From a Technical Writer in China

Susan Wu is a Chinese technical writer living and working in Shanghai. She keeps a very informative blog that I follow with great interest.

Here is what Susan has written lately about the "real situation" in China:

"With the recent economic crisis and financial meltdown, the impact is worldwide, not just in the U.S. From what I’ve been hearing all around, many companies in China are laying off workers, cutting back on salaries, not giving out bonuses this year, and/or not hiring. People who are out of work are having a difficult time finding a job. Many fear losing their job. Thousands of recent college graduates compete for a very limited number of jobs. Even graduate students are fighting for jobs like selling pork.

On the other hand, Wangjianshuo observes that what you hear is different from what you see. I also agree with him. When you go out, there are people everywhere. Restaurants are always packed and often times, you have to wait a long time to get a table. Shopping malls are also busy with many shoppers carrying bags of goods they just purchased. It’s still hard to find an empty taxi in downtown Shanghai.

I don’t really understand what is really happening either because news and media keep saying how bad the economic situation is in China and that we haven’t seen the worst yet. I can’t really tell judging from the way people are still spending. Unlike in the U.S. where people are cutting back, I see that people in Shanghai continue to spend like before. "

Perhaps the "sub-prime" and "Madoff" waves have not yet hit China in full force? WHo knows. I'll keep reading Susan's keen observations.

"Consulting" too much...

The verb "consult" is overused in technical documentation.

Why say "if you don't have a TV signal, consult with your TV company" instead of "if you don't have a TV signal, call your installer or the TV company"?

We're not really "consulting." We're just giving them a call. That's all.

It gets worse when we tell people to "consult" with inanimate objects!

"If the parts don't fit, consult the parts list in your User Guide." Ugh!

I prefer: "If the parts don't fit, check the parts list in your User Guide."

CONSULT:

• get or ask advice from; "Consult your local broker"; "They had to consult before arriving at a decision"
• seek information from; "You should consult the dictionary"; "refer to your notes"
• confer: have a conference in order to talk something over; "We conferred about a plan of action"
• advise professionally; "The professor consults for industry"

MS Word Bookmarks for Global Corrections and "Running Headers or Footers"

Imagine you have a 200 page MS Word document with repeating text elements like an address, a name, or a date which repeated over and over throughout the document.

And imagine, after finishing the document, or when it's time to update it, your boss tells you to change the name from "John" to "Bob."

One way to do it of course is to use a global Find and Replace.

But what if you'd like to replace only some of the "John"s to "Bob"? Are you going to check them one by one? Or what if you want to do it automatically without the need to remember to do a Find and Replace?

It's easy. You first mark the source text with a bookmark.

1) Select the text.

2) Select Insert > Bookmark from the main menu.

3) Enter a Bookmark Name (no spaces) and click Add. To see your bookmark on the screen, select Tools > Options > View Tab. Check the "Show Bookmarks" check-box.

The next step -- for all the other instances of this text, enter a REF (Reference) FIELD that points to the BOOKMARK of your reference TEXT.

1) Place your cursor where you want the next instance of the source text to appear.

2) Select Insert > Field from the main menu to display the Field dialog box.

3) Find the REF field in the "Field Names" scroll-down list box.

4) Select REF and then select your BOOKMARK in the "Bookmark Name" list box in the middle.

5) Click OK and your text will be inserted with a gray background screen (which will not be printed), denoting that this is not normal text but a variable field.

Now, every time you make a change to your original text, all other instances will also be changed automatically AFTER you do the following:

1) Select the whole document by selecting Edit > Select All from the main menu, or pressing Ctrl + A.

2) Press the F9 key and BINGO! You've got all instances of your text updated automatically.

P.S. Be careful not to delete the bookmark markers when you are editing your original text. That's why it is important to work by displaying your bookmark markers.

Creating RUNNING HEADERS and FOOTERS

Another great use of Bookmarkers and the REF field variable is in the Headers and Footers.

Imagine you'd like to include the Document Title (not the File Name but the actual name of the document printed on the front cover of the document) or a section title either in the header or the footer. This is also called a "running" header or footer since the header/footer on a page changes depending on selected section headings or titles like the way, for example, you'd see on any phone directory or dictionary page.

Adobe FrameMaker takes care of this much more elegantly by allowing you to assign one or more variables to your header or footer, variables that are fully customizable and indexed to your paragraph tags, so that you can actually have multiple levels of running headers and footers displaying on your pages.

Although MS Word does not provide the same easy functionality to key the headers/footers to paragraph styles, it still can be done by inserting bookmarks and REF variables.

This is how you do it:

Assign a bookmark to the title (or any other source text of your choice) and then insert its corresponding REF field variable into the header or the footer. After updating the text, go back to your header or the footer editing mode (View > Header and Footer) and press F9. All your headers or footers (within that given section) will be updated as well.

NOTE: There is a formatting problem with updating the headers and footers this way since MS Word has the tendency to insert the source text with its original formatting.

If, for example, you are referencing a 24 point document title in your header, your headers will look huge. You can of course select the header text manually and re-format it to a smaller size.

If the next time you update the source text, the length of the updated text is equal to or smaller than the original text, then the header/footer preserves its latest formatting properties.

If, however, your new updated text is LONGER than the previous one, then for only that part of the text which is longer, MS Word switches the formatting back to the original source text format.

For example, if your original document title is composed of two words, "Word Tricks," and your updated document title is either "Word Techniques" or just "Word," then the headers and footers are updated (after going into the header/footer editing mode) nicely by preserving your latest formatting corrections.

However, if your new title is "Word Tricks Explained," then the last extra word "Explained" is displayed in the headers/footers with the original formatting of your document title, creating a lop-sided and aesthetically unpleasant header/footer. In those cases you need to go back to your header/footer and reformat the extra new word(s) as well to match the rest of your header/footer. This is a bug that I hope Microsoft will take care of in the future.

FrameMaker versus Word

By Shweta Katdare

Introduction

The most important skills for a technical writer are writing, editing, and design. However, these skills are not enough to make you a successful technical writer. You also need to learn how to use authoring tools.

The most widely used publishing tools are:

• FrameMaker
• Microsoft Word

FrameMaker

FrameMaker is a desktop publishing and a help authoring application created by Adobe Systems. It is used by technical writers as a publication tool for creating large documents. Its latest version is 7.2.

Advantages of FrameMaker:

• Useful for writing large and complex documents.
• Creating a PDF is easy and the user can create bookmarks, links, and other PDF features.
• Easier to change the layout of a document using Master pages. A master page is created whenever the user creates a new document. It is used to decide the layout of the document.
• Text in tables can be rotated.
• Can print a rotated page with normal headers and footers, which means that the text can be in Landscape mode whereas the headers and footers are in Portrait mode.
• Has good color options. They include CMYK and Pantone.
• It can handle a lot of graphics.
• Has a number of cross-book features. One of them is to search and spell-check the whole book. This feature is useful for dealing with large books.
• Has good flexibility in numbering options. It has built-in variables for chapter and volume numbering. It can also handle long numbered lists without any errors.
• Allows you to set up numbering for steps or procedures.
• Cross-referencing can be added easily. You can also define formats for your cross-references.
• Can customize and save table formats.
• Character and paragraph formats selection lists are displayed as windows. They can be moved on the screen as convenient.
• FrameMaker supports conditional text.
• Easier to create single source documentation set in FrameMaker. Single sourcing allows you to use the same content in many documents. For example, if your user guide and admin guide have some common topics, it is easier to share them rather than maintaining separate copies.
• Has Webworks Publisher, which is a powerful tool used to produce HTML, XML, or RTF output.

Disadvantages of FrameMaker:

• Has a steep learning curve for Word users.
• FrameMaker for Windows does not have macros.
• Undo is limited to one action.
• Cannot right-click and paste selected text. You have to use the keyboard commands or use the Edit menu for it.
• Has an unpredictable spell-checker.
• Drag-and-drop feature is not present in FrameMaker.
• Does not have grammar checker.
• Inserting graphics is a very awkward. You first need to create an anchored frame, insert the graphic, and then manually resize it.
• Find command does not stop when it reaches the end of the document. It keeps on continuing.
• Have to manually format table columns.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is word processing software used to create documents. It is a powerful tool to create professional looking documents.

Advantages of Microsoft Word:

• Many help authoring tools are available such as RoboHelp. Help authoring tools (HAT) are used to create online help manuals and are used by technical writers. They get the source text from programs like HTML and Word and generate output in formats like Microsoft WinHelp or Adobe PDF.
• Has a good spell-checker features like on-the-fly spell checking, removing the spell-check dialog box out of the way when it selects text, and informing the user when it reaches the end of the document.
• Can use track changes to review documents.
• Has a good grammar checker.
• Has the ability to "undo" many times.
• Has macros, which can automate repetitive actions.
• Can open two parts of a document in one window using Word.

Disadvantages of Microsoft Word:

• Not stable for large documents. It gets slow while handling large volumes.
• Difficult to have a single-source documentation set.
• Does not run on Unix.
• Does not handle multi-document features like headers, footers, indexes, table of contents, cross-references, etc very well.

Conclusion

FrameMaker is best suited for large documents or documents with a lot of files, such as books and user manuals. Word is better for smaller documents like reports, newsletters, writing letters, and memos. However, Word is much easier to use and has many advanced features.

Most of the features of FrameMaker can be implemented in Word, but FrameMaker manages large documents better and also has good cross-referencing and multiple file support.

Both Adobe FrameMaker and Microsoft Word are powerful, professional authoring tools. Both have strengths and weaknesses. To decide which is best for you, look closely at the type of document you need to write.

Shweta Katdare is a writer with 24 by 5 Tech Comm, a technical writing company that specializes in fast, high-quality writing and editing. For more articles on writing, technology and business, sign up for the 24 by 5 Tech Comm Newsletter at www.24by5.com.

How to Attach Graphics to the Headers of a FrameMaker Document?

Imagine you’d like to have the sweet image of a finch accompanying every section header in your FrameMaker document that has something to do with “Birds.”

For example, let's say you want the readers to see the image of a finch right before every header that reads something like “Birds of North America,” “Migration Routes of Birds,” etc.

First of all, create the image and save it on your computer.

Then do the following in your FrameMaker document:

Select View > Reference Pages to display your reference page. The chances are you are looking at the default images of Footnote, TableFootnote, Single Line and Double Line. This is where we will add our image.

Select Graphics > Tools and display your tool bar.

Click and select the “Place a Graphic Frame” tool in the middle. Your cursor will transform into a Plus Sign.

On the Reference Page, drag and draw a graphic frame appropriate for the size of your graphic file. FrameMaker automatically displays the Frame Name dialog box.

Enter a short but distinct frame name. If you enter names that are similar to each other this will create a problem later on when it is time to select that graphic and to attach it to your header paragraph style.

Select File > Import > File to import your previously saved icon/image.

Browse and find the image file. Click the “Import by Reference” radio-button if the image size is too large and at the end you’ll save the whole document as PDF before distributing it. Otherwise you will need to distribute the image together with your FrameMaker file. If the image is small, you can select the “Copy into Document” radio-button as well.

Click the Import button to import the image into the graphic frame. And you are half done.

Save and go back to your main document by selecting View > Body Pages.

Now, open your Paragraph Designer (Ctrl+M). Find the Header Style to which you want to attach the image.

Select the Advanced Tab. You’ll see that, at the bottom, there are two drop-down menus: “Frame Above Pgf:” and “Below Pgf:” Select the former if you’d like your image to appear ABOVE the header paragraph, and the latter for BELOW.

If you click and view the drop-down list for either option you’ll see the name of the image you’ve saved in the Reference Page listed there.

Click and select the name of the image and you’re done! Save the paragraph style.

Now the image will be placed either above or below your header (depending on your previous choice), and it will always be so every time you use that paragraph style, giving you a very consistent looking document.

TIP: if the alignment of your image is not perfect, then go back to your Reference Page and play around with the dimensions of the graphic frame of the image, and the image’s alignment WITHIN the frame itself (click and select the image and then move it around inside the frame by clicking one of the four positioning buttons on the main toolbar, on top of the FrameMaker screen).

I find that most of the time perfect positioning of most FrameMaker images require some minor visual trial and error until they look right.

How to Set Up a FrameMaker Template?

A FrameMaker template consists of a set of Master Pages.

Select File > New > Document from the top menu.

Select Portrait and create a new document.

Select View > Master Pages to switch to the master page editing screen.

The default FrameMaker document comes with a single master page named RIGHT (check the status bar at the bottom of your screen), complete with a default HEADER and a default FOOTER. In between is the default TEXT FRAME.

To modify the dimensions of the text frame, select Graphics > Tools to reveal the TOOLBOX. Select the arrow on the TOP RIGHT square, the SELECT OBJECT tool.

Click on and select the text frame. Six handles will appear on the dotted-line borders of the text frame.

Select Graphics > Object Properties.

In the dialog box, enter the WIDTH and HEIGHT of the text frame, its distance from TOP and LEFT of the page, the NUMBER OF COLUMNS you need on the page, and whether you need a ROOM FOR SIDE HEAD for your sidebar (check the check-box and then enter the WIDTH of the sidebar and the SIDE it should be on).

You are basically done. If you need a certain text to appear on the HEADER or FOOTER of every page, enter those as well.

To enter a page number, place your cursor where you want the page number to appear and then select Format > Headers & Footers > Insert Page #.

If you want a “Page X of Y” type of page number designation, do the above, enter a single space, and then select Format > Headers & Footers > Insert Page Count.

To clone a LEFT master page from your RIGHT page, select Format > Page Layout > New Master Page.

In the dialog box, give it the name LEFT, and leave the radio-button “Create from Master Page Right” as is, selected.

Click Add and voila! You have a new LEFT master page looking just like your RIGHT page.

So what’s the point?

Now you can change the positioning of the HEADER and FOOTER elements, for example, so that page numbers and Chapter headings can appear away from the “gutter” and towards the open ends of the pages.

I usually also clone one more master page from the RIGHT -- the FIRST page since the first pages of all chapters always look a little different.

Once you have your three basic master pages, your rudimentary chapter template is done.

Save and return to your body pages by selecting View > Body Pages.

How to Use the "Pending" Marker in FrameMaker?

FrameMaker (FM) is such a wonderful software to write long and complicated books and documents. In my 20-plus years of experience as a writer, nothing comes close.

FM has a very powerful built-in marker functionality with which you can mark not only your index words and cross-references, but your “pending stuff” as well.

Let’s say you have these paragraphs in your document that you do not quite know how to edit because certain information is missing. So you would like to mark those section as “pending” and come back and revisit them later on when the missing information is supplied.

If your document is only 10 pages long, obviously it would not be much of a hassle to remember which sections are “pending.”

But how are you going to keep track of the missing items if you have 100 or 200 “pending items” in a 1,000 page user’s guide?

With FM it is very easy. Just simply select the pending sections or click your cursor where you want to enter the marker.

Then, select Special > Marker from the main menu to display the Marker dialog box.

Select the Pending option from the Marker Type drop-down menu.

Type in anything you like for the “Marker Text” as a reminder. Or, if you've selected the whole pending section previously, the selected text will automatically populate the Marker Text field.

Click the New Marker button, and you are done.

To see all your pending markers in a neat list, select Special > List of > Markers from the main menu to display the standalone list warning message. Click Yes to display the Set Up List of Markers dialog box.

Select Pending from the “Don’t Include” list on the RIGHT and click the left arrow to transfer it to the “Include Markets of Type” list on the LEFT.

Click the Set button to create a standalone list and all your pending markers will be listed for you.

To jump directly to a certain marker’s location. Press Alt + Ctrl. Your cursor will transform into a pointing finger. Click and FM will automatically take you to the exact location of the marker.

Once you edit the pending item, you can delete the pending marker.

Display Conditional Text In FrameMaker By Using a Single Text Block

You want to display different versions of the same text in a FrameMaker technical document.

You'd like to toggle different versions on and off.

There is one condition however: you do not want to use multiple copies of the same text block (with perhaps different paragraph tags assigned to them) for fear of messing up the formatting of your pages.

How would you do it?

It's simple, but you need to watch out for the simple tricks explained in this article.

For example, let's take this hypothetical case: how to display the same text in different colors without changing its paragraph tag?

1. Create as many Conditional Text conditions as you like. Let's say; Blue and Red, turning the selected texts into blue and red, respectively.

2. Select your text and apply ALL the conditions to the same text. The resultant color may be something like Pink. That's okay.

3. Do this to all your target texts (or apply the copy-and-paste trick explained at the bottom of this page). Now you can de-select everything. Your main document does not need to be selected at all in order to turn on and off different colors as explained below.

4. Click the Show/Hide button in the Conditional Text dialog box to display the Show/Hide Conditional text dialog box.

5. Move into the Show list-box the condition that you want to make active. Click Set to turn the color of all previously "conditioned" set of texts to your selected color.

6. IMPORTANT: To shift to another color, you first have to move ALL conditions back to the Hide list-box. This will cause all text to disappear momentarily.

7. Move into the Show list-box the NEW condition that'd like to be active. Click Set to turn the color of all previously "conditioned" set of texts to the NEW color.

COPY and PASTE TRICK: You can copy and paste the "conditioned" text as long as you also copy and paste the PARAGRAPH MARK at the end of the text. The conditioning information is embedded not in the text itself but the paragraph mark that follows it (just like in MS Word).

That way you can assign multiple conditions to only one block of text; copy and paste it with its paragraph mark; and then type over the pasted and "conditioned" piece of text any new content you want.

How to Create Cross References in FrameMaker?

FrameMaker has a very powerful cross referencing (linking) functionality. You can easily refer to another section or element in your book by a hyper-link that will be alive when you save your document as a PDF file.

The linked cross references are updated automatically when you edit your document or book and select Edit > Update References.

Here is how you can create FrameMaker cross references easily:

Enter your cursor to where you want your cross reference to be.

Then select Special > Cross Reference (or use the very useful Esc+S+C hotkey shortcut).

In the Cross-Reference dialog box, make sure PARAGRAPH is selected for Source Type.

Select a PARAGRAPH STYLE in the PARAGRAPH TAG window. All text for the document (the NAME of which is displayed in the DOCUMENT field on top) tagged with that paragraph style will be listed in the PARAGRAPHS text box on the right.

Select the text on the right window TO WHICH you’d like to create a cross reference from your cursor position.

Then select a REFERENCE FORMAT from the drop-down list at the bottom.

Click the INSERT button and you are done. The cross reference is inserted to where your cursor is.

Now you have an accurate and great looking cross reference which will be updated every time you edit your chapter or book.

How to Create Sidebar Icons in FrameMaker?

Sidebar icons are cool. They not only look great aesthetically but they also perform a great function by emphasizing the important points in the text and making sure that the reader does not miss them.

I, for example, always use the image of an “exclamation mark inside a triangle” or a “lightning inside a triangle” to the left of any WARNING or CAUTION text. If a hardware user can get an electric shock for missing such an important tip, then I feel it’s my duty as a writer to use strong graphics to alert him/her to the fact.

THE MAIN TRICK is - you need to create a special Paragraph Style (also known as a “Paragraph Tag”) for your sidebar image.

Fire up your Paragraph Designer by selecting Format > Paragraphs > Designer (or entering the very useful Ctrl + M hotkey shortcut) to display the paragraph designer.

Click the Commands button at the bottom to display the popup menu. Select New Format to display the New Format dialog box. Enter a Name for your new style, let’s say, “SideIcon”. Select the “Store in Catalog” check-box because you want this style to be available to you straight from your Paragraph Style list. You do not need to select the other check box “Apply to Selection” since you are creating the style from scratch.

Click Create and the style will be created.

Click the Pagination tab.

Select the “Sidebar Alignment” radio-button. Experiment with the existing alignment options available through the accompanying drop-down list to see which works better to align your icon with the first line of the text. I usually select the default “First baseline.”

Click the Basic Font tab. If you get a Apply Changes prompt, click the “Apply Changes” button.

For default font size, select or enter the SMALLEST possible font size. And you’re done!

Now, place your cursor to the very beginning of your text. Then hit ENTER once and create a new paragraph. (You should always have your Text Symbols on when working in FrameMaker. Select View > Text Symbols, or hit Esc+V+T.)

It is IMPORTANT that you place your cursor to the paragraph symbol you’ve just created on TOP of your existing text. The reason is simple: if you apply your SideIcon style to the existing text, the whole warning or caution text itself will become a sidebar icon! You don’t want that. You want the icon and the first line of the text lined up neatly side-by-side.

After your cursor is in the right spot, click the SideIcon style in the Paragraph Style Catalog (Format >Characters > Catalog).

The new paragraph mark you’ve created will immediately jump to the sidebar, waiting for you to insert your icon.

Select File > Import > File, browse to the image/icon, and click Insert, and you are done.

Congrats!

If the image is not lined up nicely with the first line of the text you can always adjust it by experimenting with the following variables of the SideIcon style inside the Paragraph Designer: font size (in Default Font tab); side head alignment style (in Pagination Tab).

Another thing you can do is go to Special > Anchored Frame dialog box and experiment with the different values in then ANCHORING POSITION drop-down list.

FrameMaker Markers Ease the Pain of Big Tech Book Projects

Those technical writers who have written manuals running hundreds and even thousands of pages know the difficulty of keeping various kinds of markers under control.

But if you are an Adobe FrameMaker user, you are lucky because FM provides you with many ways to mark a document.

Open your document and press Esc+S+M to display that life-saving Marker dialog box. (Or select Special > Marker from the main menu.)

When you click the drop-down menu you’ll be presented with an astonishing variety of ways to mark your document: Author, CloseAnchor, Comment, Conditional Text, ContextString, Cross-Ref, Equation, Glossary, Header/Footer $1, Header/Footer $2, HTML Macro, Hypertext, Index, OpenAnchor, Subject, etc.

And if you select the “Edit…” option you can Add a new custom marker of your own or Change or Delete an existing marker. It’s not going to get any more flexible than that.

In this article I’ll show you how to use the Comment marker.

"Comment" Marker

Comment is basically what it exactly sounds like – if you’d like to drop a note for yourself anywhere in the document, like “do not forget to insert Graph A right after this paragraph” do the following:

1) Place your cursor where you want to insert your comment.

2) Press Esc+S+M to display the Marker dialog box.

3) Select Comment from the drop-down list.

4) Enter your comment in the Marker Text text box.

5) Click New Marker, and you are done!

6) To see a list of all your Comments, select Special > List Of > markers to display the Set Up List of Markers dialog box.

7) Select the Comment marker type from the right list box and click the left arrow to transfer it into the “Include Markers of Type” list box on the left.

8) Check the “Create Hypertext links” check-box (a recommended practice).

9) Then click the Set button and you’ll have all your Comment type of markers listed in a separate window for you.

To go to any specific Comment marker, place your cursor on the page number of the listed comment and press Ctrl and Alt buttons (on a PC) simultaneously. Your cursor will transform into a pointing finger. Click and you’ll automatically be taken to that specific comment even if it is on page 10,000. To delete the comment, hit the Delete button immediately after you hyperlink to the comment from your Comments List.

This is how you can make all kinds of notes to yourself as you are working on a long document, without worrying about forgetting anything. Before finishing the document, you can generate a list of all such comments and take care of them one by one.

Good luck!

How to Hide FrameMaker Page Number Cross-References by Conditional Text

If you have a document that will be printed hardcopy (or distributed as PDF) as well as used as a help file, the hyperlinked page number cross-references usually create a problem since page numbers do not make sense in a help file and should not be there.

So what are you going to do? Create two different versions of the same document, one with and the other without page number references? Of course not.

With FrameMaker, you can have your cake and eat it too by creating a single source document with conditional text.

When you hide the conditional text (for the help file), the page number references would be hidden too. And when you turn them on (for generating a PDF copy or regular printed hardcopy), you'll have your page references back on displaying again.

The trick is to split your hyperlinked cross-references into two parts and assign different cross-reference formats to them.

For example, consider the cross-reference "See Chapter 15, Troubleshooting on page 235."

You want this reference to show as is in the hardcopy print edition since the readers can actually flip to that page (or click to that page if it is saved as PDF).

But in a help file, you want the same reference show up only as "See Chapter 15, Troubleshooting."

Here is how you do it:

1) You select "See Chapter 15, Troubleshooting" and press Esc+S+C (or select Special > Cross Reference from the main menu) to display your cross-reference designer.

2) Assign a "Heading only" cross-reference style to the selected text, a style that does not include any page number.

3) Click the Replace button to assign the style to the selected text.

4) Then do the same with the text " on page 235" – including the space just before "o". In your cross-reference designer, assign a "Page only" style to the page number text.

5) While the page number text is still selected, display your conditional text dialog box by selecting Special > Conditional Text from your main menu. Make sure the "Conditional" radio-button is selected because you will make this text conditional.

6) Either select one of the "Not In" tags and click the left arrow to transfer it into the "In" box… or, click the Edit Condition Tag button and create your own tag, named something like "HidePageNum". Then make sure you again select this new tag and transfer it into the "In" box.

7) To toggle the page number text on and off, click the Show/Hide button. In the "Show/Hide Conditional text" dialog box, select your tag and move it into the "Show" box to show it and "Hide" box to hide it. When you press the Set button, the FrameMaker will either show or hide your conditional text, depending on your choice.

8) Repeat the same for all the text in your document that you'd like to hide first before compiling a help file.

If you use the same conditional text tag for all the text that you want to hide, at compilation time all you need to do is hide a single tag and FrameMaker will automatically hide all the text tagged with that same label as a conditional text. It's as simple as that.

This is a very convenient way to turn on and off hundreds and thousands of different text strings in a long document by just a single command. It is worth practicing it until you get it right because it will save you untold hours of work in the future when you are struggling against the deadline to compile a neat looking help file from your main document.

Enjoy and good luck!

Three Frame Maker Tips

Renaming the FrameMaker Books

Think twice before changing the name of a FrameMaker book file especially if the book includes TOC, index, List of Figures (LOF) and List of Tables (LOT) files.

Because when you try to compile a new PDF book file, FrameMaker will try to locate the newly-named versions of the TOC, IX, LOT, and LOF files.

When it can’t find them, it will refuse to create a PDF book. You will have to re-create those TOC, IX, LOT and LOF files to compile the PDF file of the newly-named book.

Images disappear in PDF?

You save your FM document as PDF but the images in anchored frames disappear. All you get is blank frames.

Solution?

Select File > Preferences > General and check the Save FrameImage with Imported Graphics check-box.

Re-generate the PDF and all your images should be there.

Installing new or missing fonts for FM

1) Save (or extract) the fonts to a folder on your system.

2) Go to your Windows Control Panel > Fonts screen.

3) From the menu, select File > Install New Font… to display the Add Fonts dialog box.

4) Find the folder in which you have saved the desired font. Select it and make sure it appears in the List of Fonts list box. Make sure the Copy fonts to Fonts folder check-box is checked.

5) Click OK.

6) When you open your FM document, you should see the new font listed when you select Format > Font from the main menu.

(The new font should be accessible from other Windows applications like Photoshop as well.)

Google Announces KNOL

There is something new from the ever-inventive Google Team: a KNOL!

Blogs are great for quickly and easily getting your latest writing out to your readers, while knols are better for when you want to write an authoritative article on a single topic. The tone is more formal, and, while it's easy to update the content and keep it fresh, knols aren't designed for continuously posting new content or threading. Know how to fix a leaky toilet, but don't want to write a blog about fixing up your house? In that case, Knol is for you.

Except for the different format, you'll get all the things you've come to expect from Blogger in Knol. Like Blogger, Knol has simple web authoring tools that make it easy to collaborate, co-author, and publish.

It has community features as well: Your readers will be able to add comments and rate your article, and, if you want, they'll be able to suggest edits that you can then either accept or reject. And, just like in Blogger, you can also choose to include ads from AdSense in your knols to perhaps make a little money.

One other important difference between Knol and Blogger is that Knol encourages you to reveal your true identity. Knols are meant to be authoritative articles, and, therefore, they have a strong focus on authors and their credentials. We feel that this focus will help ensure that authors get credit for their work, make the content more credible.

All in all, I agree with Google that Knol will be a great new way for you to share what you know, inform people about an issue that is important to you, raise your profile as an expert in your field, and maybe even make some money from ads.

You might consider it both as a stand-alone platform and as a supplement to your existing blog or web site. So many options, so little time :-))

P.S. BLOGGERS BEWARE -- A Knol is not a shallow marketing tool since the depth and quality of the AUTHORITATIVE articles published as a Knol is truly amazing. I posted up an experiemental knol myself but frankly did not like the quality since it was my very first "knol."

It'd be interesting to see how this new Google "article platform" will fare against such established article depositories as Ezine Articles of Chris Knight.

Technical Editing

EXAMPLE: Once the startup condition is attained, the user can launch the module.

BETTER: After starting the system, the user can launch the module.

MEGA MILLIONS - "Learn from History" ???

(Click the image to enlarge it.)

That's the first sentence that greets you when you visit the "Recent Drawings" page of MEGA MILLIONS LOTTERY.

LEARN FROM HISTORY? If we could do that, that would mean the lottery drawings are NOT random!

The whole point to a lottery is that all drawings are (supposed to be) RANDOM and INDEPENDENT from each other.

For anything to have a HISTORY it has to have events that are NON-RANDOM and NON-INDEPENDENT.

I'm really surprised that the Mega Million lottery officials are suggesting that we can "learn" anything from studying the "history" of these drawings.

What do they exactly mean by that, I'm really at a lost.

For a perfectly random and FAIR drawing, we should NOT be able to learn anything by studying the "history" of past drawings.

Do the lottery officials know something that we don't?

Or is it a case of a careless copy writer who has not taken probability at college and who does not know what an "independent event" means?

They need to hire a good technical writer, right away.

STC Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA

I've been at the STC (Society for Technical Communication) Technical Communication Summit and Annual Conference in Philly, PA since Sunday. A very exciting event for all technical communicators, with 1,250 in attendance from all across the USA, Europe, Japan, India, Korea, Israel, and a few other countries.

STC has organized 3 solid days of presentations on half a dozen subject tracks. There were so many workshops and seminars that I wanted to sit in but had to skip most of them since there was time enough only to attend three a day.

I'm surprised by the strength of localization and translation companies among those who rented a booth in the exhibition hall. The ones I talked to acknowledged growing competition but also seemed pleased with the direction in which their business is heading.

XML was a big focus area, as evidenced by the opening panel discussion on Sunday evening. All technical communicators need to pay attention to XML's growing footprint in corporate communications.

I've also had the opportunity in this Summit to meet many authors and educators whose work I've known for years but never had the chance to meet in person previously.

Adobe and MadCap as well as AuthorIt were among the corporations who've invested big time in this conference as main sponsors. I assume Adobe has spent a little more than the others as the Platinum Sponsor of the event. The two seminars presented by Adobe's very-qualified R.J. Jacquez were among the best that I've attended during this conference.

Other corporate participants and sponsors of note: TechSmith, DocToHelp, Ken Cook Co., CARA, and Texas Tech Univ. Distance Learning Division.

I'll continue to share the lessons and my impressions of this excellent conference in the days ahead. Perhaps I'll meet you next year down in Atlanta where the 2009 STC conference will be held.

For more info, please visit www.stc.org

STC Annual Conference

I'll be at the STC Annual Conference next week, held in Philadelphia, PA. It's going to be an exciting conference and I'll file my impressions on a daily basis right here.

One issue that I see surfacing these days is the very definition of a "technical writer" since we tech writers usually do a lot more than just "writing." We also design information and do a lot in terms of page layout, graphics, single-sourcing, and illustrations.

So the new term is "technical communicator" but the Labor Department is still resisting the redefinition.

I'm all for the "technical communicator" label since in all honesty we do a lot more than just "writing." Try creating a structured FrameMaker document and you'll know what I mean.

New Technical Writing Info Mail List now available

Are you interested to change careers and become a well-paid and well-respected Technical Writer?

"Technical Writing Weekend Boot Camp" classes are forming. Write your first software manual within 2 days.

I'll be teaching these classes personally. I'm looking forward to share my 10-years Fortune 500 techncial writing experience with all my students.

Class size limited to 15.

Sign up with this info list and receive both information on these classes and free tech writing tips and tutorials.

http://www.learntechnicalwriting.com