I got this great question from a student: I usually use 12 pt. copy in my projects, but my readers often request to have a 15 pt. version of the same material. I’ve been changing the font size chapter by chapter. Is there is a better way to do this? What about changing from LTR…

Interested in finding out about RoboHelp 2019 and its brand new interface? Or maybe you already are familiar, but would like to see what’s bright and shiny in the new version. Either way, join me as I host a pair of Adobe webinars on May 22 and May 23. Register for both RoboHelp 2019 webinars…

The next dedicated online course with live sessions starts April 20, 2019 Today’s the day! I just scheduled the start (next Tuesday) of a dedicated session of my Creating Content with FrameMaker course. Dedicated sessions are a bridge between a course and a face-to-face class. They run about 4 weeks and include weekly live screensharing and troubleshooting sessions…

I’ll be speaking at the Technical Documentation Roundup on May 22nd, 2019. This conference, put together by Scott Abel and his team at The Content Wrangler, features dozens of great speakers and I’m honored to be included. Here’s the rest of the description for my session…I hope to see you there! Separate Content from Formatting…

In March, 2019 I presented this topic to the LA InDesign User Group. Not only was the content well-received, but Adobe asked me to repeat the conversation in a recorded webinar, to be scheduled in a few months. I’ve put a few of my points into the content below, but what would you want to…

I’m happy to announce that Adobe has chosen me again as the Adobe Ambassador to the TC Camp Unconference, at San Jose State University on April 27, 2019. This is a great event that includes my free Ambassador workshop, Tech Comm Survival Merit Badge Training, as well as the free Unconference in the afternoon. The…

Calling all aspiring FrameMaker structured authors template designers! My Structured Authoring and Structured EDD development workbooks are now available for ordering in the Books section in the menu above. I’ve gone through all the lessons and exercise files, and updated all the screen captures to match the FrameMaker 2019 release. I’ve also redesigned the covers…

Adobe released FrameMaker 2019 Update 3 today. Use the Help > Updates menu item in FrameMaker 2019 to update, or visit https://supportdownloads.adobe.com/product.jsp?product=22&platform=Windows to download the updater manually. (Manual download not yet posted as of April 5, 2019, 11:38 AM PST) Interested in FrameMaker 2019 training? See TRAINING in the menu above for a free Introduction to…

Content nirvana: A state of content bliss, free from the repetitive effort and suffering associated with digital publishing and ad hoc formatting. How to get there The first step on this path is to understand where your time is currently being spent, and in particular, where you are spending time on things other than content creation…

You’ll need to do two things prior to publishing CSH with FrameMaker: Create CSH markers Create and edit a map (.h) file To publish context-sensitive Help, you need markers in your documents that FrameMaker can use to create links in your output for your developers. FrameMaker uses TopicAlias markers to store map ID information in…

Adobe released RoboHelp 2019 Update 5 today. Use the Help > Updates menu item in RoboHelp 2019 to update, or visit https://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html to download the updater manually. (Manual download not yet posted as of Feb 7, 2019, 1:40 pm PST) Interested in RoboHelp 2019 training? I’m running a discounted early adopter training class the week of February…

A client this week ran into a common tech comm problem: She needed to manage a document title, version number, and revision date across a number of documentation sets for her end clients. And she didn’t want to manually update these three pieces of content across dozens of manuals, and hundreds of documents. We decided…

I’ve used the icons available in the free Font Awesome font to create cool custom bullet icons for a couple of years now. It’s easy to download, and even the free version has over 1,400 high-quality icons to choose from. Setting up FontAwesome There are a number of ways to use this great resource, but…

I sent out an email yesterday to let the Tech Comm Tools community know about a position in Santa Clara, CA, and as a result got wind of another available job in Bothell, WA. Feel free to send me news of available positions for Adobe TCS writers and I’ll try to keep this list up-to-date.…