I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

Adobe RoboHelp: Shared Review

by Willam Van Weelden

When creating content within my Help System, I often put my content through a review process. Reviews help to ensure my content is correct and easy to understand.

A recurring question by RoboHelp users is how they can use RoboHelp to gather reviews efficiently. Fortunately, RoboHelp has a review option that allows reviewers who don't own Adobe RoboHelp to review your RoboHelp content. The only thing reviewers need is a PDF of your RoboHelp content, Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader.

Working with shared reviews consists of three stages:

1. Creating a PDF for review
2. The review
3. Importing the reviewer comments into RoboHelp

Create a PDF for Review from Within RoboHelp

In the steps that follow, I will show you how to create a review PDF locally. Saving locally is the easiest way to start a review because you don't have to set up a server or accounts.

1. Open or create a RoboHelp project.
2. Choose Review > Create PDF for Review.
3. In the Create PDF for review dialog box, select any (or all) of the topics, snippets and master pages you want to include in the PDF.
4. From the PDF Settings area, select Save locally.
5. Select Enable commenting in Adobe Reader.

(Note: You will only be able to select this option if you have Adobe Acrobat 10 installed on your computer.)




6. Click OK to create the PDF.

RoboHelp creates the PDF document and opens the document in Acrobat. (If Acrobat notifies you that it will enable commenting, click OK and save the document.)

The PDF is now ready for review. You can now send the PDF to all of your reviewers.

Important: After you create the PDF, don't edit the RoboHelp topics, snippets and master pages that are included in the PDF. The only way you can reliably import comments back into the RoboHelp project is when the content remains unchanged.

Reviewing

Reviewers can review your content using Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader. Using the Annotation tools, reviewers can add comments, remove text, insert text and replace text. When the review is finished, the reviewer simply sends the annotated PDF back to you.

Import Review Comments

Once you receive the review PDF, you can import the comments and changes suggested within the PDF directly into the RoboHelp project.

1. Open the reviewed RoboHelp project.
2. Choose Review > Import Comments from PDF.
3. Click Yes from within the Import comments from PDF dialog box and then open the reviewer's PDF.

Once the import is complete, RoboHelp displays the comments, inserts and deletions similar to the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word.

At this point, you can use a Review toolbar to accept or reject suggested changes within your project.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe Captivate: Repurpose Preferences

by Kevin Siegel

Have you ever visited the Preferences dialog box in Adobe Captivate (Windows users, Edit > Preferences; Mac users, Adobe Captivate > Preferences), made several changes and later, maybe months later, needed those settings on another computer running Captivate? I'm betting your answer is yes, and you've had a tough time ensuring the Preferences in one project match those in another.

When I teach Adobe Captivate, I try to stress the value of creating a project template (and creating templates from scratch is a big part of my Captivate 6 Advanced class). If you set the Preferences within a Captivate template and then use the template when you create new projects, the Preferences will match from one project to the next. However, you can create perfectly nice Captivate projects without a template. In that case, understanding how get Preferences from one project into another is useful.

For instance, in the images below, I accessed the Preferences dialog box and set the Preferences on some of the screens.

In the Project Information area, I added information about the Author (Biff, as usual, gets all the credit around here), Company name, Project Name and the Description.

In the SWF Size and Quality area, I set the quality to Medium.

From the Project Start and End area, I added the company logo as the Preloader, set the Preloader % to 50, enabled Fade In on the First Slide, and set the Project End Options.

I also visited the Publish Settings and changed the Frames Per Second to 20 (30 is the default) and disabled both Enable Accessibility and Play tap audio for recorded typing.

Setting each of the Preferences above wasn't difficult. In fact, it took perhaps 2-3 minutes to set everything. However, since having to memorize all of the settings isn't something I look forward to on a project-by-project basis, the ability to export this project's Preferences is going to be quite nice.

Export Project Preferences

1. Open a Captivate project and set your Preferences.
2. Choose File > Export > Preferences to open the Save As dialog box.
3. Pick a save destination for the Preferences file and, in the File Name field, give the file a name. (Note: The Preferences are exported as a .cpr file.)
4. Click Save.

Import Project Preferences

1. Open another Captivate project (or create a new project).
2. Choose File > Import > Preferences.
3. Locate and open the .cpr file you exported.

After the import process, browse the Preferences in the project. You'll notice that most (but not all) of the Preferences exported from the first project have been imported into the current project.

Note: If you'd like to see the process of working with a project's Preferences, check out my video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month includingIntroduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: Nauseated by Nauseous

by Jennie Ruby

Just as software experts have to keep up to date with the latest versions of software, professional writers and editors have to keep up with the latest versions of English. Our language gains new nouns and verbs constantly, and our existing words change meanings. Old rules of usage fall out of fashion or are debunked by the latest scholars, and common errors our school teachers pounded into our heads may have become accepted as correct over time.

Here is a pair of words that have been undergoing some of these changes:

• nauseated
• nauseous

In Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, originally copyrighted in 1935, with the fourth edition copyrighted in 2000, the writers flat out state that nauseous means "sickening to contemplate" and nauseated means "sick at the stomach." I personally have followed that distinction for as long as I can remember. In this view, if you say "I'm nauseous," you are saying you make people sick. I followed that view until today, when I did the research for this article!

That hard line was changing, even in the year 2000. In Bryan Garner's Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, published in 2000, he says that the I feel nauseous usage is so common that "to call it an 'error' is to exaggerate." Nevertheless, he says that "careful writers" still follow the traditional distinction.

In 2003, The Chicago Manual of Style (15^th edition) said that even though the use of nauseous to mean you feel sick may no longer be an error, it is still bad usage. But their actual recommendation? Sidestep the entire nauseous issue and use "I feel nauseated" for feeling sick and "that smell is nauseating" for something that seems illness-inducing. Just never use nauseous, they said, just to be safe. And if you are surrounded by grammar sticklers, that advice still holds: you will always be safe with nauseated and nauseating.

But what is the best thinking on this today? The Merriam Webster dictionary online flat out states that "I feel nauseous" is the most frequent and acceptable usage, and they actually go on to say that those who insist that it is an error are "mistaken"!

The Free Dictionary online took a poll of its panelists and determined that most use nauseous as meaning you feel sick and nauseating as meaning sickening to look at.http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nauseous.

So, the [trending] bottom line is this: Don't use nauseated. Use nauseous to mean to feel sick and nauseating to mean sickening to look at.

The Nauseating [or is it Nauseous?] Challenge

Use the latest usage, not the traditionalist usage, to complete these sentences with some version of the word nausea. Trick question: one of these might not use the word nausea at all!

1. She found the car ride through the mountains to be ___________________.


2. When she got out of the car at the scenic overlook, she felt completely __________________.


3. When we opened the dumpster, the odor was ­_________________.


4. When the professionals were cleaning the fish on the beach, the vacationers found the sight ­­­­­­­­_________________.


5. The view from the top of the cliff was ___________________.


6. I felt ___________________ after seeing that Man Versus Food episode.


7. The kids said they felt ____________ after walking through the room with the gas leak.

When you are ready, add your answers as comments below.

***

Results of the Training and Computer Terms Challenge

Here is a table presenting the results of the challenge. We have great consensus about eLearning and website, but many of our technical terms have still not settled into a common usage. Many of you indicated that you have no real reasons for your choices, and that is par for the course in technical terminology. It is largely personal preference until a consensus starts growing around one particular way of naming a concept. Cheryl Dennis pointed out what many of us are doing is following our own office policy, at least until the major dictionaries agree upon a term. And Karla Marsh pointed out another reality: we follow our own style until we are overridden by our customers' styles!

Many of you did note that computer-based training or CBT is an older term, but one that we cannot seem to leave behind. And at least one respondent admitted that lowercasing the word Internet is born of laziness-but I might add, that laziness may eventually add up to a consensus! My thanks to Mary Welby von Thelen for her kind comments as well.

eLearning	87%
website	87%
mLearning	73%
email	67%
the Internet	67%
HTML	67%
web page	60%
computer-based training	40%
internet	27%
e-mail	20%
Email	20%
e-learning	20%
m-learning	20%
Web site	20%
html	20%
Web page	13%
E-learning	7%

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

eLearning: What's My Motivation?

by AJ Walther

Motivating a dog is easy. There is absolutely nothing my dog won't do for a treat. But motivating a human? Particularly an adult human? That's a complex process. If something (like, say, training) doesn't have an immediate payoff, how do we motivate adults to participate? If we want them to participate in their free time, are we looking at an insurmountable task?

I recently ran across an article on the CommLab India blog by Aruna Vayuvegula on Motivational Factors to Consider in eLearning and LMS Design. Vayuvegula referenced a paper called Worker Motivation in Crowdsourcing by Nicolas Kaufmann, Thimo Schulze, and Daniel Viet. I don't want to reinvent the wheel too much here by rehashing the parallels Vayuvegula pulled from the crowdsourcing study to apply to eLearning, but both the blog post and the study are pretty good reads if you'd like to dive in a bit further. What I did want to share, however, is a chart from the study outlining workers' motivations in crowdsourcing. (You can click the image to see a larger view.)

Used with permission from Kaufmann et al. (2011), Worker Motivation in Crowdsourcing

The motivational factors post by Vayuvegula goes so far as to give examples of how to tweak eLearning to apply to the different intrinsic and extrinsic motivators listed above. It also inspired me to look into what others in the eLearning field had to say about learning motivation. In doing so, I found a great post from Connie Malamed from a few years ago on Motivating the Instructional Designer (hey, sometimes we're the ones who need the motivation!) Are you tasked with motivating adults in your learning? What's your secret?

Here are some of my own previous articles on motivation:

• eLearning & Gamification: The Octalysis Framework
• eLearning & Gamification: Apply the Octalysis Framework to Your Training

***

Looking to improve the look of your PowerPoint presentations (and avoid the dreaded "death by PowerPoint" phenomena)? Check out AJ's Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations class.

Adobe Captivate & RoboHelp: Incorporate eLearning within a Help System

by Kevin Siegel

Like many of today's technical communicators, I wear many hats and use multiple tools to communicate with my learners. For instance, I use Adobe Captivate to create most of my eLearning content, and Adobe RoboHelp to create my Help Systems.

It wasn't all that long ago that eLearning content and Help Systems served different roles and different audiences. There was rarely talk of combining the two technologies. These days, more and more technical communicators are being tasked with creating effective Help Systems for an audience that is more distracted and stressed out than ever before. It's a daunting task, but one that is made easier if you follow a few best practices.

If you have created an eLearning lesson using eLearning tools such as Adobe Captivate, TechSmith's Camtasia Studio or Articulate's Storyline, you can insert the multimedia directly into RoboHelp Help Topics. When the topic is displayed in a web browser, mobile device (iPad, iPhone, etc) or HTML Help, the lesson will play (and remain interactive).

The Perfect Help Topic

When creating help content (Help Topics), I suggest that the topic contain just enough information to make it easy for a learner to quickly find the information they are looking for. Specifically, today's perfect Help Topic will:

• Contain no more than one or two paragraphs to explain the most important concepts of a feature.
• Contain an image or eLearning simulation/demonstration to support the text.
• Treat users as learners... not users. (As far as I'm concerned, a Help System is really just an opportunity for the author to teach something.)

eLearning Best Practices

The perfect playtime for a typical eLearning lesson is 5 minutes (give or take a few minutes). However, if the lesson is expected to be included within a RoboHelp topic, the person who will view the lesson is looking for specific information, not necessarily a complete lesson. I'd encourage you to keep eLearning within a Help Topic much shorter than standard eLearning lessons; 30-90 seconds is the perfect amount of time to get a quick point across.

When creating content within Adobe Captivate, avoid using Captivate features that are not supported by mobile devices (such as Flash animations or rollovers). Prior to publishing a lesson, choose Project > HTML5 Tracker to open the HTML5 Tracker (shown below). If the HTML5 Tracker displays any Unsupported objects, consider visiting the affected slides and removing those objects.

Choose Project > Skin Editor and edit the lesson's playbar so that it doesn't contain features that might cause problems within a Help Topic. For instance, in the image below, I've specifically deselected the Close option (lower left). I've found that if I embed a Captivate demo within a topic, the Close button on the Playbar doesn't work and will simply lead to learner confusion.

When publishing, take the learner's device into consideration. If the learner is going to use a standard Windows PC or Macintosh computer, SWF output is fine. However, if your learner is going to be using an Apple mobile device such as an iPad or iPhone, you'll need to select HTML5 from the Output Format Options area. You'll end up publishing two distinct output formats, but both can be imported into RoboHelp (at the same time).

eLearning Integration within RoboHelp

Once you've published the Captivate lesson, getting it into a RoboHelp topic is simple. Open or create a topic and choose Import > Adobe Captivate Demo. From within the Adobe Captivate Demo dialog box, use the Browse button to the right of Multimedia Name and open the SWF; use the Browse button to the right of HTML5 Output and open the HTML5 start page.

When you generate WebHelp or HTML Help, RoboHelp will automatically use the SWF within the generated Help System. If you generate Multiscreen HTML5, RoboHelp will automatically use the HTML5 output for all of the screen layouts (although you can edit the Properties of the Desktop layout and force it to use the SWF output instead).

Note: If you'd like to see the process of embedding interactive eLearning within a Help System, check out my video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate. And if you're looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp, we offer a two-day introduction to RoboHelp class.

Writing & Grammar: Stylistic Conventions

by Jennie Ruby 

Many words in the computer training industry have different stylistic conventions depending on your office preference or on the style guide you use. In this challenge, indicate your preferred treatment of these terms (you can post your answers as comments below):

email/e-mail

e-learning/e-Learning/E-Learning/ eLearning

m-learning/mLearning

website/Web site

Web page/web page

computer-based training/eLearning/asynchronous training using technology

the internet/the Internet (actually, most of the industry does capitalize that one)

HTML/html

Answers to Last Week's Mouse Move Challenge

Answers this week are brought to you by Tara Aukerman. Additional responses after the slash marks are provided by Clay Walnum and Ann Whitfield. Jane Edwards also adds this mouse move, which you can use for putting a folder or file name into editing mode: Southern double-click: Click once, pause, then slowly click again.

1. Press and release the left mouse button 
   -- Click
2. Press and release the right mouse button 
   -- Right-click
3. Roll the wheel on top of the mouse 
   -- Scroll (up/down - never just "scroll to")/Use the mouse wheel
4. Quickly press and release the mouse button twice 
   -- Double-click
5. Quickly press and release the mouse button three times 
   -- Triple-click (but since this is uncommon, a parenthetical note like: "Click three times quickly")
6. Hold the mouse button down and move it from one point to another 
   -- Click and drag (or just drag)
7. Put the mouse pointer over an item but do not click 
   -- Roll over (for non-computer-saavy folks) or Hover (for computer saavy folks)/Rest the mouse pointer
8. Drag the mouse across text so that the text background changes color and you can then format or delete that text 
   -- Select (because often users will double-click to highlight a word or triple-click to highlight a sentence) or Highlight
9. Use the highlighter tool to color the background of text
   -- Select the text and click 
10. Hold down the shift button and click the left mouse button 
    --Press and hold the SHIFT key and click on XYZ (not a common problem for our audience so we've learned that anything else isn't specific enough)./SHIFT-click

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

Adobe RoboHelp: Supporting Android Phones

by Willam Van Weelden

RoboHelp 10 allows you to support a wide range of devices. RoboHelp detects a user's device and automatically presents the content in the optimal format for that specific device. While this is a great new RoboHelp feature, sometimes things can go wrong.

For example, last week a client reported that his RoboHelp content was displaying correctly across all devices except his Samsung Galaxy SIII. Instead of using the Android layout as instructed, the device consistently used the Desktop layout.

The phone's default display resolution is very high. It is so high, in fact, RoboHelp failed to recognize the device as a phone. The solution to this problem is simple: increase the maximum screen resolution via the Android_Phone Screen Profile. Here's how:

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod (View > Pods).
2. Open Screen Profiles.
   
3. Double-click Android_Phone to open its Screen Profile.
   
4. Set the Maximum width to 1000 pixels.
5. Set the Maximum height to 1280 pixels.
   
6. Click the Save button and then close the dialog box.
7. Save the project and then Generate the Multiscreen HTML5 layout.
   
   The next time the layout is accessed by an Android phone, it will use the correct layout.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe Captivate: Hide Main Master Slide Objects

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I wrote about Captivate's Main Master Slide and Content Master Slides. I demonstrated how adding an object to a Main Master Slide instantly adds that object to all of the Content Master Slides and the Filmstrip slides. I went on to say that once you added an object to a Main Master Slide, you were stuck with that object on all other slides... and short of deleting the object from the Main Master Slide, there was nothing you could do about it.

Of course, my "all or nothing" comment prompted several emails from "Skills & Drills" readers that took me to task. Many of you pointed out, quite correctly, that it is actually very simple to remove an remove Main Master Slide object from Content Master Slides.

Nope... you are all wrong and it's not possible!

Okay, okay... when it comes to using the Main Master Slide, Captivate isn't as draconian as I wrote. (Never say never, right?) In fact, electing to hide objects on the Main Master Slide is very easy. Using the Master Slides panel (Window > Master Slides), select a Content Master Slide and, on the Properties panel, General group, deselect Show Main Master Slide Objects.

Any objects that you've added to the Main Master Slide will instantly be removed from the selected Content Master Slide.

But wait... what if you've merged an object into the background of the Main Master Slide? (You can right-click any object and choose Merge with the Background.) Once you merge an object, the object will instantly become part of the slide's background. In that case, there will not be an object on the Main Master Slide to hide. Wouldn't the Content Master and Filmstrip slides now have no choice but to fully obey the Main Master Slide? Actually, no. In the case of a merged background object, simply select a Content Master Slide and, once again on the Properties panel, General group, deselect Use Master Slide Background (shown in the image above). The merged background object will instantly be hidden from view.

Note: If you'd like to see the process of hiding master slide objects (and merging slide objects with the slide background), check out this video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: Name that Mouse Move!

by Jennie Ruby 

In training documents, help menu text and documentation we often find ourselves trying to describe common computer user actions. However, some of the terminology has changed over time, as new software and hardware features have been developed. Our challenge this week is about describing mouse behaviors. In a later article, I will discuss mobile device behaviors. So here is your challenge. Be careful! Times have changed on some of these!

How do you describe these mouse actions?

1. Press and release the left mouse button
2. Press and release the right mouse button
3. Roll the wheel on top of the mouse
4. Quickly press and release the mouse button twice
5. Quickly press and release the mouse button three times
6. Hold the mouse button down and move it from one point to another
7. Put the mouse pointer over an item but do not click
8. Drag the mouse across text so that the text background changes color and you can then format or delete that text
9. Use the highlighter tool to color the background of text
10. Hold down the shift button and click the left mouse button 

Please send your answers directly to me.

Results to Hierarchical List Format

We received many correctly categorized versions of this list, formatted at least 5 different ways. Here is one of my favorites, from Geri A. Moran, who must work with a lot of government regulations or proposals, because this numbering system is heavily redolent of legal document numbering. Perhaps it is the plan for a courtroom building's garden?

1. Shrubs

1.1. Azaleas

1.1.1. White azaleas

1.1.2. Pink azaleas

1.1.3. Red azaleas

1.2. Boxwoods

1.3. Hydrangeas

2. Flowers

2.1. Tulips

2.1.1. Double Early

2.1.2. Single Early

2.1.3. Single Late

2.1.4. Double Late

2.1.5. Darwin

2.1.6. Triumph

2.2. Roses

2.2.1. Tea

2.2.2. Floribunda

2.2.3. Climbing

2.2.4. Damask

Other favorites included this style, from Ann M. Whitfield, for its classic clarity: 

I.  Shrubs

A. Azaleas

1. White azaleas

2. Pink azaleas

3. Red azaleas

B. Boxwoods

C. Hydrangeas

 

An interesting version to me was one submitted by Matt Smith, which illustrates a business-style list. Many government agencies and print publishers have discontinued using the solo closing parentheses like this, for reasons unknown to me, but it still works and looks very clear:

1) Shrubs

a) Azaleas

i)  White azaleas

ii) Pink azaleas

iii) Red azaleas

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

eLearning: Thousands and Thousands of Free Images

by AJ Walther  

There is no limit to the number of images you can find on the Internet. There are severe limits, however, on the number of images that you can download and use in whatever capacity you see fit. But, good news: the pool of images that can be freely downloaded and used just became a bit less limited. The Los Angeles Community Museum of Art started an experiment two years ago in which they made 2,000 high resolution images of artwork that they deemed to be public works available for download without copyright restrictions. Since then, they have made ten times that many images available, offering 20,000 high resolution images. All they want to know is: "What are you going to do with them?"

To find the free images:

1. Head on over to the Collections website.
2. Type a keyword into the Search the Collection field and press [enter].
3. To the right of the search field, select Show only results with unrestricted images.
     

My search for cat turned up 105 unrestricted image results. 

***

Looking to improve the look of your PowerPoint presentations (and avoid the dreaded "death by PowerPoint" phenomena)? Check out AJ's Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations class this week. (It's not too late to register.)

Adobe Captivate: A Master Slide for All Occasions

by Kevin Siegel

Master Slides were first introduced in Adobe Captivate 5 and I've written a couple of articles about them including: Creating Master Slides, Placeholder Objects on Master Slides and how to Keep Master Slide Backgrounds at Bay.

Adobe Captivate 6 took the concept of Master Slides to a whole new level by creating two different types of slide master: a Main Master Slide and Content Master Slides.

In each project, there is always a single Main Master Slide and multiple Content Master Slides. During this article, I'll teach you the differences between Main and Content masters, and how best to utilize them.

In the image below, I've created a new project, applied the Blank theme (Themes > Apply a New Theme) and then inserted several blank slides (Insert > Blank Slide).

Each new project includes a collection of Master Slides (even if you use the Blank theme). In the image below, the Main Master Slide is the larger slide at the left; the smaller slides are the Content Master Slides.

If you make a change to the Main Master Slide, the change will affect every slide in the project (Filmstrip, Content Master Slides... everything). Changing the Main Master Slide is like using a very broad brush. If there's something on the Main Master Slide that you don't want to use on the other slides, you're pretty much stuck.

For instance, I want every slide in my project to use the same background image. In the screen capture below, I've inserted the image on the Main Master Slide.

Having modified the Main Master Slide, every Content Master Slide and every slide on the Filmstrip now sports the same image. Since there are Content Master Slides for regular Filmstrip slides and Question Slides, should I insert a quiz down the road, the question slides will automatically include my corporate branding. And that's awesome.

Now I wanted to add a copyright notice to some of the slides on the Filmstrip... to some Filmstrip slides, but not all. If I added the text to the Main Master Slide, the text would appear on every slide of the Filmstrip and every Content Master Slide. Since that wasn't my intent, I created a new Content Master Slide by right-clicking within the group of Content Masters and choosing Slides > Content Master Slide.

I used the Properties panel to name my new Content Master Slide.

Next I inserted and positioned a text caption on the Content Master Slide.

The final step was to select the slide(s) on the Filmstrip that I wanted to follow the new Content Master and, on the Properties panel, select the Content Master Slide from the Master Slide drop-down menu.

The Filmstrip slide below is using two Master Slides: the graphic is coming from the Main Master Slide; the copyright notice is coming from the Copyright notice Content Master Slide.

Note: If you'd like to see the process of working with both Main and Content Master slides, check out this video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Digital Publishing: Controlling Page Breaks in an ePub

by Robert Desprez  

 

Help Authoring Tools such as Madcap Flare and Adobe RoboHelp will quickly create an ePub file that includes a title page, table of contents, and the content that you authored. However, you can control the format of an ePub after it has been created by the Help Authoring Tool by performing some simple edits within a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS).

 

In this article, I'll briefly explain how to unzip the ePub file and edit the CSS so that you gain more control over page breaks.

 

A Few Basics

 

An ePub document is a zip file with the .epub extension. ePub files can be read using e-reader software on myriad devices including the iPad, iPhone, PCs, and smartphones running on Android.

 

For technical writers, I believe ePub files are one of the technologies to watch. The iBooks bookstore sells its ebooks in an ePub file format. With tablets and smartphones forecast to outsell PCs in the near future, users will increasingly be reading content--including technical communications--on these devices.

 

One of the key advantages of an ePub file is its ability to reflow on different devices. The following image shows how an ePub file appears on an iPad:

 

  

 

The next screen shot shows how the same file appears on an iPhone:

 

  

 

In contrast, a PDF file may look beautiful on your 24-inch monitor at home but is difficult to read on your smartphone. It does not resize-making it difficult and tedious to read on a small screen.

 

Controlling Page Breaks Inside Adobe RoboHelp

 

If you work as a technical communicator, you probably use a Help Authoring Tool, such as RoboHelp or Madcap Flare. These tools provide a lot of the "heavy lifting" for you: they create the title page, a table of contents, and the topics themselves. You can also use them to control some basic page breaks.

 

The following image shows how RoboHelp 10 allows you to set page breaks for certain heading levels. In this case, I've specified that every time I use Heading 2 ("h2" in the left list), RoboHelp creates a new page break or topic.

 

  

Help Authoring Tools, in short, provide you with rudimentary control over page breaks. But if more control is needed, edit your CSS.

Unzipping an ePub

1. Locate your ePub file.
2. Change the .epub extension to .zip.




3. Unzip the contents of the folder.
4. Double-click the OEBPS folder ("OEBPS" stands for Open eBook Publication Structure).



5. Locate the default.css folder. This is your CSS folder.

Controlling Page Breaks

Inside the CSS file add the following code using a text editor:

h2 {

page-break-before: always;           

}

In the CSS, it might appear like the following image:

  

This first entry adds a page break before every instance of a heading 2. This might be useful if you want to insert a page break before a chapter title.

Here are some other options to consider:

• H3 {page-break-before: avoid;} This entry prevents an element (in this case, a heading3) from beginning on a new page, unless absolutely necessary. You might want to use this code to try and ensure that content is grouped together.
• H3 {page-break-inside: avoid} This prevents an element such as a table or long list from being divided by a page-break. Keep in mind that if your table or list spans multiple pages, the e-reader needs to create a break somewhere.
• H3 {page-break-after: avoid;} This entry discourages a page break after an item. For example, this could prevent the heading3 that appears at the bottom of the following left page.

Next Steps

After you make changes to the CSS, re-zip the ePub project, rename so it uses an .epub extension, and test it on all the different e-readers that your users may be using. I've installed Adobe Digital Editions on my computer and iBooks for the iPhone and iPad. Different e-readers may render your ePub file differently so testing is vital.

In future articles, I'll explain how to control text alignment, widows and orphans, and fonts.

Additional Resources

ePub Straight to the Point by Elizabeth Castro.

Castro's web site on formatting ePub files: http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com

Adobe Captivate: Save Your Skin

by Kevin Siegel

Skins that are added to an eLearning lesson serve a similar role to clothes. Depending on the clothes you wear, you can convey a certain impression about yourself. Bored with yourself? Perhaps a visit to your clothes closet will help change your attitude?

Captivate includes a Skin Editor--in essence, your project's closet. Using the Skin Editor, you can, among other things, control the look of a lesson's Playback Controls, add Borders and add a Table of Contents.

Many new Captivate developers have no problem finding the Skin Editor, where making changes to the way a skin looks is simple. However, once those changes are made, the original skin is modified. Should you select another skin down the road, the modifications are lost. Read on and learn how to keep those modifications permanently.

Change Skins

1. Choose Project > Skin Editor.
   
   There are three buttons at the top left of the Skin Editor: Playback Control, Borders and Table of Contents.
   
2. Select a Skin from the Skin drop-down menu.
   
   

Observe the preview at the right of the Skin Editor window. Among other things, notice the buttons that appear on the player, color of the Playbar and the Playbar's position on the slide.

Ensure the Playback Control button is selected and observe the left side of Skin Editor. This is where you can select such options as hiding the Playbar in a Quiz, the Playbar's slide position and the buttons that will display on the Playbar (Closed Captioning, Mute, etc).

Click the Position drop-down menu and notice that you can force the playbar to appear on the Top, Left, Bottom or Right of the slide. From the Layout drop-down menu, you can decide if you want the playbar to extend the width of the slide (Stretched) and to simply center horizontally.

The Difference Between a Skin and the Playbar

Many new Captivate developers confuse a Skin and a Playbar, often treating them as one and the same. A Skin plays a larger role in your project than a Playbar. A Skin is the big picture--it controls which Playbar is used, where the Playbar appears on the slide, the Playbar's Layout (Stretched, Left, Right or Centered), the buttons that appear on the Playbar, the borders that appear on the slide, and many other options. Compared to the options available to a Skin, the Playbar is a bit player.

Edit and Save a Skin

1. Select a Playbar from the Playbar list.

You'll notice that the Skin you selected is now using the Playbar you selected. In addition, the Skin name now includes the word Modified.


2. From the list of playback buttons (lower left of the dialog box), remove the check mark from Mute and Closed Captioning.




3. Click the Save tool to the right of the Skin's name and give your new skin any name you like.




From this point forward, your new skin will be available in the Skin drop-down menu for use in any new or existing Captivate project.

See also: Branding the Skin's Playbar Using Your Corporate Colors

Note: If you'd like to see the process of editing and then saving a Skin via the Skin Editor, check out this video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: What You Need to Know About Lists

by Jennie Ruby 

Readers like lists, and as writers, we know that. But there are many ways to go wrong with lists. Here is a step-by-step approach to making sure your list is a help, not a hindrance, to your readers.

1. Decide whether the list should be bulleted, numbered, or lettered. If the order of the items does not matter, use bullets. If the order matters, use numbers. If you are going to need to refer back to items on the list by name, consider using letters. Then you can refer to item A, item B, and so on.


2. Decide whether to capitalize the first word of each item. This is an arbitrary decision. If you are using a specific style guide, consult it for this decision. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style indicates that in numbered lists, the first word after each number should be capitalized, unless the list is being written in sentence form rather than in vertical list form. Bulleted lists also have each entry capitalized, according to Chicago. But for lists of short items with no bullets or numbers, use lowercase.


3. Decide whether to use punctuation after each item in the list. You can omit all punctuation, or you can puctuate the list as one giant sentence. If you use the sentence method, you use a comma at the end of each item unless any of the items contain commas. If any item does contain one or more commas, you use a semicolon at the end of each item. Using and before the last item is optional.


4. Make sure the wording of the list items is parallel. If you have a list of adjectives, all of the items must be adjectives. You can have a list of nouns, a list of gerunds (-ing verbs), a list of infinitives (in the form to x, where x is a verb), or a list of predicates. You just cannot mix them.


5. Like this list itself, you can make a list of paragraphs. Here, each item has multiple sentences. That means each item has to be capitalized, and each item has to end with a period.

Challenge: Fix this list

To fix up the yard for spring, we need to do the following:

1. to get rid of dead stalks from last year's growth
2. Restack the stones for the edging
3. We also need to plant more grass seed.
4. tulips

Feel free to post your answers as comments below.

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

Two Captivate Classes to be Held in Portland for ASTD Cascadia

I'm excited to announce that I'll be teaching two full-day classes on Adobe Captivate 6 later this year for ASTD Cascadia in Portland, OR.

I'll be introducing Captivate 6 on the first day and following that up on day 2 with Captivate 6 advanced concepts.

You can learn more about the introduction session here and the advanced session here. You can sign up for either session (or both). And you don't have to be an ASTD Cascadia member to sign up and attend (although members do get some nice discounts on the event prices).

Adobe Captivate: Attack of the Clones

by Kevin Siegel   

I've met a few Captivate developers who say they have a love-hate relationship with Captivate's default Object Styles. Personally, I love Object Styles and can't think of anything to hate. As far as I'm concerned, using Object Styles will improve your development speed enormously.

 

Object Styles allow you to quickly update the look and feel of objects throughout your project with just a few clicks. Anyone who has developed eLearning using Adobe Captivate 4 or earlier versions of the software knows how ineffective those pesky Apply to All buttons were. Frankly, the old Apply to All buttons often failed to work for me.

 

I've found that Captivate's Object Styles are a marvel of flexibility. In fact, Styles have saved me dozens, if not hundreds, of development hours when compared to working in Captivate versions that were sans-Styles. Nevertheless, the haters pointed out a few annoying Style shortcomings. First, while you can use the Object Style Manager (via the Edit menu) to edit just about every attribute of any default style, you cannot change the style's Adobe-given name. Second, you cannot delete a default style.

 

While it's a short hate list, it's a valid list. In the image below, notice that the Name field found in the Object Style Manager is grayed out, meaning the name cannot be edited. 

Personally, I've never had a problem with the default names. (I've simply ignored the names and focused my attention on editing the look and feel of the styles to suit my client's needs.) However, I understand some people like working with Styles that use specific names. I wanted to put the haters at ease and show a slick trick that would end the madness and allow them to rename the default styles. Unfortunately, I had nothing. The sad fact is, you cannot rename Captivate's default styles... nor can you delete them. However, if you hate the default names, all hope is not lost. Read on...

 

Select the style you'd like to rename and then click the Clone button found just below the list of default styles.

 

 

The name field of the freshly cloned style will be available for editing. The beauty of the cloned style is that it will contain every attribute of the original style. Unlike the original style, the clone can be renamed and, should you one day tire of the clone, you can delete it.



And there you have it... another love-hate relationship turned into nothing but pure love. 

Note: If you'd like to see the process of cloning a Style, check out this video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: Quoting at Length

by Jennie Ruby

Most people who quote someone's words in a document understand the need to use quotation marks around the text (lest you be accused of plagiarizing!). But a more confusing situation occurs when you are quoting someone at length. Last week I received the following question via email:

"If quoting someone's feedback that is more than one paragraph long, what is the correct formatting for quotes? Right now we have open and close quotes around every paragraph, but is that correct?"

I have two possible answers for this issue, and one of them does not involve using quotation marks at all!

1. If you are going to use quotation marks at all (see answer 2 for why you might not), the first paragraph should have opening quotes, but no closing quotes. Then the next paragraph also starts with opening quotes, to kind of remind the reader that you are still quoting the same person. Then you use one closing quote at the complete end of that person's last paragraph, to show you've stopped quoting them.
2. For quotes that are more than one paragraph long, there is a tradition of giving a different format to the text instead of using quotes. So it might be indented on the left, indented on both sides, smaller type, or a different color. If you use any of these methods to indicate you are extensively quoting someone, then you do not use any quotation marks.

I hope this helps clear up this issue. If you have formatting, punctuation, or grammar questions, don't forget that you cansend me your question and I may include it in a future column.

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

Adobe RoboHelp 10: Add a Logo to an HTML5 Catalog Layout

by Willam Van Weelden

A few weeks ago I showed you how to adjust the search highlight color in Multiscreen HTML5. This week, let's look at how you add your logo to the Multiscreen HTML5 Catalog Layout.

Not all Screen Layouts support logos by default. Fortunately, it is easy to add your logo to the Catalog Layout. To begin, ensure that your logo image meets these requirements:

• No more than 80 pixels tall
• No more than 400 pixels wide

Ensure that the Catalog Layout is Available in the Project:

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod.
2. Open Screen Layouts. If the Desktop_Catalog layout is in the list, you are ready to add your logo. If not, continue with the next few steps.
   
3. Right-click Screen Layouts and choose New Screen Layout.
4. From the Gallery list at the left, select Desktop_Catalog.
   
   
5. Click the OK button.

Add Your Logo to the Catalog Layout

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod.
2. Open Screen Layouts > Desktop_Catalog > Topic (Default).
   
3. On the Topic page, click in the text box located at the top of the page.
   
   
4. Choose Insert > Image and insert your logo as a regular image.
   
   

You may not see the entire logo while working within the Screen Layout Editor. No worries. When you generate the layout, the logo will display correctly.


5. Save the Topic page.
6. Right-click the logo and choose Copy.
7. Open the Search Results page.
8. Click in the text box located at the top of the Search Results page.
   
   
9. Right-click in the text box and choose Paste.
10. Save the project, Generate and then view the results.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe Captivate: Highlight Boxes in Reverse

by Kevin Siegel

Highlight Boxes added to a Captivate project provide an excellent way to direct a learner's attention to a specific area of a published eLearning lesson.

If you have spent any time in Captivate, you have likely added at least one Highlight Box to a project. If you haven't, you'll find that you can add them easily enough via Insert > Standard Object > Highlight Box.

After the Highlight Box appears on the slide, you can drag it to a desired location and resize it appropriately. You would then use the Timeline to control when the Highlight Box appears on the slide. Assuming you haven't made the Fill Transparency too high or too low (20% is typical), when a learner watches your published lesson, the area within the Highlight Box will darken just enough to command the learner's attention. As the middle of the highlighted area gets darker, the rest of the slide remains unchanged.

There is a Highlight Box feature you may not have realized is available: a Reverse Highlight Box. When inserting a Highlight Box, there is an innocent-looking option at the bottom of the Fill & Stroke group of the Properties panel: Fill Outer Area.



If you enable Fill Outer Area and raise the Fill Alpha (in the picture above, the value has been raised to 80), the Highlight Box will actually block everything outside the Highlight Box area (basically the reverse behavior of a typical Highlight Box).



While not appropriate for every situation, Highlight Boxes with filled outer areas are ideal if the interface you are discussing is cluttered. And you certainly don't have to raise the Fill Alpha all the way to 80. Instead, you can experiment with a value that works best for you.

Note: If you'd like to see a reverse highlight box in action, check out this video demonstration on our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Adobe Illustrator CS6: Rounding One (or Two) Corners

by Barb Binder

So you want to round just one or two corners of a rectangle? Illustrator CS6 makes it easy to round all of them. Select a rectangle and choose Effect > Stylize > Round Corners. Set the Radius, click the OK button and you are good to go.

But what if you just want to round one or two corners? It can be done, though it is definitely more fussy. Here's one way to do it:

1. Select a rectangle.
2. Select the Scissors tool and click two opposing corners to separate the single rectangle into two independent right angles.
   
3. Select one of the right angles, and choose Effect > Stylize > Round Corners to round one corner.
   
   
   
   As a visual learner, I like to see a process to fully comprehend it, so in the image above, I moved one right angle off of the other. This is only so that the visual learners amongst you can see that the Scissors tool cuts the single shape into two right angles. It is not a necessary step.
4. Repeat for the other right angle. (Note: Because I moved my right angles apart to illustrate the two independent shapes, I needed to re-align their top and left edges before continuing.)
   
5. Finally, select both angles and combine them back into a single shape by choosing Object > Path > Join.

***

Looking to learn Adobe Illustrator? We offer both a two-day Introduction to Adobe Illustrator class and a two-day advanced class.

eLearning & Training: Casting Cross-Cultural Voice-Over Talents

by Jen Weaver

Adding voice-overs to your eLearning lessons can increase the interaction a learner has with your content, often boosting the lesson's overall effectiveness.

Providing high-quality voice-overs is a tremendous feat in only one language or accent. It can grow into a monumental task when including regional dialects or alternate languages. Here are some facets to consider when casting cross-cultural voice talents.

• The desired voice-over role. A voice talent may function as a narrator, instructor, spokesperson, or actor in a storyline.
• The preferred demographics. This includes the age and gender being portrayed.
• The language, dialect and accent. This may go without saying, but the voice talent must be fluent in whatever language your eLearning materials will be provided in. Beyond the language requirement, there are also dialects and accents that may impact how your message is received by your intended audience. For example, English voice-overs may be provided in English (language) for the United States (dialect) with a southern twang (accent). It is valuable to identify how important accent accuracy is to your project. Many people may impersonate accents that seem acceptable to an unfamiliar listener but are entirely inaccurate (and even offensive) to recipients from that area. For example, a poorly executed fake accent may decrease receptivity from your target audience. Additional dialect and accent examples include:
  • Chinese in Mandarin (commonly referred to as "Northern dialect") perhaps with a Beijing accent.
  • Portuguese for Portugal.
  • Spanish for Latin America.
• The desired tone. The voice may be conveyed in a playful manner, factually, formally or informally.
• Localization of the voice-over script. Depending on your content, it may be valuable to localize the script for the target location, changing phrases or vernacular to be more conducive to that area. This can be done formally before the script is provided to the talent; or you may simply allow the talent discretion to make minor changes (such as changing "pop" to "soda") directly as they see fit.
• Voice-over experience. Ideal voice talents have multiple years in the industry and in providing the type of voice-over services necessary for your project.

The key for casting cross-cultural voice-over talents is to include appropriate requirements in your initial project scope. You should also allow time for your language service vendor to gather demos for approval as a part of the overall project timeline. Keep these facets in mind and you can rest assured that you will find the perfect talents for your project.

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If you would like to learn best practices for managing translation projects, contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Adobe Captivate: Edit Mouse Points in a Video Demo

by Kevin Siegel

I was teaching a recent Adobe Captivate Advanced class how to create and edit a Video Demo using Captivate 6. One of my students agreed he could see many reasons to create a quick video of a computer process instead of using Captivate's capture other modes (Demo, Assessment, Training or Custom). However, since creating a video of a process is much like pointing a video camera at the computer screen and pressing the record button, he was concerned about the lack of editing that could be done during the production process.

In reality, once you've recorded a Video Demo, there is plenty you can do to it post-production. For instance, you can trim the video, split it, add images, text captions, characters and Pan & Zoom effects.

While all of those editing capabilities were great (and I taught the class how to perform many them), the student was still concerned about the apparent lack of mouse editing controls.

If you've recorded screen actions using Captivate's Demo mode, then you know that the mouse pointer is included during the capture by default. You also know that after recording, the mouse pointer can be changed from slide to slide, the pointer path edited, sound and visual effects added for each click, and the mouse pointer removed entirely.

With a video recording, the student believed that you are stuck with the recorded mouse motion and appearance. I can't blame him for thinking that way. Check out the image of the video on the Timeline below. There isn't anything on the blue bar that would indicate an ability to edit the mouse. In a Demo recording, there would be a mouse object on the Timeline than you can see and manipulate, along with a mouse pointer on the slide. (The image below is cropped pretty tightly so it would fit in the space. But trust me, the Video Object on the Timeline is just a nondescript blue bar that goes on and on and on.)

I learned long ago that just because I can't immediately find what I'm looking for in a program, I shouldn't assume a thing cannot be done. In fact, while not obvious, it is possible to edit the mouse within a video. First, choose Edit > Mouse Points to display an icon for every mouse click on the Timeline (one of those icons is shown in the image below).

After selecting the mouse icon on the Timeline, you will be able to change (and even delete) the mouse pointer on the video (much like you can with a Demo recording).

I've found this capability invaluable, especially after trimming parts of my videos. After trimming, I've noticed that the mouse pointer speed gets really, really slow. If I delete a mouse point prior to the part of the video that I trimmed, the speed issue goes away.

Note: If you would like to see a video demonstration of editing the mouse pointer within a Video Demo, check out our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

eLearning: Finding Characters

by AJ George

Want to add some character to your eLearning? Why not start with characters? Characters--cartoon drawings (or photograph cutouts) of people with various poses and expressions--are an easy and professional looking way to add personalization to your eLearning. Having a diversified set of characters can help you to visually tell a story with little effort. Whatever your budget, you can start adding characters to your eLearning decks right now.

DIY eLearning Illustrated Characters

If you're creating eLearning, there's a pretty good chance you're designing for either the medical or the business field. And DIY eLearning has illustrated characters for both. Each character comes with 15 poses in transparent PNGs and a Flash file if you'd like to use the animations or make changes to the illustrations. Prices are $49 per character set, $99 if you want a bundle of medical or business characters, and $199 for a bundled set of business and medical characters.

Design Comics

This site is great. Here you'll find business-appropriate characters ready to easily resize and drop right onto your eLearning slides. But it's not just characters--you'll also find useful scenes and accessories (like computers and other office supplies) readily available. And the cost? FREE! You will, of course, have to credit your source here...but if you're on a very small budget, you've probably already accepted this. And don't worry about the proper way to credit--Design Comics provides examples to make your life easier.

The Rapid eLearning Blog

Hosted by Tom Kuhlman, who runs the Articulate community, The Rapid eLearning Blog is an excellent resource for anyone in the eLearning community. While the blog is not centered on eLearning assets, they are often provided (for free!) by Tom and other members of the eLearning community. Check it out for templates, assets (backgrounds, characters, accessories, etc), and even fonts.

eLearning Brothers

Need something more realistic? How about cutout people in photograph form? Or--even more realistic--videos. Like the previous options, the cutout people from eLearning Brothers are available in male and female, in a variety of nationalities and industries (including medical, industrial, casual, and business). The additional perk here is that in addition to illustrated people cutouts (and even stick figures), there are also characters available in photograph and video form. Pricing here is $299/annually per designer for unlimited access to everything.

eLearning Art

eLearning Art is another great option. Here you'll find cutouts in photographic form--ranging from business to medical to industrial fields, including backgrounds and multitudes of people on the phone. You'll also find eLearning templates. The selection here is large and is available in a la carte packs as well via several different monthly unlimited subscription plans. The Designer plan is the most comparable to the package offered by eLearning Brothers and is $180/annually per designer. 

Captivate and Storyline Characters

Already have Adobe Captivate 6 or Articulate Storyline? You're in luck--both programs come pre-loaded with several free characters, in a variety of poses (and, with Storyline, some nifty facial expressions). We've covered Captivate's characters before; read more here.

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Do you have another resource for eLearning templates, backgrounds, or characters? Please list your resources in the comments section below.

Adobe Captivate: Smart Shapes as Interactive Buttons

by Kevin Siegel

Text Captions and Buttons are the most common kinds of standard objects added to Captivate slides. The former typically provides learners with visual information about what's happening on the slide; the latter allows for learner interaction should the learner click the button.

Over the years, Captivate developers have had little control over the look of both Text Captions and Buttons. You are limited to a few dozen Text Caption types, and a handful of Callout positions (the Callout is the pointer arrow located at different positions around the caption). If you want to customize the look of a Text Caption, you have to visit a graphics program and edit the caption images. As for buttons, you can insert either text or image buttons onto a slide. However, there is little customization you can do to the text buttons, and less when it comes to the image buttons. In fact, if you're looking for image buttons beyond what comes with Captivate, you either have to find alternatives on the web, or create your own image buttons (again in an external image editing tool).

Smart Shapes were introduced in Adobe Captivate 6. Given the fact that you can type text within most of the Smart Shapes, they are an effective replacement for Text Captions. And if you spend any time at all on the Smart Shapes panel, you'll see that there are a collection of Buttons as well (shown below).

Once you've added a Smart Shape button, you can easily customize the appearance of the button (Fill, Stroke, Style). And since the shapes are controlled by Object Styles, project-wide updates are a snap.

While I love the Smart Shape buttons, I was a bit dismayed to learn that I couldn't add text to them. However, you'll be happy to learn that there is a way to work with Smart Shapes, add text, and have the shape act like a button (you know, the cake... and eating it too).

Instead of drawing a Smart Shape button, draw one of the other shapes.

Double-click within the new shape and type your text.

There's just one problem with your awesome Smart Shape... if you visit the Properties panel, you'll notice that there isn't an Action group. Certainly you'll find the usual suspects on the Properties panel (Fill & Stroke, Character, Format, etc), but without an Action, there isn't a way to make your Smart Shape behave like a button. And all is lost...

... only not...

Take another look at the Properties panel. You'll find a wonderfully simple solution to the Action dilemma: Use as Button.

Once you've selected Use as Button, the Action group magically appears on the Properties panel. At this point, it's a simple matter of selecting the desired Action.

Spend some time playing with the Smart Shapes. I'm betting that you'll find more and more ways to use them... and fewer and fewer reasons to use those tired old Text Captions and Buttons.

Note: If you would like to see a video demonstration of making standard Smart Shapes behave as buttons, check out our YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: Punctuation and Compound Sentences

by Jennie Ruby

No "correct" answers came in from my last punctuation challenge. But one answer explained why, and another answer revealed a strange pattern I've been noticing lately in training voiceovers.

The answer that explained why I received no correct answers came from Krista Allen. Faced with these compound sentences--sentences that contain two entire sentences within them--she rewrote every one of them as two sentences. And, I have to say, she was correct to do so. Training writing should be concise, clear and written at about the 4th through 8th grade level. These compound sentences came up to almost 10th grade level. By breaking up the compound sentences, Krista brought them into the recommended range. Together, they now clock in at the 5.5 grade level:

1. You can share folders with everyone in your office without setting file and folder permissions. What's more, you can also use the shared folders with external clients through a shared link.
2. Right-click the folder. When you see the shortcut menu, choose Create Shortcut.
3. Using the Map Network Drive feature eases desktop access to a networked drive. It enables end users to type and click through much shorter path names.
4. On the General tab, click Settings in the dialog box. Next, access the Advanced group and click Delete Cookies.

Of course, by rewriting the sentences, Ms. Allen side-stepped the comma issue. I was looking for what people would do with the commas at the spots where two complete sentences were joined. I offered, in my intro to the challenge, the Gregg Reference Manual's recommendation. That well-respected grammar guide kept the comma before the word and. That comma is, after all, marking the clear boundary between the two sentences.

Here is how Gregg would have us punctuate sentence 1:

1. You can share folders with everyone in your office without setting file and folder permissions, and what is more, you can use the shared folders with external clients through a sealed link.

And here is how our respondent David Zimmerle punctuated it:

1. You can share folders with everyone in your office without setting file and folder permissions and, what is more, you can use the shared folders with external clients through a sealed link.

I was amazed at David's insight into this puzzling pattern that I hear in voiceovers. Trainers giving voice instruction regularly pause after the word and, not before. By the written rules and logic of punctuation, that is just wrong. But from a training standpoint, it does everything right. It immediately signals to the listener that another thought is coming. It then provides a pause during which the listener can prepare for the next instruction. And by providing a pause before the next instruction, the speaker calls attention to it.

Listen to some voiceovers this week--whether on YouTube or in your own work--and let me know if you hear what David and I hear. He has gone beyond the rules and is exercising what I call "literary punctuation." Rather than punctuating by the structure of the sentence (the rule states that we should separate the two parts of a compound sentence with a comma followed by a conjunction: , and), his rewritten examples reflect the cadence of training speech:

1. Right-click the folder and, when you see the shortcut menu, choose Create Shortcut.
2. You can ease desktop access to a networked drive by using the Map Network Drive feature and, thus, enable end users to type and click through much shorter path names.
3. In the dialog box on the General tab, click Settings, and then access the Advanced group, and click Delete Cookies.

Notice in the third example above, the comma after Settings is in the grammatically mandated spot. But it also marks a logical break in instructions, giving the learner time to click Settings before announcing the next instruction.

One more note: in the first example, the phrase introducing the second sentence in the compound ends up marked as parenthetical, with a comma on each side, when it is not. Again, however, the part about when you see the shortcut menu, in the spoken cadence of training, would typically have pauses before and after.

So should we go with technically correct, structural punctuation? Or should we just punctuate by feel? I think that skillful punctuation, as in any field that is part logic and part art, demands that we know the rules first before breaking them.

Challenge

Lower the grade level of each of these sentences.

1. It is incumbent upon the office holder to ensure that the documentation is filled out to a thorough and complete extent and that the printed names are clearly and legibly readable.
2. The sales representative must ensure that the introductions between the client and the technical staff are accomplished in a polite and courteous manner.
3. Confidentiality in regard to the final pricing decision points must be maintained by the financial services representative.

As always, your answers come straight to me.

***

Correction:

Two weeks ago, I misspelled the name of the vireo bird, even though I am a birdwatcher! Chris Niestepski sent in this fun correction notice. Thanks Chris. --Jennie

"I'm nobody's vereo!" rattled the vireo, scathingly.

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8: What Happened to PIP?

by Kevin Siegel

I received an email from a Camtasia developer inquiring about the apparent demise of Camtasia's Picture-in-Picture (PIP) feature. Using the PIP feature, developers could add a corporate logo to a video as a watermark. They could also include videos on top of the video (i.e.: a video of someone using sign language that augmented a video demonstration).

Adding a PIP was simple. You displayed the PIP Track and then dragged an asset from Camtasia's Clip Bin to the PIP Track on the Timeline.

As valuable as many developers viewed the PIP feature, TechSmith dealt away with it in Camtasia Studio 8. Sorry if you loved the feature... but BAM... it's gone.

Not so fast...

I loved the idea behind PIPs from the moment I saw them. However, I never understood why we couldn't just add the image or video onto a different Camtasia Track and avoid the PIP Track. In fact, I always felt like using the PIP Track was counter-intuitive. It just made sense to be able to drag overlay videos onto the Timeline, within a new Track. Great idea... but you couldn't do it. You had to use the PIP track. With Camtasia Studio 8, it seems that the good folks over at TechSmith agree with me. The PIP Track is gone... but that doesn't mean you can't PIP.

If you want to create a PIP in Camtasia Studio 8, visit the Timeline and click the Insert track button.

Add an image or video to the new track, adjust the timing as needed, and BAM... you're PIPing!

Note: If you've purchased my "TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8: The Essentials" book you probably noticed that the chapter title and headers in module 3 say "Videos, Images and PIP." This text is a holdover from my Camtasia 7 book. It's a mistake that was missed during the proofreading phase. The text should say simply: "Videos and Images." I appreciate readers pointing this out to me. We'll make the text correction in future printings of the Camtasia book.

***

Looking to learn Camtasia as quickly as possible? We teach a one day online Camtasia class through ASTD.

Adobe Captivate: Round-Trip Your Background Image Edits

by Kevin Siegel

While Captivate is absolutely a great program for recording software demonstrations, simulations and creating soft skills eLearning, nobody is going to confuse Captivate's drawing capabilities with best-in-class tools like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop.

But what if there's a problem with one of your slide backgrounds and you need an image editor to fix it? In the image below, I'd like to remove the box and text just to the right of the yellow folder. While I could create a mask using a white highlight box, what if the background problem was too complicated to simply cover with a box (or other object)?

Some of you might be thinking that recording additional slides would be in order (and this time ensure the box and the text aren't there). While I'm not keen on recording additional slides, that's a solution that might work. However, who knows what kind of other problems recording additional slides would introduce. No thanks!

It may or may not surprise you to learn that you can edit any Captivate slide background in a graphics program like Microsoft Paint. Here's how:

1. Right-click the background you need to edit and choose Copy Background.
2. Switch to Paint and Paste the background into a new Paint window.
3. Use the Eraser tool to "fix" the graphic.
   
   
4. Once you are done edting/enhancing the background image, press [ctrl] [a] on your keyboard to select the entire image.
5. Press [ctrl] [c] to copy the image to the clipboard.
6. Return to the Captivate slide and (this is the big one) choose Edit > Paste as Background.
   
   Bam!!! Your background problems are a thing of the past.

If haven't tried the steps I've just outlined, I encourage you to give them a try... they truly work and will save you countless hours re-recording.

Of course, I have one more trick up my sleeve. The problem with the steps above is that there are just too many steps. None of the steps are difficult, but miss any one of them and your background simply won't get fixed. Read on for a nifty approach that will make even quicker work out of fixing your background images in an external image-editing program.

1. Using Captivate, right-click the slide background you want to edit and choose Find Background in Library.
2. Right-click the found (and selected) background image in the Library and choose Edit with mspaint (you could also elect to use a different program like Photoshop or Fireworks by choosing Edit with... and opening your favorite image editing tool).
   
   
   
   Note: If mspaint isn't in the menu by default, and it probably won't be, choose Edit with... and manually open the Paint application. The default location for the paint application (mspaint.exe) is C:\Windows\System32.
   
   The image will quickly open in Paint. All you'd need to do now is edit the image, save your work and exit Paint.
   
   And double-BAM!!! The edited image would replace your Captivate slide background. No copying. No pasting. No manually switching between applications! Nothing. Now that's cool!

If you're a visual learner, check out the video I created of this process on IconLogic's YouTube channel.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

eLearning and Training: The Basics of Translation & Localization

by Jen Weaver

For many training professionals, the translation of support materials is a fairly new task. If you're unfamiliar with it, translation can emerge as a large and daunting task. But it doesn't have to be! Understanding some common translation terminology and defining the basic scope for your project will equip you for success.

First, let's break down the terms relative to translation:

Translation: The rendering of written communication from one language into another.

Localization: The process of adapting a product (in the context of translation, usually software) to a specific locale, i.e., to the language, cultural norms, standards, laws and requirements of the target market. Includes, but is not limited to, translation of the screen texts and help files.

Source language: Language used in the original text file.

Target language: Language into which text is to be translated.

Source file: The original living document that is going to be translated. This is not a PDF of the file, but the actual file itself (i.e. Captivate, Storyline, Camtasia, Word, PowerPoint, XML, HTML, FrameMaker, InDesign, QuarkXPress, etc.) including any appropriate links, fonts and graphics.

There are several key facets included in the scope of any successful translation or localization project. It's ok if you don't know exactly what you want upfront... your language vendor can help you identify exactly what is needed for your project. Here are some general guidelines to help you identify the project scope:

• What flavor of the target language is needed? For example there can be translation in Spanish for Spain, Spanish for Mexico, Spanish for Latin America or a more Universal Spanish.
• Who is the target audience? This includes any specific requirements for tone or literacy level as well as an awareness of the audience demographics.
• Is the source file available? It is ideal to translate from the source file rather than a PDF or uneditable version. If the source file is not available, or no longer exists, vendors can work around this but it will likely result in additional time and cost for completion.
• Are translators to adhere to the grammar and punctuation rules of the target language, or to keep the translation consistent with English rules? For example five thousand is written as 5,000 in the USA but 5.000 in most other countries.
• What is your deadline? An average project is completed at a rate of 2,500 words per day, with a few additional days for formatting and final QA. If you need your project expedited it is helpful to identify this timeline upfront.

When broken down into its parts, translation can be a straightforward task completed with great ease and result in high levels of success for your target markets. Happy translating!

***

If you would like to learn best practices for managing translation projects, contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Writing & Grammar: So Many Commas, So Little Time

by Jennie Ruby

Are you guilty of overusing commas? If so, you're not alone. Consider the following sentence:

Fill in all the fields in the form, and, then, click the submit button to send it in.

The Gregg Reference Manual suggests that although you may feel like pausing before and after the word and, three commas are too many. It suggests omitting the one afterand. Thus we keep the comma before and, which is separating two independent clauses. We also keep the comma after then, which separates an introductory transition word from the rest of the sentence.

Too many grammar words in one sentence? Barge ahead and try punctuating these sentences. They need comma help.

1. You can share folders with everyone in your office without setting file and folder permissions and what is more you can use the shared folders with external clients through a sealed link.
2. Right-click the folder and when you see the shortcut menu choose Create Shortcut.
3. You can ease desktop access to a networked drive by using the Map Network Drive feature and thus enable end users to type and click through much shorter path names.
4. In the dialog box on the General tab click Settings and then access the Advanced group and click Delete Cookies.

Answers to Last week's Challenge

This week's answers are brought to you by Mark Rudden:

1. Diners may choose from steak, lobster, chicken, and tofu. [removed the colon after from]
2. The bundle includes a wireless router, cabling, backup power box, and installation. [removed the colon after includes]
3. Our bird-watching trip was a success; we saw woodpeckers, finches, vereos, and juncos. [removed the colon after saw]
4. The function displays the following: search results, formatting inconsistencies, and suggested corrections.[correct as is]
5. In this lesson, you will learn to apply a cover page, add a contents page, and set up custom page numbering. [I would put a coma after lesson, but I'm not sure if it's technically required. It just sounds better to my reading ear.]
6. New songs include Coins for the Canopy, Ice Room Graffiti, and The Figurine. [removed the colon after include]

Alternative answers are brought to you by David Zimmerle. Other respondents with all answers correct were Carol Ansorge, Howard Gold, Jay Herman, Carole Stull, and Vera Sytch.

1. Diners may choose from the following entrees: steak, lobster, chicken, and tofu.
2. The bundle includes everything you need for setup: a wireless router, cabling, backup power box, and installation.
3. Our bird-watching trip was a success; we saw such a variety: woodpeckers, finches, vereos, and juncos.
4. The function displays the following commands: search results, formatting inconsistencies, and suggested corrections.
5. In this lesson you will learn to apply a cover page, add a contents page, and set up custom page numbering.
6. New songs include the following tracks: "Coins for the Canopy", "Ice Room Graffiti", and "The Figurine".

Carol Ansorge also asked whether it is really okay to introduce a bullet list with no colon. The answer is yes. I edited scientific journals for years, and that style was the preferred style. But most people do prefer to see the colon. Therefore, the usual practice is to make sure to complete the introductory sentence and use a colon.

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

Adobe RoboHelp: Edit a Multiscreen HTML5 Layout

by Willam Van Weelden

 

Multiscreen HTML5 is a new Single Source Layout found in Adobe RoboHelp 10. Multiscreen HTML5 is an output that is accessible on just about any kind of device including desktop and laptop computers running Windows or the Macintosh operating systems, iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices.

 

If you want to control the appearance of Multiscreen HTML5 layouts, there are Screen Layouts, which are often compared to WebHelp Skins. If you've ever used a WebHelp Skin, you know that it is pretty easy to customize the look and feel of the skin via RoboHelp's Skin Editor. Screen Layouts differ from WebHelp skins in that there is no Skin Editor. Instead, there's a Screen Layout Editor, which isn't nearly as intuitive as the Skin Editor, making customizing a Screen Layout a challenge. For instance, if you want to control something as simple as the search results highlight color, you'll need to edit from within the Screen Layout Editor, which is essentially an HTML page.

 

In the image below, notice the default highlight color in the Desktop_Layout Screen Layout.

 

 

 

If you want to change the highlight color you need to determine which colors you want to use. You need a background color and a font color for highlighted text, for example light blue and black.

 

The Screen Layout needs these colors in a hexadecimal format, which is a way to represent color using letters and numbers. For example, #000000 is the hexadecimal format you would use in HTML coding to create the color black. You can find the hexadecimal value of your colors with the free color calculator by Peter Jones.

 

Here is how you change the highlight color for a layout:

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod.
2. Open Screen Layouts > Desktop_Layout > Search results page.
    
3. On the Search results page, scroll down and click the checkbox before the text Highlight Search Results.
    
4. Right-click the checkbox and choose Screen Layout Properties. (The Properties will appear at the right side of the RoboHelp window by default.)
    
5. Type the hexadecimal value for the Highlight Color you would like to use. (For example: #EAEFF3 is a light blue color.)
    
6. Type the hexadecimal value for the Font Color. (For example: #000000 is black.)
7. Save the project and generate.

The search highlight will now use your specified colors.

 

 

 

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe Captivate, TechSmith Camtasia Studio, Articulate Storyline: Production Times

by Kevin Siegel   

One of the more common questions that I get from new eLearning developers is how much time it will take to produce published content. The answer I provide is dependent upon a couple of factors. For instance, which eLearning tool are you going to use to produce the lessons? Is it Adobe Captivate? How about TechSmith's Camtasia Studio? Or maybe you're going to use Articulate Storyline? (While there's a hot debate as to which of these tools is the best for eLearning, all three are capable... and I'll leave that debate for another day.) Here's another factor: how many minutes of eLearning playtime are you looking to produce? Are you creating a 30-minute course? 60 minutes?

I have extensive experience using Adobe Captivate and TechSmith Camtasia Studio. In my experience, it will take you approximately 2 hours of labor to produce 1 minute of eLearning playtime if you use Adobe Captivate. If you use Camtasia, your labor will go down a bit (1.5 hours for every 1 minute of playtime). If Articulate Storyline is your tool of choice, developers who use that tool have told me that Storyline is on a par with Captivate. In that case, you should plan on 2 hours of labor to produce every 1 minute of Storyline eLearning.

The production times mentioned above do not include the following:

• Writing an eLearning script. I've found that it could take between 40-80 hours to write a script for 60-minutes of eLearning content.
• Rehearsing the script. Once you're written the script, you'll likely need to run through it multiple times to ensure it's accurate.
• Writing an Audio Script. If you're going to include voiceover audio (and I highly suggest that you do since audio has been shown to improve the learner experience), you should create an audio script. It could easily take you 40 hours or more to prepare an audio script.
• Recording. Once you've written a script, recording screen actions in any of the eLearning tools is simple and shouldn't take more than the actions detailed in the script. For instance, if the script has you recording a 3-minute process in Microsoft Word, it should only take 3-minutes to record the process.
• Developing Assets Externally. I mention below that you can save production time in your eLearning tool by creating as much of the course assets as possible outside of the eLearning tool. Many people create the content in PowerPoint and simply import the content into the eLearning tool. While that means there will be less content to create in the eLearning tool, don't overlook the fact that the content still needs to be created in that other tool. In my experience, creating content in PowerPoint is easy. However, it still takes time. In fact, I'd put the development time in PowerPoint at about the same development time as working within Camtasia (1.5 hours for every minute or presentation play time).

The production clock begins ticking after you create a blank project, open a project containing previously recorded content, or import external content such as a PowerPoint presentation. Production includes, but is not limited to:

• Adding/editing text content such as callouts/captions
• Adding images
• Adding animations
• Adding interactivity (Buttons, clickable hotspots, menus, etc.)
• Creating quizzes
• Publishing to an LMS or web server
• Testing the published content
• Fixing errors found during the testing process
• Republishing and retesting

Looking to save time? You can trim production times significantly by following these tips:

• Create Just In Time eLearning. If creating a software demonstration in Captivate or Storyline, record the lesson and simply publish it without going from screen-to-screen and tweaking any of the timing or the text. When an eLearning developer simply records a lesson and publishes it without much post-production, I call those kind of eLearning modules "just in time eLearning." Depending upon your audience, "just in time eLearning" may be perfectly appropriate. Why spend the production time creating a highly-polished lesson if it's not necessary?
• Use Microsoft PowerPoint. If creating a Soft Skills lesson, create the bulk of the content in Microsoft PowerPoint. All three eLearning tools mentioned above allow you to take existing PowerPoint content and quickly create eLearning out of it. In my opinion, Captivate and Storyline handle the PowerPoint content more elegantly than Camtasia, but the bottom line is that you can re-purpose existing content. Assuming you are satisfied with the original PowerPoint content, and you don't need to add additional content (beyond possibly a quiz) in the eLearning tool, the production time for converting PowerPoint to eLearning should be no more than 1 hour of production time for every minute of eLearning playtime.
• Use Templates. If you start a project with a well-conceived and implemented template, each of your projects will have a consistent look and feel.
• Depending on the Tool, Go Demo or Sim. If you use Camtasia, I suggest creating software demonstrations instead of simulations. If you add interactivity (Flash hotspots) to a Camtasia project, you will need to post the lesson to a server to test the interactivity. That kind of back and forth simply takes too much time. However, creating simulations in Captivate and Storyline is so quick and easy, I think it's actually faster to produce simulations over demonstrations. The pesky mouse pointer that is typically included in a demonstration always need a significant amount of production attention (you'll likely need to adjust the pointer position, pointer path, click effects and click sounds). Since simulations don't typically include a mouse pointer, those production issue go away.

What's your experience with eLearning production times? I'd love to see your comments below and learn about the eLearning tools you're using. How much time it takes you to produce each minute of eLearning.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate. Is Camtasia your tool of choice? We teach a one-day class covering that tool through ASTD. And last but not least, check out our Storyline class.

eLearning: The Use of Bold and Other Styles

by Kevin Siegel   

I've was recently asked to share my thoughts on the proper use of bold text in eLearning. Many organizations struggle with the choice between using bold text in training materials, including written documentation, eLearning lessons and PowerPoint presentations.

When it comes to my step-by-step workbooks, I'm a big fan of using bold text to call attention to important steps. But there's a fine line between emphasizing something and over-emphasizing. For instance, consider the following phrase: Select the File menu. I'd bold the word File, but nothing else. The phrase would look like this: 

• Select the File menu. 

When it comes to eLearning, I'm very conservative when it comes to styling text. Since it's typically harder to read text on the screen than it is on a printed sheet of paper, I tend to avoid making text bold unless the style is going to add something to the page. The best rule of thumb when it comes to screen readability is less is more. The more you format text, the less readable the text will become.

While I do use bold text in my books, and occasionally in my eLearning lessons, I try to avoid using the italic and underline styles altogether. In my experience, italicized text is harder to read than either plain or bold text. With eLearning, as with websites, underlined text implies a clickable hyperlink. If you underline screen text in your eLearning lessons, you'll likely cause confusion for learners who may attempt to click the text (assuming it will take them someplace on the web).

What is your opinion on using text styles such as bold, italic and underline in documentation and eLearning? I look forward to seeing your comments below.

 

***

Looking to learn Adobe Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Adobe Captivate: Pause the Recording Process

by Kevin Siegel   

You're recording a complex series of steps on the computer using Adobe Captivate. As you near the mid-point of the recording process, the phone rings. It's your boss and he is demanding that you immediately stop what you're doing and check your email for some reason or other.

If you check your email now, without stopping the Captivate recording process, the act of checking your email is going to be recorded by Captivate. Do you ignore the demands of your boss and continue with the recording? Or do you stop the recording process and re-record everything later? What is a developer to do?

Stop a second and pause...

Prior to recording the lesson in Captivate, display Captivate's Preferences dialog box (Edit > Preferences on Windows; Adobe Captivate > Preferences on a Mac).

Under the Recording category, select Keys-(Global). 

 

 

There is an option available in the General area that you might not have noticed before: To Pause/Resume Recording. Set the keyboard shortcut to any key you'd like (you can click in the field and press a key or keyboard combination) and then click the OK button.

 

  

 

Let's rewind the scenario mentioned above. You are nearing the mid-point of your recording process when the phone rings... it's your demanding boss and the email request. No worries! Press the Pause key you set up earlier and Captivate will take a break from recording until you press the same key a second time. You can tell that the recording process is paused by observing the Captivate icon on the System Tray (Windows) or the Dock (Mac). When the recording process is paused, you will see a small gray circle just above and to the right of the icon. Pressing the Pause key a second time removes the gray circle, and the recording commences.

 

So go ahead, record a lesson, check that email... take your break... tweet away... all without having to redo your valuable recording. It's okay! Captivate will wait.

 

If you'd like to watch a video of the Pause Recording process, check out the video demonstration on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

 

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: Use of Colons with Complete Sentences

by Jennie Ruby 

A very common error I see at all levels of writing is failure to use a complete sentence before a colon. I see this most often in text after words such as including, are and such as, in sentences like this:

*Our new monitoring centers have many advanced features, including: multiple server backups, high-speed fiber-optic cabling, and 48-hour backup power systems. [no punctuation needed after including]

The other main place I see this error is in the introduction to a bulleted or numbered list. The introduction does look better with the colon, but it has to be a complete sentence. Here is an example of this error:

*Our main objectives are: [no colon needed, or more words needed to complete the introductory sentence]

• Meet or beat the deadline
• Come in under budget
• Exceed the stated quality standards

Here are two ways to correct this error:

Our main objectives are as follows:

We seek to meet these objectives:

 Challenge: Correct these sentences. Be careful! Some are correct as they are.

1. Diners may choose from: steak, lobster, chicken, and tofu.
2. The bundle includes: a wireless router, cabling, backup power box, and installation.
3. Our bird-watching trip was a success; we saw: woodpeckers, finches, vereos, and juncos.
4. The function displays the following: search results, formatting inconsistencies, and suggested corrections.
5. In this lesson you will learn to apply a cover page, add a contents page, and set up custom page numbering.
6. New songs include: Coins for the Canopy, Ice Room Graffiti, and The Figurine.

When ready, send your answers right to me.

***

Answers to my last challenge are brought to you by Vera Sytch, who also voiced this opinion for many of us: "Glad I'm not in the field of economics!" I am happy to report that everyone who submitted answers won this week: all punctuation of these compound sentences was done correctly. Many of you injected transition words or changed transition words in an attempt to make this writing clearer. All of them were an improvement.

1. Perfect markets are not at all proxies for real markets; they suppose an institutional form opposed to the idea of a market.
2. Preference orderings and endowments are a good abstraction of consumers' production sets; hence, and they give an idea of the level of technology use within a firm.
3. There is no relation, let alone identity, between individual and collective behavior; this has been philosophically acknowledged since ancient times.
4. The methodological implications of differing definitions of economic processes are quite drastic; however, long-term investment cannot be determined in an acceptably meaningful manner because the system is subjected neither to the rules of competition nor to the optimizing behavior of cooperative arrangements.
5. The moment a macro-system is broken up into subsectors it no longer holds together; nor can itcannot be built from the bottom up either.

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

 

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

eLearning and Training: How Does Language Impact Learning?

by Jen Weaver 

Let's be frank, most people know at least some English.  It is one of the most common languages in the World, and many countries outside of the U.S. teach English in schools as standard curriculum.  Given these facts, it can be difficult to justify the expense of translation for training materials, especially when your learners are able to communicate in English with marginal clarity. So the question remains: what benefit does translation bring to your students?

It is not a stretch to assume that it is easier for students to learn when materials are provided in their first language; however, research indicates that the consequences of monolingual education for bilingual students may be harsher than previously realized.

Difficulties Second Language Learners May Experience

• Learners may lack knowledge of English grammar and syntax. In this case, they will read text word-by-word, resulting in lower overall comprehension.
• There may be challenges for learners when reading idiomatic expressions and unfamiliar grammatical construction, especially with more complex sentence structures.
• There may be too much unfamiliar vocabulary to grasp the overall concept.  Learners may also lack appropriate "repair strategies" to use when meaning is lost or misinterpretations occur.
• Connectives may be overlooked or misunderstood, resulting in a loss of the relationships between concepts and ideas.
• Learners may not be familiar with a specific genre, story "grammar" or the literary devices used in text.
• Symbols may differ.

From a Cultural Standpoint, These Factors May Come Into Play

• Different conceptual frameworks may misguide the learner's reading.
• Cause and consequence chains can differ and/or be more emotional, evoking strong reactions in the reader.
• Second language readers often use strategies that are applicable to the orthographic system and the grammatical and syntactic patterns of their first language. These may or may not transfer into the second language text.

These challenges, together with the finding of other published research, support the view that educational materials provided in the student's second language are not as effective as those given in the student's first language. Additionally, second language readers consistently fail to realize how much of what they think they understand is, in fact, wrong. Translation voids these learning obstacles by making materials available in the first language of learners, thereby increasing comprehension, retention and application; thus adding a substantial return on investment for translation. Indirectly, this benefits your rapport and customer satisfaction as a training professional as you enable clients to better educate second language learners.

What is your experience with the impact of language on training? We'd love to see your comments below. 

*** 

If you would like to learn best practices for managing translation projects, contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Adobe Captivate: URLs to New Windows

by Kevin Siegel   

When selecting an Action for an object (i.e. Click Boxes, Buttons), you can select from several options available in the On Success drop-down menu including, but not limited to: Continue, Go to the previous slide, Go to the next slide, Jump to slide, Open URL or file; Open another project, and Execute Advanced Actions.

If you choose Open URL or file and target a website, learners will be taken to the website you specify should they click the object. That makes perfect sense. But after a learner clicks the object, the Captivate lesson will disappear when the target website opens. That's not such a good thing. Besides losing contact with the lesson, learners will have to click the "Back" button on their browser to return to the lesson. Of course, if the learner clicks around the website, it's going to potentially take several clicks to return to the lesson. Possibly worse, I've seen learners close the website, thinking they'd return to the lesson... only to realize the lesson was nowhere to be seen.

If you are like many Captivate developers, and plan to utilize the Open URL or File action, I have a simple option you can use to ensure that learners easily return to your lesson when they are finished browsing the website.

1. In the image below, I've set the Action for a click box to Open URL or file. The URL is the Super Simplistic Solutions website.
   
     
2. To ensure that the URL opens in a new browser window, I clicked the drop-down menu just to the right of the URL and selected New. 
    
   

It's as simple as that. If you preview the lesson in a web browser and click the object, a new browser window (or tab) will open. If you close the new browser window, the lesson will still be available, in its own window.

I've created a video demo of the process and posted it to IconLogic's YouTube channel. The video demonstrates the URL action without the URL opening in a new window, and how it looks if you specify a new window. 

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: Compound Sentences and Run-Ons

by Jennie Ruby 

Putting two sentences together to form one larger sentence is a common way to express more complex thoughts. But I see even academic writers with MAs or PhDs get the punctuation wrong. Here's how it works. You put two complete sentences together.

Nothing is more central to neoclassical microeconomics than the concept of a market.

+

Textbooks leave its meaning up in the air.

=

Nothing is more central to neoclassical microeconomics than the concept of a market*textbooks leave its meaning up in the air.

The asterisk indicates where the two original sentences meet. The three most common ways to correctly negotiate this meeting spot are as follows:

Add a comma plus a conjunction (but, or, yet, for, and, nor, so)

Nothing is more central to neoclassical microeconomics than the concept of a market, yet textbooks leave its meaning up in the air.

Add a semicolon alone

Nothing is more central to neoclassical microeconomics than the concept of a market; textbooks leave its meaning up in the air.

Add a semicolon plus a transition word (however, therefore, hence, etc.) followed by a comma

Nothing is more central to neoclassical microeconomics than the concept of a market; nevertheless,textbooks leave its meaning up in the air.

Although there are some circumstances where a colon or a dash can work well, these three are the most frequent correct methods. Failure to use sufficient punctuation between two sentences combined into one creates an error called a "run-on sentence."

Challenge: Correct these run-on sentences from the technical field of economics using the three methods described above. Please send your answers to me when ready.

1. Perfect markets are not at all proxies for real markets, they suppose an institutional form opposed to the idea of a market.
2. Preference orderings and endowments are a good abstraction of consumers production sets and they give an idea of the level of technology use within a firm.
3. There is no relation, let alone identity, between individual and collective behavior, this has been philosophically acknowledged since ancient times.
4. The methodological implications of differing definitions of economic processes are quite drastic, long-term investment cannot be determined in an acceptably meaningful manner because the system is subjected neither to the rules of competition nor to the optimizing behavior of cooperative arrangments.
5. The moment a macro-system is broken up into subsectors it no longer holds together it cannot be built from the bottom up either.

Note: Sentences are adapted from A Guide to What's Wrong With Economics edited by Edward Fullbrook. All of the punctuation errors were added.

Last Week Answers

The answers this week are brought to you by Phil Eschtruth Harrison.

1. If you need to file a claim (even during nonbusiness hours, when we are not available), submit the form by fax or online. [Removed comma after "available".]
2. Please verify your address (our database needs to be updated). [Moved comma outside closing parenthesis.] Or, another option would be to make it a separate sentence like this: Please verify your address. (Our database needs to be updated.)
3. It is extremely important that all of your membership data is verified before the end of the month (when we finalize our billing). [Removed extra period after word "billing".]
4. Use our paperless option (it's easy, we swear!), and we'll give you a credit to use in our online store.[Removed comma before the parentheses.]
5. Choose the Internet speed that's perfect for your needs. (We offer four different speed and price options.) [Added a period after "needs" to make it two separate sentences.]
6. Our network is 99.9% reliable (even during extreme weather events). [Moved period outside the closing parenthesis.]

By far the hardest item was number 4, with 25 percent of respondents getting something wrong--usually removing the comma after the parenthesis. This sentence is actually two complete independent clauses, so a comma is needed, along with the word and, to separate them. Although extremely short sentences can be combined with a conjunction alone, the parenthetical element adds enough complexity that I think the comma is required. One respondent removed the exclamation point, but that is not required.

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing wiz? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

Online Training: What's Up With MOOCs?

by AJ George 

A few weeks ago I talked about online training and posed the question: How big is too big? This week I want to focus on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). If any training method is too big, certainly it would have to be the one with "Massive" right there in its name, right? Well, maybe not. I've been doing some research and have found that there is a LOT of information floating around out there. I thought it might be useful to bring you a concise shakedown on what's up with all these MOOCs.

First, if you're a video person, check out this video by Neal Gillis in which Dave Comier, one of the people who founded the term MOOC, gives a good explanation.

If you're not a video person, I'll break it down. A MOOC, at its root form, is open to the public and costs nothing. It is catered to those with self-discipline and a desire to learn. There is not necessarily anything special about the content, but in the case of the MOOC, the course content is paced. Reading and topics are partitioned into weeks. You needn't go through all the material, but it's all there and the assumption is that you are self-motivated enough to want to get through it. Then you share your thoughts on the material through blogs and social networks. Ideally everything will be hash-tagged so it can be easily found and shared among participants. Alternatively, student responses will be gathered in a Learning Management System (LMS) where all the participants can access them. In short: A MOOC is a knowledge-base elaborated through chat, completion of assignments, and feedback by a group of self-motivated people who are interested in the topic.

Of course, there's more to MOOCs. If you'd like to dig a bit deeper, here is some further reading. 

MOOCs continue to spread through high-brow institutions:

More Prestigious Colleges Offer Courses Online

And into high schools as well:

University of Miami Offers First Free Online Class to 
High School Students to Prepare for the SAT

Some MOOCs are set up to steer students to paid follow-up courses to receive professional certificates:

eCornell Offers a MOOC that Steers Students to a Paid Follow-Up

Harvard Law School is chucking out the "M" for "Massive" in its Copyright MOOC, and allowing only 500 students (as opposed to the 100,000 who were in Harvard's first MOOC offering): 

Should All Massive Open Online Courses Follow Harvard Law School's Move By Limiting Class Size?

And while we're at it, how big is too big for online training classes in general?

Online Training: How Big is Too Big?

Are MOOCs breeding grounds for cheaters? Does it matter?

Dozens of Plagiarism Incidents Are Reported in Coursera's Free Online Courses

Running your own MOOC? Here's how to manage it: 

Managing High-Enrollment Online Courses

Some fear the push for MOOCs will not lead to the edu-topia we all dream of (don't we?), but instead an industry led by venture capitalists that is neither free nor innovative: 

Size Isn't Everything: For academe's future, think mash-ups not MOOC's

And maybe that time is already here, as some places are already offering pared down versions of their courses, marketing them as similar to MOOCs, and charging money (but also giving credit) for them: 

"MOOCs" for Credit Come to California

So there you have it. If you're not all MOOCed out, I'd love to read your comments. Have you participated in a MOOC? Are you thinking about it? Is this a fad? Will they be able to keep this free and innovative? Would you argue that it's not innovative at all?

Free Webinar: Create eBooks in a Snap

I'm excited to be offering a free webinar next Monday, February 25 (noon Eastern) where you will learn how to quickly create eBooks (ePub and Mobi) in record time using tools available off-the-shelf in the Adobe Technical Communication Suite.

While this is an event that I'm teaching for the good folks over at the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), IconLogic is sponsoring the event so it's open to everyone. All you need to do is use the link below and register.

Register and Learn more

Adobe Captivate: Text Entry That Sticks Around

by Kevin Siegel   

A client wanted us to create a software simulation that would allow learners to fill out part of a spreadsheet. In addition, as learners moved from cell to cell, the client wanted the learners to see what they had typed in the previous cells and change the text.

You can use text entry boxes to simulate areas in an application that require a learner to type data. But simulating a spreadsheet? That can get tricky, especially if you want to ensure that the learner will continue to see and edit what they typed as they move through the spreadsheet.

Fortunately, you can insert multiple text entry boxes onto a single Captivate slide. By playing around with the Timing and Actions for those objects, you can create the illusion of a learner filling out even complex forms and spreadsheets.

Here are your steps to success:

1. Insert a new slide in a Captivate project, and then set the slide Timing to 4 seconds.
     
2. Insert a Text Entry Box on the new slide (Insert > Standard Objects > Text Entry Box).
3. On the Properties panel, General group, select Validate User Input if there is something specific you want the learner to type. Otherwise, do not select Validate User Input.
   
4. If you selected Validate User Input, you'll see a Correct Entries screen on the slide. You can click the large plus sign to add a Correct Entry.
     
5. From the Action group, On success drop-down menu, select Continue.
      
6. From the Options group, select your desired Options. In my example, I did not Validate the User Input so I deselected all of the options.
     
7. From the Transition group, change the Effect to No Transition.
     
8. On the Timing group, set the Text Entry box to display for rest of slide.
9. Set the Appear After to 0 seconds.
     
10. Insert a second Text Entry Box.
11. If you'd like, once again ensure that Validate User Input is selected and add a correct entry. 
12. As you did for the first Text Entry Box, select Continue as the On success Action.
13. From the Options group, select your desired options.
14. From the Transition group, change the Effect to No Transition.
15. From the Timing group, set the Text Entry box to display for rest of slide.
16. Set the Appear After to 2 seconds.
     
17. Position the Text Entry Boxes on the slide. In the image below, I've stacked them vertically.
      

If you preview the project, you'll be able to type in the first text box. When you press Enter, the text you typed in the first box will stick around as you enter text into the second text box.

  

The trick was staggering when each text entry box appeared (you spaced the timing out by 2 seconds); and telling each of the text entry boxes to display for the rest of slide.

Note: I've posted a video demo of this process to the IconLogic YouTube channel. The video was created using Captivate's Video Demonstration mode.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Writing & Grammar: Parentheses

by Jennie Ruby 

I routinely get questions on this mechanical detail in my grammar and editing classes: does a period or comma go inside or outside of the closing parenthesis? And the answer is it depends. The way I think of it is that if the previous sentence was over before you inserted the parenthetical part, and you have a complete sentence inside the parentheses, then the period goes on the inside:

We offer classes on writing and grammar. (We also offer classes on training design, but that is a different topic.)

If the sentence was not over, and the parenthetical element is actually inside the end of your main sentence, then the period goes on the outside. That is true regardless of whether the words inside the parentheses form a complete sentence or not:

All fifteen participants took three classes last week (InDesign, Photoshop, and Captivate).

All of the participants completed the final exercise on Friday (the snowstorm had no detrimental effect on their learning).

And what about commas? Never put a comma before a parenthesis. If your main sentence needs a comma, place it after the parenthetical element:

We offered two classes last week (Proofreading for Nonproofreaders and Essentials of Adobe Captivate), but we had only 18 students registered.

Here is this week's challenge: Add parentheses, periods, and/or commas as necessary. When ready, you can send your answers directly to me.

1. If you need to file a claim (even during nonbusiness hours, when we are not available,), submit the form by fax or online.
2. Please verify your address (our database needs to be updated.)
3. It is extremely important that all of your membership data is verified before the end of the month (when we finalize our billing.).
4. Use our paperless option, (it's easy, we swear!), and we'll give you a credit to use in our online store.
5. Choose the Internet speed that's perfect for your needs (We offer four different speed and price options.)
6. Our network is 99.9% reliable (even during extreme weather events.) 

 

***

Looking for help with your writing technique? Jennie teaches two writing classes: Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

Already a writing master? Join Jennie to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys.

eLearning and Documentation: To Translate or not to Translate... That is the Question!

by Jen Weaver 

As global reach expands and local diversity increases, interactions with coworkers, employees, or clients bring us in contact with those who speak different languages. As a result, we are faced with the new demands of a diversified audience coupled with tight budgets, limited time and in an overall downturned economy. Achieving a high return on investment from your training, eLearning, and communication initiatives is extremely important, starting with the initial decision: to translate or not to translate?

Before starting a translation project, you must first determine what business requirements the project will address. Some questions to consider upfront:

What's your goal?

For example, is the implementation of translation going to contribute to reaching sales targets, meeting legal requirements, to better educate staff, or are there other obligations? In short, what is the desired return on this investment?

What caused the need for translation?

Is this a current need or are you working in consideration of future goals? Can translation be postponed until a later date or is it imperative that you start the process now?

Can you have optimal success without translation?

Is translation a nicety or necessity? Is translation a pre-existing expectation of your target audience? If the answer to this question has yet to be determined, perhaps developing a test group or pilot translation strategy would be beneficial before establishing a long-term policy.

What's the long-term goal?

Consider your ongoing translation and localization plan, including project sequence and potential support needs. How does this project fit into long-term translation strategies?

What's your budget?

Determine your budget for translation in light of the desired results and your business needs. Translation and localization cost is the opportunity cost to reach your desired target market or achieve your business goals in a diverse sector. A secondary question to consider here is "How much of this cost can be absorbed internally?" While bilingual staff members may be able to complete an internal quality assurance review, be careful not to assume too great a risk by using staff members to translate if this is outside of their intended job description. While they are familiar with your company, you may sacrifice the expertise a professional translation company can provide, and this approach could end up costing you more in the long run.

Are you set up for victory?

Unrealistic budgetary restrictions or diminished turn-around times may limit your service quality and mitigate your expected results. For optimal success, work with your translation project manager to determine realistic expectations for budget and project timelines."

Answering these questions will start you off with a firm foundation to support future translation success.

 

Look before you leap, otherwise you may need to heed this bad translation blunder and carefully slip and fall down.

***

If you would like to learn best practices for managing translation projects, contact Jen at Carmazzi Global Solutions.

Adobe Captivate: Export and Share Audio and Images

by Kevin Siegel   

If you're a Captivate developer working with non-Captivate developers, you may be asked to share some of your project assets so those assets can be used in other applications.

I had a PowerPoint developer ask to use one of the audio clips in my Captivate project in his PowerPoint presentation. If I had access to the file on my hard drive or server, it would have been simple enough to email the file to him as an attachment. Unfortunately, my Captivate project was pretty old, and I no longer had access to the original clip that I had imported onto one of my Captivate slides.

Fortunately, there is a handy feature within Captivate that saved the day. First, I opened the Captivate Library (Window > Library). Next, I right-clicked the audio clip and chose Export. 

 

From this point it was a simple matter of picking a save location and then emailing the file to the PowerPoint developer. Had the developer shared my network, I could have easily exported the file to a shared folder on a network drive and saved the email step. 

Keep in mind that you can export any Library asset (images, animation, etc). And if someone has provided assets for you, you can use the Import menu item (shown just above Export in the image above) and import multiple assets at once.

Note: If you'd like to watch the Export process, check out this short video recently posted to the IconLogic YouTube channel. The video was created using Captivate's Video Demonstration mode.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Adobe Captivate: Methods for Attaching Voiceover Audio

by Kevin Siegel  

When it comes to adding narration audio (voice-overs), Captivate developers have plenty of choices. You can insert audio using any of the following methods:

Object-Level Audio 

Right-click any slide object and choose Audio > Import to or Audio > Record to. If you choose Import to, you will be presented with an Import Audio dialog box. You can import wav's or mp3's. 

Object-level audio is ideal if you want to quickly add sound effects to slide objects. However, I wouldn't use this technique for voiceover audio. If you attach audio to multiple slide objects, there is a good chance that those objects will take longer to work with (when compared with a project that has more slides, but fewer objects per slide). There's also a Section 508/compliance issue you'll need to forward-think, but I'll cover that later.

Background-Level Audio 

To add Background audio, choose Audio > Import to Background or Audio > Record to Background. Once again, you will either be presented with a dialog box to open an existing audio clip, or a dialog box where you can record your own audio. You will also have options to lower the background audio if there is competing audio on the slide, and you can elect to loop the background audio. There is even an option to stop the audio when users close the lesson.

Background-level audio is perfect for background music... if you intend to include it. Personally, I think background music will quickly becomes a distraction (perhaps even an irritant) for your learners, which is why I shy away from it. 

As for voiceover audio, I don't recommend that you add it to a project as the background. If you do, you'll likely find yourself facing all kinds of object-to-audio synchronization issues as you move from slide to slide within the project.

Slide-Level Audio

You can attach audio directly to the slide by selecting the slide on the Filmstrip and choosing Audio > Record orAudio > Import.

 

There are a couple of reasons that slide-level audio is preferred over object-level or background-level audio. First, there's a production speed benefit. When I produce eLearning lessons for my customers, I try to keep the number of slide objects to a minimum. Typically I only allow for one text caption, and one button or click box per any given slide. Keeping the number of slide objects to a minimum speeds up the production process significantly In fact, fewer slide objects means less time spent synchronizing the timing of those objects with other objects or voiceover audio.

If you're not concerned with saving production time, perhaps my second reason for adding voiceover audio at the slide level will get your attention. If you are required to include closed captions in your eLearning (for Section 508 compliance), you must include voiceover audio. In fact, closed captions cannot be added to slide objects. You can only insert closed captions at the slide-level, and only if the slide already contains audio

Over the years I've heard horror stories from developers who were required to add closed captions, but couldn't because the audio had been added to slide objects instead of the slide itself. Unfortunately, the only solution to the dilemma is to remove the object audio, and then manually add the audio to the slide. It's not a difficult process, but it takes time. Of course, now that you've read the  text above, that particular production conundrum isn't something you'll need to worry about.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate 6 classes each month including an Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

Quiz Design: Recognizing Types of Learning

by Jennie Ruby 

Many of us start writing a quiz when we are sitting in front of our quiz-making software, and the software asks us whether we want a multiple-choice question or a true/false. We then go on instinct to make up a question that we feel relates to the topic just covered in the training. But this method, although it will arrive at a functional quiz that our learner can click through, may not be accurately doing what a quiz should do.

And what should a quiz do? Well, measure the learning, of course. But in order to measure the learning, we need to have a clear idea of what the learning should have been. And to have that clear idea, and then to make sure the quiz is actually measuring it, we need to have started preparing to write the quiz quite a while ago: when we were writing the objectives for the training.

What's that you say? You didn't write objectives? And now the training is in production? You will still end up needing to figure out the learning objectives in order to create successful quizzes. So let's take a look at some learning objectives for which you may need to create quizzes or other evaluations.

Learning objectives come in four kinds: things the learner must know, things the learner must be able to do, ways the learner must be able to interact with others, and things that affect the learner's emotional state or attitude. Let's focus first on the first two: things the learner must know, and things the learner must be able to do.

Let's start with things the learner will be required to know. For example, a training objective might be that after training, the learner should be able to name all 23 flavors of frozen yogurt our company offers-in order of popularity. Or it might be to list five ways to ship a package from their worksite. Or it might be to be able to spell the names of the members of our board of directors without any typos. These are straight-up knowledge objectives, and are fairly straightforward to create a quiz about.

But acquiring knowledge is typically only part of our learning objectives. Another type of objective is a skill--being able to do a particular task. It could be the ability to take our company's coffee machine out of the box and set it up and get it working at a client site. It might be the ability to correctly fill in an online form and submit the results to our server. It might be the ability to take an accurate pulse from a patient. These job skills require a different kind of assessment. Measuring learning with a multiple-choice quiz for these is not going to be a complete assessment.

Note that knowledge objectives may also encompass problem-solving. For example, the ability to decide to which department you should forward a call from a customer with a certain kind of question involves not just knowing the names of all our departments, but also being able to categorize the customer's problem and match it to the correct department. Solving that problem requires both knowledge and problem-solving. The ability to use our telephone switching software to actually forward the call?--that is a skill.

Challenge: Which of these objectives are primarily about knowledge, and which ones are about skills? Label each as Knowledge or Skill.

1. The ability to list all of the counties in Maryland and name their county seat.
2. The ability to create a formula in Excel to take the square root of a value.
3. The ability to recognize the flavor names of ice cream that our company offers versus flavors that are not offered.
4. The ability to play five major chords on a ukulele.
5. The ability to list the notes of the pentatonic minor scale in A minor.
6. The ability to activate the Track Changes command in Microsoft Word.
7. The ability to spell out ten common acronyms used in our industry.
8. The ability to calculate the interest due over the course of a 5-year car loan.
9. The ability to set up a client's cell phone to directly access our database.
10. The ability to locate a print booklet in our library on the seventh floor of our building.

When ready, please send your answers to me.

 

***

If you would like to learn how to create effective quizzes and surveys, attend Jennie's live online class. Jennie also teaches Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Effective Scripts.

TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8: One Smart Player

by Kevin Siegel  

When you are ready to make a Camtasia project available to your learners, you need to Produce it. Choosing the Produce and Share menu item (File menu) takes the source content and outputs it into a format that can be viewed by the learner.

Arguably, the most common way to publish a Camtasia project is as a Flash SWF. This is an excellent solution because SWF files can be used by the vast majority of the world's personal computers, browsers and operating systems. Although your learners will not need Camtasia installed on their computer to use a SWF, they will need a modern web browser and the free Adobe Flash Player (www.adobe.com). According to Adobe, the Flash Player is installed on most of the world's computers. 

But SWFs have a problem. Learners using an Apple mobile device, such as the iPad, iPod and iPhone (that's millions of potential learners), cannot use SWF content. Learners using an Apple mobile device who attempt to access a SWF are met with a warning that SWFs are not supported.

If you'd like to produce content for the Apple mobile devices from Camtasia, hope is not lost. When you produce a SWF in Camtasia, the output includes a Smart Player. The Smart Player automatically detects if the learner's device or browser supports Flash. If the learner's device or browser does not support Flash content, the Smart Player will automatically detect the limitation and playback the content using HTML5--helping ensure that the video will play. 

To Produce an eLearning lesson that will include the Smart Player, choose File > Produce and share to open the Production Wizard. From the drop-down menu, chooseCustom production settings and click the Next button.

From the Recommended area of the How would you like to produce your video? window, select MP4-Flash/HTML5 player.

 

All you need to do now is move through the remaining Production Wizard screens and select, among other things, the appearance of the Smart Player. (There are six controller themes including Black, Silver and Glossy. Transparent is the default.)

That's all there is to it. Behind the scenes, the Smart Player will ensure that your video will play for the learner on just about any kind of computer or mobile device. 

***

Looking to learn Camtasia quickly? I teach a live, online Introduction to Techsmith Camtasia Studio 8 class for ASTD. You can learn more here. The class includes a free copy of my new TechSmith Camtasia Studio 8: The Essentials book.

Adobe Captivate 6: Audio Control Without a Playbar

by Lori Smith 

If you've spent any time using Captivate's new Pretest and the Branch Aware settings, I think you will agree that they are very cool. However, if you've used either feature, you have probably noticed that you cannot have a playbar in the published lesson. It's not a big deal if you don't need the playbar, but what if you need to give your learners the ability to mute/unmute the audio? Or maybe the learner is relying on closed captions? Without a playbar, the learner will not have access to the closed caption tool. If you would like to use the Pretest and/or Branch Aware options, and keep the playbar, I've got you covered. All you need to do is create a little advanced action and add a smart shape.

You will be working with the system variable cpCmdMute. Here is what Adobe says about using cpCmdMute: 

 

According to the Description shown in the image above, you set the variable to 1 if you want to mute the audio, 0 if you don't. You need to use this variable in the project to allow the learner to control the audio when there isn't a playbar. Here's how you do it.

First, create a Conditional advanced action by choosing Project > Advanced Actions. Name the action Toggle Mute and create the action as shown in the two images. Remember, you need to fill in the ELSE section. 

 

 

You need to attach the new action to an interactive slide object and force the object to display the object for the rest of the project. You may instinctively want to use a button or even a click box, but those types of interactive objects cannot be displayed for the Rest of Project. Instead, insert a Smart Shape (Insert > Standard Object > Smart Shape). Look in the Buttons group and you will find a Mute button (the sixth tool from the left).

  

Insert the Mute button on slide 1 of the project. With the Mute button selected, visit the Timing group on the Properties panel and set the Display for to rest of project.

  

From the Action group, set the Mute button's action to execute the ToggleMute advanced action you created earlier.

  

Voilà--you have just given a playbar-less project the ability to mute/unmute. If you want to implement a closed caption toggle, follow the same process but use the variable cpCmdCC instead.

Another cool tip: Assign a keyboard shortcut to the smart shape and you have now made muting/unmuting even more 508 compliant.

***

Looking to learn Captivate quickly? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Captivate 6 classes each month including An Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate concepts.

Techsmith Camtasia Studio 8 Training with the ASTD

Using Camtasia Studio, you can quickly create visual demonstrations of just about anything (computer software or soft skills training) and post your completed lessons on the web or burn them to a CD. Your lessons can include videos of actions taken on your computer, animation, audio, quizzes and surveys.

This one-day course will introduce you to the essential Camtasia Studio skills you need to know to rapidly deploy eLearning!

Instructor: Kevin Siegel 

More Information 

Online Training: How Big is Too Big?

by AJ George 

In the early days of software training, many professional trainers that I've talked with said that the perfect onsite class size was eight to 10 students. For groups of 10 or more, it was a standard practice to bring in a backup trainer. The role of the backup trainer was to assist any students who might have fallen behind the instructor, or simply assist those students in need of a bit of extra help. If the class size was larger than 15 students, many training companies would split the class into manageable sizes, requiring multiple rooms and multiple lead instructors.

Then came webinars. Because of their laissez-faire style, webinar facilitators can, and often do, preach to audiences of hundreds... perhaps thousands. Those in attendance need only log in to the webinar's website on a given date and time, and watch and listen.

For a quick and wide dispersal of lecture-type content, webinars are great. But what about learning that needs a more hands-on approach, such as learning a program like Adobe Captivate or Techsmith Camtasia Studio? Live, online training fits the bill, but at its inception, the general rule was to keep the online class size small (under six students). If you recall, I mentioned that the perfect online class size was eight to 10 students. Why was it that an online class size needed to be smaller? It was initially believed that there would be technological issues that could accompany online classes. It was also feared that large online classes would gobble up bandwidth and hinder the online experience for everyone. In addition, there weren't any guidelines how how best to engage the online student. Should you call on them directly? If you did ask a student a question, would Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) be reliable enough for two-way communication? If voice communications failed, could you rely on typing (most training programs call the area where you type messages to fellow attendees the chat pod) to effectively communicate, collaborate and engage?

Over the years, as the technology for online classes has improved, so has the experience for instructors and learners alike. At IconLogic, we regularly teach large online classes. In fact, one of our instructors, Kevin Siegel, recalls teaching a live, online course to a group of more than 100 students. While there were no issues with the class, Kevin admitted that it was a bit of a gamble to teach an interactive course to that many online students, and he said that allowing triple-digit attendees is not ideal.

"For me, the online class size can be larger than an onsite class thanks to the ability to screen share," said Siegel. "I think the perfect online class size is 12-15 students. Even though that would be a very large class if it were onsite, it's easy to manage online. I can quickly make any student in an online class the presenter. Once a student shows their screen, I can see what they see and fix any problems. In fact, I can usually screen share and fix problems online far faster than I can when I am in a physical classroom. In a physical classroom,  I have to leave my station, race over to the student's workstation, fix the issue, and then dash back."

Jennie Ruby, our writing and grammar instructor, said that "Today's tools for online training enable us to create a social environment much like a live classroom, where students know that the instructor and the other students are expecting their participation. Tools allowing for the ability of students to indicate with an on-screen marker if they have been called away from their desk, to indicate that they have a question, to privately message the instructor, and of course, to use a microphone and speak to the entire class help create the sense of presence and accountability. Frequent requests for interaction keeps each participant involved with the lesson."

Ruby said that her online students aren't allowed to be a "troll" in the class, merely listening without participating. The knowledge that they will be called upon in turn guarantees that they will not merely leave the screen and work on email while idly listening.

"In my experience, we can create this kind of social classroom experience with up to about 15 people. After that point, it simply takes too much time to call upon each student, and there is a sense of anonymity by the students," said Ruby. "The participation of each individual is no longer as important. I draw the line at about 15 to 18 students. That is the boundary between a live, interactive class and a lecture-style webinar."

Now the hype is all about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I'll be diving more into MOOCs next week, but simply put, a MOOC is the big, bouncing baby of a webinar and a live online class. MOOCs allow for enrollment of thousands like a webinar (and are generally free and open) but require more hands-on activity like a live, online class, and can continue for weeks like an in-person college course. Often MOOC students are presented with a certificate of completion at course end, but some of these massive courses are even being administered for college credit.

What is your experience with online training? How big is too big? Is there such a thing as too big? Does it depend on the content? Feel free to share your comments below.

PowerPoint 2010: Create Your Own Gauges

by AJ George 

Want to create a speedometer-like gauge for your PowerPoint or eLearning deck? I've found gauges a creative way to illustrate anything from progress through a course or presentation to positive to negative value scales. There are some relatively easy ways to build a gauge using shapes, but one of the fastest (and easily editable) ways I've found is to use Charts.

Here's what the finished product would look like: 

 

And here's how you'd do it:

1. In PowerPoint, insert a doughnut chart. (Insert > Illustrations > Chart > Doughnut > Doughnut > OK).
   
   An Excel spreadsheet will appear, along with the chart on your PowerPoint slide.


2. On the Excel spreadsheet, click in the cell that says Sales and change the title to whatever you would like. For my example I'm going to use Typos in 2012 Issues to demonstrate an acceptable versus unacceptable range of typos in one year for a publication.
   
   For the purposes of this chart, we will not be using the labels which currently read 1st Qtr, 2nd Qtr, etc., so you can leave them as is, but we will be changing the numerical values.


3. For my chart I want the total possible value of the gauge to be 100. I will only be using half of the doughnut so I'm going to set the total value to 200. The value for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Qtr should total 100. The value for the 4th Qtr will be 100. Add any three values for the first three quarters, as long as they total to 100. I will be using 60, 25, and 15. Once in the doughnut chart, this will visually give me a "good" area, an "okay" area, and a "bad" area. 
   
    
   
   If you use similar values, your chart should look something like this: 
   
   
   
   
   To get the horizontal orientation like in the finished example above, you will need to rotate the data. 
   
   
4. Select the doughnut so that resizing handles appear on all its sections.
5. Right-click the doughnut and choose Format Data Series. 
   
   The Format Data Series dialog box will open.


6. From the Series Options category, change the Angle of first slice to 270 and click Close.
      


7. Right-click the solid bottom half of the doughnut chart and choose Format Data Point.
8. From the Fill category, select No Fill and click Close. 
   
   The bottom half of the chart should "disappear."


9. Right-click each of the remaining sections of the chart and change their fill color as you see fit.
     
10. Select the Legend at the right of chart and press [delete] on your keyboard to remove it.
    
    The chart will center under the title.


11. Working on the same slide (but ensuring the doughnut chart is not selected), insert a Pie Chart. (Insert > Illustrations > Chart > Pie > Pie > OK)
12. Once again, you will be working with a total value of 200. On the Excel spreadsheet, set the value for 1st Qtr to the value (out of a possible 100) you would like the needle of your gauge to rest. I want my needle to fall within the yellow area of the chart, so I am using 66. Set the value for 2nd Qtr to 1. This will be your actual gauge needle.
13. In Excel, click in cell B4 to set the value for 3rd Qtr. In the fx field, type =200-(B2+B3) and press [enter] on your keyboard. 
     

Setting up this equation will allow you to set the first value to any number while automatically updating the third value to fit within the specified parameters.


14. Right-click the 5th row, (4th Qtr) and choose Delete.
15. In PowerPoint, right-click the Pie chart and choose Format Data Series.
16. From the Format Data Series dialog box, Series Options category, change the rotation to 270.
17. Right-click the two larger areas of the pie chart and choose Format Data Point > Fill > No Fill.
    
    Both sections will "disappear" leaving just your thin slice of the pie (your needle).


18. Right-click the "needle," choose Format Data Point and change the fill to whatever you like. (I chose black.)
19. Select the Legend at the right and delete it.
20. Select the title of the Pie chart (not the Doughnut chart) and press [spacebar] on your keyboard to delete the title of the second chart. (It's important to type [spacebar] for the title instead of just deleting it to keep the alignment of both charts the same.)
21. Select both charts and group them. (Home > Drawing > Arrange > Group)

Note: If you have a hard time selecting both charts, try holding down the [ctrl] key while you click each of them on the Selection Pane (Home > Drawing > Arrange > Selection Pane to view the Selection Pane).
 

The beauty of creating a gauge image this way versus drawing and grouping shapes is that you can change the value of the sections in the Doughnut chart as well as where the needle falls in a snap without having to re-do the whole graphic. Just ungroup the charts, type in new values in Excel, and shazam! Your graphic is instantly changed.

  

Using this same method I was able to quickly edit the charts into a speedometer by adjusting the values in Excel, adding text boxes with speed values and layering in a black circle behind the charts.

I'd love to see how you are using this method to create your own graphics. Send me your creations and I'll feature them in a future post.