all forms from traditional online help to mobile. Neil is a long-time RoboHelp consultant and trainer, and is certified in other help authoring tools and the Viziapps app development platform. He provides these services through Hyper/Word Services (www.hyperword.com). He is an STC Fellow and the founder and manager of the Bleeding Edge stem at the STC summit. You can reach him at nperlin@nperlin.cnc.net.

Merged Help Magic with RoboHelp

Learn how to easily and expertly create merged webhelp systems in RoboHelp 10. Lightext will demystify the process of merging multiple help projects into one seamless online library. In this session you will learn what a merged help system is and why you may want to create one. Lightext will walk through building a merged help system and show samples of libraries that have already been created. This webinar will cover:

Creating a parent project
Merging the child (subordinate projects) into the parent project
Setting up the first page redirect
Creating links between projects
Creating the merged webhelp output
Testing the output
Developing topics for an instructional project including, What's New, Helpful Hints, and Revision pages.
Managing the merged help system

Presenters: This eSeminar is features Beth Gerber, President of Lightext, Inc. Lightext is a technical writing and training consulting firm specializing in policy and procedure development and instructional design and delivery for the financial services industry. Lightext is also an Authorized Adobe Training Center located in Arcadia, California. www.lightext.com

Session 5) RoboHelp 10 Help productivity features and context-sensitive help (CSH) for mobile apps

Session 5) RoboHelp 10 Help productivity features and context-sensitive help (CSH) for mobile apps
November 28: “There’s an app for that!” Now, RoboHelp 10 extends it Help publishing capabilities to context sensitive help and embedded apps for certain tablet devices. Find out how.

Presenter: Maxwell Hoffmann is Adobe’s Product Evangelist for Tech Comm Suite. A former product manager for FrameMaker at Frame Technology (prior to product acquisition by Adobe), Hoffmann also spent a dozen years doing multi-lingual production in the language translation industry. Hoffmann has also provided face-to-face, hands-on training to over 1,200 people in scalable authoring solutions. He has also managed “high page count” projects in DITA, XML and most common authoring tools as well as FrameMaker and RoboHelp.

Publishing Policies and Procedures for Multiple Channels, Formats and Screens

Having procedures, training guides and user manuals available on multiple devices is becoming a business objective in many corporations. We’ll take sample procedures and describe best practices for creating content that will be output to multiple devices and at the same time, learn how RoboHelp 10 provides an easy solution for making this possible. Join the experts from Lightext.com, Beth Gerber and Pam Harrison, for guidelines in effectively using RoboHelp 10 in this versatile workflow.

Employing a Flexible Interaction Language Scheme with User Defined Variables (UDVs)

User Assistance (UA) professionals are often faced with situations where software applications need to support multiple computing devices, multiple input mechanisms and many human interactions at the same time. This means that the majority of mainstream customers are going to need help from us to learn the language of touch, hand gestures, voice, and more.

When it comes to writing procedures we all need to make an important decision. Do we want to use a generic set of verbs that support all the different types of interactions designed into our software? Or, do we want to customize the content for specific types of interactions?

If you decide to customize your verbs for multiple interaction types, then you definitely want to take advantage of User Defined Variables (UDVs) in RoboHelp 10. Adding UDVs into your procedure steps automates the process of adjusting verb choices for different interaction types. Even if you are currently only using generic verbs, you may want to use UDVs. That way if you change your approach in the future it will be easy to add support for multiple interaction types. UDVs have many uses in RoboHelp projects. You may already be using them for brand names or user interface terms. This webinar by UA expert Joe Welinske describes how to use UDVs for specifying interaction types.

Session 4) Using new RoboHelp 10 features to make content more searchable

Session 4) Using new RoboHelp 10 features to make content more searchable
November 14: Discover how new enhancements within RoboHelp 10 and Tech Comm Suite give you tighter control over your customer’s search experience. Ensure that search queries will be accurate and relevant.

Presenter: Maxwell Hoffmann is Adobe’s Product Evangelist for Tech Comm Suite. A former product manager for FrameMaker at Frame Technology (prior to product acquisition by Adobe), Hoffmann also spent a dozen years doing multi-lingual production in the language translation industry. Hoffmann has also provided face-to-face, hands-on training to over 1,200 people in scalable authoring solutions. He has also managed “high page count” projects in DITA, XML and most common authoring tools as well as FrameMaker and RoboHelp.

Session 3) Publishing unstructured or XML content from FrameMaker 11 to tablets

Session 3) Publishing unstructured or XML content from FrameMaker 11 to tablets and productivity enhancements
October 30: Regardless of whether you author regular unstructured content, or DITA/XML in FrameMaker 11, now Tech Comm Suite 4 allows a few mouse clicks to publish your content to HTML4 multiscreen, ePub2, ePub3 or both Kindle formats.

Presenter: Maxwell Hoffmann is Adobe’s Product Evangelist for Tech Comm Suite. A former product manager for FrameMaker at Frame Technology (prior to product acquisition by Adobe), Hoffmann also spent a dozen years doing multi-lingual production in the language translation industry. Hoffmann has also provided face-to-face, hands-on training to over 1,200 people in scalable authoring solutions. He has also managed “high page count” projects in DITA, XML and most common authoring tools as well as FrameMaker and RoboHelp.

Streamlining the Approval Process of Policies and Procedures via RoboHelp

Obtaining approvals on policy and procedures can be a painstaking and complex process. Using the Content Review tool, which has been improved in RoboHelp Version 10, learn how this process can be simplified and managed. In this webinar, Lightext will demonstrate strategies for:

Handling multiple reviews
Tracking reviewers' edits
Techniques for shortening the approval process
Providing the reviewer with a webhelp to .chm sample
Simultaneously managing content that is being developed, out for review, and approved for publishing

Presenters: his eSeminar is hosted by Beth Gerber, President of Lightext, Inc. Lightext is a technical writing and training consulting firm specializing in policy and procedure development and instructional design and delivery for the financial services industry. Lightext is also an Authorized Adobe Training Center located in Arcadia, California. www.lightext.com

End-to-End Microsoft SharePoint integration with Adobe RoboHelp 10

Microsoft SharePoint is a growing platform for multi-author teams who need to keep their content synchronized. A growing share of SharePoint users now access their content from mobile devices and tablets. Adobe RoboHelp 10 provides an easy way to publish Multiscreen HTML5 directly to a SharePoint site to facilitate those devices. At the same time, the workflow provides version and source control integration between RoboHelp and SharePoint. This allows for files to be checked in and out. Authors can also publish native SharePoint files (.aspx) directly to a SharePoint site from within RoboHelp.

In this eSeminar you will learn how to:

Publish native Microsoft SharePoint (.aspx) format directly to a document library.
Reuse shared assets from a common repository on a shared location using RoboHelp’s Resource Manager
Use SharePoint as your source control tool with Check-in, Check-Out of files and keeping a history of your topic content all from a convenient toolbar right within RoboHelp.
Improve the Search Experience by taking advantage of both SharePoint and RoboHelp’s search capabilities.
Use SharePoint to facilitate RoboHelp’s PDF Review and Collaboration workflow to keep authors and subject matter experts in sync.

Presenters: This eSeminar is hosted by Adobe Certified RoboHelp Instructor John Daigle. John teaches and consults Adobe RoboHelp and Adobe Captivate and is based in Evergreen, Colorado. (www.showmethedemo.com).

Session 2) Multichannel, multiscreen publishing workflow using RoboHelp and Tech Comm Suite

Session 2) Multichannel, multiscreen publishing workflow using RoboHelp and Tech Comm Suite
October 11: RoboHelp 10’s new ability to publish to HTML5 multiscreen enables swift single source publishing to tablets and mobile devices as well as desktop HTML. Discover how much more flexible your Help output can be.

RoboHelp 10 Goes Mobile

RoboHelp has offered mobile outputs since v. 8, even earlier than that depending on how you define "mobile". But RoboHelp 10 represents a big step forward, with Adobe adding support for HTML5, media queries, and a variety of mobile outputs. In this presentation, we'll take a look at the overall world of mobile in order to set the context. We'll then look specifically at the mobile output support features added to 10. Finally, we'll look at design and publishing considerations. Whether you plan to extend an existing RoboHelp project to the iPhone, iPad, etc., or create a new mobile output from scratch, this presentation will give you the basic overview of what's involved. More specifically, we'll look at:

- The environment - Why simply saying "mobile" is dangerous. We'll look at rationales for using mobile, types of mobile, and some high level management issues.

- RoboHelp mobile - What features did Adobe add in RoboHelp 10, what do they do, and what we'll have to learn to use them.

- Help-to-mobile-transition issues - How do we shove a billboard onto a sticky note? We'll look at major differences in design, functionality, and publishing between help and mobile and how they'll affect your work.

You won't know everything you need at the end of this presentation, but you'll be able to ask much better questions.

The presenter, Neil Perlin, is an internationally known consultant and president of Hyper/Word Services. Neil is a 33-year veteran of tech comm, a 26-year veteran of hypertext, a 21-year veteran of RoboHelp, and has been working with the evolving "mobile" market since 1998.

Part 1: Taking Advantage of RoboHelp 10 Authoring Enhancements for Policy and Procedure Development

Watch Part 1 of a 3-part series to learn about updates to the authoring environment in RoboHelp 10 related to improvements in developing policy and procedure as well as training content. Relevant product improvements include css enhancements, reusable content, revised templates and more. Join the experts from Lightext.com, Beth Gerber and Pam Harrison, for guidelines on using recently released RoboHelp 10 in the most effective manner for this important work. Live demos of RoboHelp 10 features using actual projects are shared. Although the focus is on Policies & Procedures, the workflow and features used are applicable to all industries and most tech comm projects.

Multi-screen Help Authoring

For the last thirty years or so the designers of personal computing software have had a fairly consistent canvas with which to work. Viewing screens for most computers have been in a range of approximately 10-14 diagonal inches. Screen resolutions in the past twenty years have been fairly static as well. It was possible to deliver our user experience in one presentation flavor. The UI would scale automatically from desktop to laptop and even to netbook. UA designers enjoyed not having to worry very much about how our information would look and feel on different displays.

This has changed quickly and dramatically. The Smartphone storm kicked off by the iPhone created enormous demand for devices with dimensions of less than three inches on a side. Similarly, Apple’s launch of iOS sparked a furious drive by software developers to create applications to fit this new form factor. Whether we are doing Help for native OS apps or presenting content in a mobile browser, we need to address the wide and growing fragmentation of devices.

One possible solution lies with multiscreen authoring for a responsive design. HTML 5, partnered with CSS3 and JavaScript, offers a way to single-source our content in an intelligent and scalable way. Products like RoboHelp 10 include support for this as well as conditional text and user-defined variables.

Join Joe Welinske in this session which will introduce the concept of responsive design and multiscreen authoring. It will include demonstrations of how to craft your content to support varying screen dimensions and user interaction types like touch and hand gestures.

Become an eBOOK Publisher for eReaders, Desktop, Mobile and Tablet Devices

Technical documentation teams are now moving Policies and Procedures project content from the desktop to mobile devices and tablets. Adobe RoboHelp 10 supports the new ePub 3 (and ePub 2.0.1) as well as the Kindle Fire (KF8) formats. The publishing targets are eBook readers (such as Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble's, Nook, etc.) as well as tablets users (Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy, BlackBerry Playbook, etc.) and even smartphones such as Motorola's Droid and Samsung's Galaxy S series.

In this eSeminar you will learn how to:

Prepare an existing RoboHelp project for generating to many devices using the new eBook Single Source Layout.
Optimize content maximum compatibility to adapt and accommodate a growing number of eBook readers and mobile devices.
Create an eBook Single Source Layout for ePub 3 and Kindle Book.
Enter Meta Information including publisher and copyright info as well as a Cover Image.
Validate the content in accordance with requirements of the Apple Store.

Presenters: This eSeminar is hosted by Adobe Certified RoboHelp Instructor John Daigle and his guest, Kevin Siegel. John teaches and consults Adobe RoboHelp and Adobe Captivate and is based in Evergreen, Colorado (www.showmethedemo.com). Kevin Siegel is founder of IconLogic and develops courseware for Adobe RoboHelp and many other Adobe products. He distributes his courseware using the ePUB format and is based near Baltimore, Maryland (www.iconlogic.com).

Multiscreen HTML5 for multi-device publishing with Adobe RoboHelp 10

With Multiscreen HTML5 Single Source Layouts and the new Screen Layout Editor, you can deliver content to almost any device and screen size. From iPhones to Android smartphones like Galaxy, tablets like iPad and Kindle Fire to desktop computers, Adobe RoboHelp 10 has you covered! Support for modern HTML5 output and CSS3 means authors are no longer limited to the old-fashioned and restrictive frame-based "tri-pane" window. Convenient common screen sizes for many devices are ready-to-use. Each screen size can be mapped to a different screen layout so that the appearance of the content is right for the device.

In this eSeminar you will learn how to:

Choose Screen Profiles to accommodate the particular screen sizes you are targeting (Mobile, Tablet, Desktop, etc.)
Take your existing project and generate "batch" output for many screen sizes using the new Multiscreen HTML5 Single Source Layout.
Select from the Screen Layout “Gallery” of prepared layouts.
Customize the look and feel as well as the structure of your content using the Screen Layout Editor.
Optimize the output so that the content adjusts and adapts to different screen sizes.

Presenters:

This webinar is hosted by Adobe Certified RoboHelp Instructor John Daigle and his guest, Willam van Weelden. John teaches and consults Adobe RoboHelp and Adobe Captivate and is based in Evergreen, Colorado (www.showmethedemo.com). Willam van Weelden is from Amsterdam and expert in CSS3 design and the new HTML5 standards. (www.wvanweelden.eu)

Key Trends in Software User Assistance (Part Two) - Emerging Paradigms and Opportunities

Adobe is proud to present the second part of this two part webinar series (watch Part 1 here) on Trends in Software User Assistance (UA). In this series UA expert Joe Welinske, discusses the current and future issues associated with software user assistance. This webinar will focus on the emerging paradigms in information technology and user assistance. These include comprehensive support strategies, integration with Agile methodologies, emerging opportunities in technical writing, editing simulations and videocasts, supporting mobile devices, and search engine optimization. These trends address some of the key questions currently being asked by technical communicators and content strategists who work with help content.

What’s new in Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4

Adobe® Technical Communication Suite 4 is a powerful, integrated toolkit with single-source authoring, rich multimedia integration, and multichannel, multiscreen HTML5 publishing capabilities. Create XML/DITA content natively with Adobe FrameMaker® 11. Publish virtually anywhere using Adobe RoboHelp® 10. Deliver engaging, interactive content with graphics, demos, and more using Adobe Illustrator® CS6, Adobe Captivate® 6, and Adobe Presenter 8. Rapidly collaborate with review-capable PDF documents.

Join Ankur Jain, Senior Product Manager at Adobe, for an interactive webinar where Ankur will take you through the amazing new capabilities in Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4.

Work faster with cross-product integration
Easily author and enrich XML/DIT A content
Publish to multiple channels, formats, and screens using multiscreen HTM L5
Increase enterprise productivity

What’s new in Adobe RoboHelp 10

Adobe RoboHelp 10 software is an easy-to-use authoring and multichannel, multiscreen HTML5 publishing solution. Deliver content to iPad and other tablets, smartphones, and desktops using output formats such as multiscreen HTML5, WebHelp, CHM, Adobe® AIR® Help, PDF, eBook, and native mobile apps. Work in multi-author environments using next-generation collaboration and review features. Personalize and optimize content for relevance and search. Easily develop context-sensitive help with usability enhancements.

Join Ankur Jain, Senior Product Manager at Adobe, for an interactive webinar where Ankur will take you through the amazing new capabilities in Adobe RoboHelp 10.

Publish to multiple channels, formats, and screens using multiscreen HTML5
Easily author help, policy and procedure and knowledgebase content
Personalize, optimize, and socially enable content
Efficiently collaborate and rapidly review

Future of TechComm – Content Accessibility Webinar Series - Part 3

The future of TechComm is rapidly changing. It’s going to be a complex – but exciting time. And Adobe is committed to help you succeed and prosper in it. As a first step we bring to you a host of thought-leadership content from a list of well-known thought-leader and speakers.

As businesses grow and become increasingly global, they must cater to a larger and more diverse set of content consumers. And therefore, creating great content has to be complimented with the ability to deliver the content in the format, style and location preferred by users. This makes ‘accessibility’ a cornerstone of successful content strategy. Adobe is excited to host Char James Tanny, a content accessibility thought-leader, author and speaker, for a three webinar series that includes:

Part I: Making Sense of Accessibility - standards, legal issues, and myths (19th June 10-11AM PST)
Part II: Creating an Accessible Layout - document structures, colors, and using custom style sheets (17th July, 10-11AM PST)
Parth III: Developing Accessible Content - tips on grammar, paragraph and sentence length, alternate text, and more (31st July, 10-11AM PST)

Future of TechComm – Content Accessibility Webinar Series - Part 2

Part I: Making Sense of Accessibility - standards, legal issues, and myths (19th June 10-11AM PST)
Part II: Creating an Accessible Layout - document structures, colors, and using custom style sheets (17th July, 10-11AM PST)
Parth III: Developing Accessible Content - tips on grammar, paragraph and sentence length, alternate text, and more (31st July, 10-11AM PST)

Are You Tempted to Use a Template to Expedite Policies & Procedure Development?

When you or others in your organization mention the term “template” for policies and procedures (P&P), do you really know what type of template you or they are talking about? It is a fact: there is much confusion and misunderstanding about what is meant by “template” and the expectation of using a template for developing or communicating P&P content. Join the recognized P&P authority Raymond Urgo as he defines three types of templates and clarifies their purposes and limitations. He will reveal why people are tempted toward templates for solutions and fall victim to templates for the wrong reasons resulting in poor P&P content.

Content Scenarios for exploring new Information Products

Every day technical communication teams are being asked to do something new. Given the rate of change that is apparent in the marketplace, and the expanding array of new devices and venues that will need to be supported, this trend will only accelerate. One question that comes up is how do teams explore the new publishing pathways so that they can determine what changes they will need to their overall content creation and publishing process. Join Intelligent Content thought leader Joe Gollner as he guides us through some proven steps in exploring new information products and refining content processes. In particular, this session will introduce the concept of a content scenario, a technique he has used for years to help organizations adapt their information product portfolios efficiently and effectively. As part of this session, Joe will introduce a public domain content scenario for helping projects to explore how DITA might be used to address certain types of new information product. Join Joe Gollner and Adobe product evangelist Maxwell Hoffmann for this practical session on how technical communication teams can handle the demands being sent their way.

Future of TechComm series: Designing technical documentation for tablets

With more and more people using tablets for reading technical documentation, this webinar looks at how this trend will affect the way technical documents are designed and developed. We'll look at examples of documents that 'work' on a tablet, as well as documents that don't. We'll explore some of the emerging design trends for presenting technical documentation on tablets, and what they mean for Technical Writers. We'll also investigate how tablets, and the technologies contained within then, could be used to improve the User Assistance we provide to our readers.

Ellis is Director and Help Strategist at Cherryleaf, a technical writing services and training company based near London, in the United Kingdom. He has over fifteen years’ experience working in the field of documentation, has a BA in Business Studies, and is an Associate of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Ranked the most influential blogger on technical communication in Europe, Ellis is also an author and editor of two books: ‘How to Write Instructions’ and ‘Trends in Technical Communication’.

Getting Real: Electronic Documents for the Field

With all of current focus on handheld devices and smartphones, we sometimes forget that there is a compelling need for portable, mission critical content available on devices that display well out-of-doors and that can operate for extended periods without recharging or reconnecting. Examples can be drawn from the construction, defense, energy and transportation sectors. Users working in these circumstances need up-to-date information that they can assess using e-Ink Readers, which have better out-of-doors display, longer battery life, and faster download times over slower connections. In this session, Intelligent Content thought leader Joe Gollner will lead us in an exploration of these requirements and of the tactics that can be deployed to address them. Among the considerations to emerge is the need for metadata to enable highly tailored information products to be built to these users. Other practical considerations touch upon the types of illustrations that will need to be available to the publishing process. Join Joe Gollner and Adobe product evangelist Maxwell Hoffmann for this compelling session on one more direction that portable content delivery is headed.

Future of TechComm – Content Accessibility Webinar Series - Part 1

Part I: Making Sense of Accessibility - standards, legal issues, and myths (19th June 10-11AM PST)
Part II: Creating an Accessible Layout - document structures, colors, and using custom style sheets (17th July, 10-11AM PST)
Part III: Developing Accessible Content - tips on grammar, paragraph and sentence length, alternate text, and more (31st July, 10-11AM PST)

13 Common Mistakes about Communicating Policies & Procedures Content…and How to Avoid Them [Part 2 of 2]

Every organization functions according to its unique operating practices, frequently referred to as policies and procedures (P&P). For those organizations interested in investing in the communication of their P&P, the first of this two-part webinar will address six common mistakes specifically concerning the understanding of the use of P&P information and the approaches to developing P&P information. The second part will address seven common mistakes specifically concerning the process for developing P&P information, standards for developing P&P information and talents for developing P&P information. Join the recognized P&P authority Raymond Urgo as he identifies these common mistakes with their myths and misunderstood expectations while introducing you to the proper understandings and strategies to avoid these mistakes.

Transition from Content Consumer to Content Creator: Dual Viewpoints

The technical communications world is changing quickly with technological advances. It can be a difficult transition from content consumer to becoming a content creator. If you are new to the technical communications field and trying to find some direction, how do you make that transition and learn the tools of the trade? Join technical communicator Danielle Villegas, who blogs and tweets as TechCommGeekMom, as she discusses the challenges of being a content manager, pursuing a professional course in Technical Communication, and moving ahead in a technical communications career. Danielle will concentrate on content for mobile devices while sharing her first hand experiences learning about the most desired skills. She will be discussing how visual and web design, technical writing and editing, and content management skills come together to create good technical content.

13 Common Mistakes about Communicating Policies & Procedures Content…and How to Avoid Them [Part 1 of 2]

Deriving efficiencies from collaborative review cycles

Subject matter expert, Oana Diaconu, of Globalization Partners International joins Adobe product evangelist, Maxwell Hoffmann, to demonstrate various collaborative review processes for technical content. If the linguistic reviewers have access to the Cloud (such as SharePoint Server or Acrobat.com), multiple comments and annotations may be made in the same review files. If you work with remote staff with limited internet bandwidth, PDF review files may be emailed and annotated with the free Acrobat Reader. In this webinar you will discover:

the proper way to make annotations (about 60% of PDF annotations submitted to translation agencies are incorrect), and
how multiple reviewers’ collaborative comments may be imported directly into tools like FrameMaker or RoboHelp as source files for “fool proof” edits.

Enterprise Productivity Enhancements in RoboHelp 9 and RoboHelp Server 9

Enterprise users regularly use Adobe tools like RoboHelp 9 and RoboHelp Server 9 for Help & Policy Authoring, Publishing and Hosting. However many organizations fail to capitalize on features that enable these tools to be used as enterprise-wide content aggregators (pdf, Word, HTML, FrameMaker, XML, etc.). Businesses of the future will only be thronged by a bigger plethora of content formats and hence a greater challenge towards publishing in a consistent manner and provided content users with a seamless experience. This eSeminar will look at best practices for enterprise-wide content development and publishing using RoboHelp.

Lessons in interactive media and help authoring with localization

Join RoboHelp expert Colum McAndrew (RoboColum) as he shares highlights of a complex RoboHelp project that involved embedded Captivate videos and also alternate versions that displayed a Quick Start Guide. Preparing the project for localization into German led to several discoveries and positive lessons that will be shared in this session. This session will cover the decisions made on how to create Captivate videos that involved minimal localization and maximum benefit to the end user. Expert tips will also be shared on how conditional expressions were used to produce multiple versions of the project.

End-to-end authoring and publishing with RoboHelp

The authoring prowess of FrameMaker and multi-software, integrated experience of the TechComm Suite notwithstanding, there exist circumstances where organizations can author content with RoboHelp as well. One can author all content from scratch in native XHTML format, or aggregate content created on tools like Word or FrameMaker to DITA map to create a hybrid project that has consistent and determinable results. Join Adobe product evangelist, Maxwell Hoffmann, to do determine which of the several RoboHelp authoring and collaborative review cycles works best for you.

Up the TechComm Ante on Your Mac with Adobe

For Mac users of best-of-breed technical communication tools, there are several options to consider when installing and running tools. In this webinar, Adobe product evangelist Tom Aldous discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using Boot Camp, Parallels 7 and VMWare fusion 4 along with Adobe’s products like FrameMaker, RoboHelp and the Technical Communication Suite. This eSeminar will be led by an on-screen demonstration.

Single-source publishing to tablets and smartphones

Demand for outputs to tablet computers and smartphones is greater than ever. Many organizations want to repurpose their existing content and create multiple output formats including of publication to smaller screens. Join Adobe Product Evangelist, Maxwell Hoffmann, on a tour of several methods to efficiently transform content originally intended for PDF or the web to publish appropriately to iPads, iPhones or the Kindle.

Best Practices in Help & Policy Authoring and Publishing to Drive Downstream Localization Efficiencies – Reduced Cost, Faster GTM

Join Maxwell Hoffmann, Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist, as he walks you through some of the best practices in translation that he has learnt in his 20+ years in the technical communication industry, and specifically in the localization space. The webinar will help you understand how to reduce costs and streamline the downstream translation processes for authoring and publishing user assistance content.

Topics to be covered in User Assistance:

Leveraging Unicode support
Simultaneous topic editing
Control over language definitions and attributes
Managing multi-author environments
Review and collaboration workflows
Comment moderation
Tracking changes
PDF based review workflows
Shared and reusable resources
Live linking of key assets

Confessions of an ‘Enlightened’ Mind – Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid when Starting a Help Project!

Modern help authoring tools like RoboHelp are powerful and feature-rich, and provide great flexibility to online help authors. But that power also makes it possible to get a project off to a bad start. Some of the mistakes are just silly, but others can lead to hiring the wrong author, developing the wrong output, or just sending a project out of control in ways that need expensive rework or cleanup later.

Authors made such mistakes in the past and got away with it. But today, as new technologies, concepts (“multi-channel publishing”?), and terms appear –– and time-to-market and ROI requirements continue to tighten, those mistakes are increasingly unacceptable.

The presenter, Neil Perlin, is an internationally known consultant and president of Hyper/Word Services. Neil is a 33-year veteran of tech comm, a 26-year veteran of hypertext, and a 21-year veteran of RoboHelp (who has probably made all of those top 10 mistakes at one time or other).

Join us to learn from the best in the business.

Mobile and Social – The Future of Technical Communication

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist and Adobe partner Daniel R. Odio, CEO of Socialize, Inc. <http://www.getsocialize.com/> for an interactive webinar where they will discuss how mobile and social are changing the way people communicate (create, share and consume content), the strategic implications of the same for today’s technical communication professionals, and how best to ride these mega trends in the technical communication space.

If you are looking for ways to better engage your users and boost discovery and interaction with your content, this is a “can't-miss” webinar!

Strategies for Building and Managing Large Online Libraries

Do you utilize online help to support a policy and procedure library in your company or for your clients? Is your existing library underutilized, redundant or outdated? Is there user confidence that the library is accessible, current and that search results are relevant?

If you are starting from scratch or need to revamp your existing documentation, the task can be overwhelming, particularly if time and resources are limited. Additionally, making your way through the approval process and then subsequently maintaining your library can be daunting.

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist and experts from Lightext Inc. <http://www.lightext.com/> for an interactive webinar to learn some key methodologies for starting a large project, gaining client/employer consensus, and making your way from ground zero to useable, accessible procedures. These solid practices will help you independent of the help authoring tool you have selected.

APIs and SDKs – Breaking into a Specialty Market

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist and Adobe partner Ed Marshall, an independent consultant technical writer and the sole proprietor of Marshall Documentation Consulting <www.MarshallDocumentationServices.com> for an interactive webinar where they will discuss APIs (application programming interfaces) and SDKs (software development kits). Writers should consider this area as the demand is often greater than the supply of writers; hence, you can get higher pay than for other types of writing. Also, you often get greater flexibility in telecommuting / working remotely when doing this type of writing. Ed will define APIs / SDKs and their differences, discuss the benefits and drawbacks to doing this type of writing, discuss the types of personalities that thrive in this environment, provide sources of training, discuss logistical issues unique to these products and some of the commonly used (free) tools to generate the documentation.

Ed will discuss the following topics:

Several sample APIs / SDKs will be shown. Typical uses for each will be explained. Typical documentation deliverables and the ideal information for both.
Key programming concepts that writers need to be familiar with for this type of writing.
Benefits and drawbacks to doing this type of writing. Discuss the types of personalities that thrive in this environment.
Ways to add value to these products using the skills we already have as technical communicators
The training needed for this writing and where you can get the training.
Logistical issues faced by writers: how you get your information, automated tools you can use, deciding the best formats for online help, platform issues, etc.
Summary and Q&A.

Adobe, Acrolinx and Lionbridge present - a how to guide for creating global-ready content that works!

Communicating with a global audience is no easy task. How do you get people to listen to your message? How do you know if they get it? There is no shortage of content out there. How can you be sure that they read your message and find your products?

Content delivery experts from Acrolinx, Adobe and Lionbridge show you how to manage the complexity and deliver a high impact message that will resonate with customers. Attend this webinar to learn:

How to develop content that gets attention
How to ensure that your customers get a consistent experience- in every channel and in every language
Shortcuts for delivering high quality, multilingual content – faster
Things you don't know about how your customers get content about your products

Presenters:

Tom Aldous, Technical Communication Evangelist, Adobe Systems Inc.
Marc Osofsky, VP Marketing, Lionbridge
Jennifer Beaupre, VP Global Marketing, Acrolinx

What is the future of indexing for technical documentation?

With the rapid growth of e-books, tablets, and mobile devices, the ways in which we consume content are changing. The methods readers use to find content are also changing overall. Despite that, the need for quality indexes will not fade, but the appearance of indexes will be different. The concepts for indexing content will remain the same, however.

What will these future indexes look like? Cheryl Landes, who has indexed technical content for 21 years, will answer that question and provide examples of the new world of indexes. Some of these indexes are coming sooner than you might think!

During this one hour interactive session, Cheryl will cover the following topics:

Changes in how people read documentation, and how this is affecting how we look for information. Mobile devices, e-readers, and tablets will be covered in this segment.
A discussion of current interfaces and their benefits and limitations in terms of finding information.
Samples of effective indexes on the new reading devices, along with a discussion of tools that can produce these indexes. (NOTE: There isn’t a consistently accepted format yet, but the American Society for Indexing’s Digital Trends Task Force has created a proposed mock-up and electronic indexing standards and is working with various industry leaders and organizations to integrate these into e-books and other types of electronic documentation. Cheryl is active in this task force.)

Why upgrade from older versions of RoboHelp (X5, 6, 7 or 8) to RoboHelp 9? What is the value proposition for your business?

Thinking about upgrading from older versions of RoboHelp (X5, 6, 7 or 8) to RoboHelp 9? Is it worth the investment?

Join Tom Aldous (Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist) for an interactive eSeminar, where he will demonstrate what additional business value RoboHelp 9 brings to the table in terms of the following functional areas:

Multichannel multidevice publishing
Next-generation collaboration and review workflows
Innovative and unique features to power progressive help documentation (Dynamic user-centric content; integrated Google search; external content search; community-generated content; automated context-sensitive help authoring)
Next-generation help documentation with Adobe® AIR® Help 2.0 (Content Curation and moderation-enabled commenting; professional, personalized, and customizable appearance)
Cross-browser, cross-operating system delivery mechanism
Support for EPUB, Java Help, FlashHelp, and Eclipse Help
Easy customization to meet business needs
Compliance with industry standards
Robust and scalable solution
User-friendly, intuitive interface

Key Trends in Software User Assistance: An Expert’s Perspective - Part 1

Most valued User Assistance skills and technologies. Platform dependencies. And much more…

This is the first of a two-part series discussing the current and future trends associated with software user assistance.

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist and Joe Welinske < joewe@writersua.com>, President of WritersUA <www.writersua.com> for an interactive webinar as they discuss the findings of an independent research conducted by Joe for the User Assistance professionals of today and tomorrow.

P.S.: Look out for a free download link to the latest Software User Assistance whitepaper by Joe Welinske on the Adobe RoboHelp 9 website under LEARNING tab around mid-December 2011: http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp.html.

Adobe RoboHelp and Lightext, Inc. - The Help and Training Connection

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Product Evangelist, and experts from Lightext (http://www.lightext.com/), a leading provider of training and documentation services, for an engaging and interactive eSeminar to learn how to create valuable training materials, such as leaders’ guides and participants’ manuals, from your existing RoboHelp projects.

In this session, we’ll demonstrate how to set up your projects in a manner that will allow you to utilize them as single source for your help and classroom tools, thus saving time, eliminating duplication, and ensuring consistency. Also, Lightext and Adobe will introduce the concept of the Learning Professional, an individual who utilizes available tools, knowledge and systems for the optimum user experience, whether it be through Help or Training.

Traditionally, companies (particularly those managing a lot of policies and procedures and training mandates) reinvent the wheel to meet these two objectives. See how Lightext has successfully introduced the concept of utilizing RoboHelp to handle both needs – thus saving time and ensuring synchronicity and compliance.

Getting it Right from the Start:Setting Up Online Help and Documentation Projects Correctly

Adobe RoboHelp is a powerful, versatile tool that’s often used to create large, complex online Help and documentation projects. Yet tools like RoboHelp also make it easy to simply start a project without any front-end planning – with a philosophy of “we don’t have time to define the project up-front; we’ll work out the details once the project gets rolling…. “But working like this – defining the project’s specifications and settings during development and under a tight schedule and full to-do list – can spell trouble. It’s hard to remember when to use certain styles or conditional build tags, and just hard to stay controlled and consistent.

We can avoid most of these problems by defining as many settings as possible when the project starts, while we have time to think. And it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort, often just a day or two to define a small number of crucial control files and settings.

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist, and Neil Perlin, an Adobe Partner and an internationally acclaimed Subject Matter Expert in online help and documentation, for an interactive eSeminar that looks at these files and settings, with a focus on topic templates, CSSs, table styles, skins, Resource Manager, and a written project description and quick-reference. You’ll see how, with just a day or two of planning, you’ll wind up with greater consistency and maintainability within and across your projects.

About Neil Perlin

Neil Perlin is an internationally known consultant, strategist, trainer, and developer for online help and documentation.

Experience True Multimedia, Multidevice, Multipurpose Technical Communication – With the all-new Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5!

The best in technical communication is here! With the all-new Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5, now you can author, enrich, review, publish and repurpose your technical content with a single integrated toolkit comprising of five powerful software.

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Technical Communication Evangelist, for an interactive eSeminar.

Applying Topic-Based Authoring Principles to Your Adobe RoboHelp Content

When you develop content in Adobe RoboHelp, you are already creating modular topics. But writing content in separate topics doesn't by itself guarantee all the benefits you can get from using a topic-based approach.

At the heart of topic-based authoring is the idea of developing an information model that includes topic types and patterns. Defining these patterns helps you develop and present information in a consistent manner, which improves the usability of your content. Once you have designed your information model, you can implement it in Adobe RoboHelp and apply it as you write.

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Product Evangelist, and Linda Urban (www.urbancreations.com), Adobe Partner and a leading industry expert, for an interactive session, where they show how to apply topic-based concepts while using Adobe RoboHelp.

About our expert, Linda Urban: Linda Urban has more than 25 years of experience in designing and developing technical information and instruction. A consultant, she is available to work on projects, and to work with writers and teams to improve the quality of their documentation and training content, focusing on both usefulness and usability.

Linda's popular workshop, “Topic-Based Authoring: Getting Your Feet Wet”, has been highly praised by both private clients and participants at conferences and workshops in the US, UK, and France. Linda's company is Linda Urban Communications, LLC, and her website is www.urbancreations.com.

With Adobe RoboHelp 9, you know how easy it is to create EPUB files for smartphones, eBook readers, tablets, PDF, Adobe AIR & other Help applications. Now see how easy it is to create a RoboHelp project start to finish

Join Tom Aldous, Adobe Product Evangelist, for an interactive eSeminar, where Tom will demonstrate how easy it is to work with RoboHelp 9 to create your Help content for various applications. Tom will start with a new project from scratch, and build everything needed to generate EPUB, PDF, Adobe AIR, WebHelp and more output formats. It’s faster and easier than you think!

Discover the amazing new capabilities you can expect in Adobe RoboHelp 9

Join RJ Jacquez (Senior Product Evangelist, Adobe Technical Communication Group) for this interactive eSeminar to discover the amazing new capabilities you can expect in the much-improved Adobe RoboHelp 9.

Find out how you can:

Author optimized content that conforms to organizational and industry standards for versatile help systems, policies and procedures, and professional knowledge bases
Implement efficient workflow with collaborative reviews, shared reusable assets and multichannel, multi device publishing options
Offer contemporary end-user experience with personalized filtering, dynamic user-centric content, external web and user-generated content, and shared commenting

Using Adobe RoboHelp Server Analytics for Improving Content

Help Authors have long wanted to know: "Am I being helpful?" Adobe RoboHelp Server 8 helps answer that question.

Adobe RoboHelp Server is a powerful option used with the RoboHelp authoring tool. Join Adobe Partners and Experts for this interactive eSeminar to receive practical tips on how to configure and publish RoboHelp projects to the RoboHelp Server and to generate user feedback reports.

John Daigle will be your guide for this eSeminar. John is an Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Adobe Captivate instructor (ACP) and has consulted on Adobe RoboHelp Server since its inception.

Communicating Policies and Procedures for the 21st Century Organization

Are your organization’s policies and procedures (P&P) out of date, unclear or inconsistent? Are you still reading and writing P&P in paragraphs with academic outlines accessible in dusty binders or in PDFs?

This presentation introduces you to P&P communication as a body of knowledge, while exploring the latest trends and best practices for developing and managing P&P systems and information -- thus transforming performance for the 21st Century organization. Led by a leading expert in P&P communication, this highly engaging presentation is filled with insights, anecdotes, resources and examples on and about policies and procedures.