With that in mind, and as an opportunity to give more visibility to my sponsors, I offer a regular “Message from the Sponsors” post. I give each sponsor the opportunity to let my readers know about their products and services. I hope you can think of this post as similar to strolling down a virtual conference exhibit hall (at least a little bit).

Clarify: Image capture, Image editing and Document Authoring – Together at Last

So many of us have suffered through the tedious process of capturing screenshots and posting them into Word or some other text editor. When you’re trying to communicate quickly, this can be like flying down the highway only to get stuck in the worst Los Angeles traffic imaginable.

Clarify removes the traffic jam. With fast and flexible screen capture tools, you can quickly grab multiple images. As you capture the images, Clarify creates a document for you. Everything you need to author your document is right there, including text entry and image annotation tools, such as arrows, boxes, blur, highlight, borders, image resizing, and cropping.

Clarify is great for banging out a quick how-to, providing fast revision notes to a colleague, or for providing application feedback for developers. And at just $29.99, it’s extremely affordable. Clarify is available for both Windows and Mac.

Download a free 14-day trial and see how much more productive you can be when working with an integrated screen capture, image-editing, and document-authoring tool.

Learn about content strategy in technical communication with Scriptorium at LavaCon

Ryan Fulcher, Alan Pringle, and Sarah O’Keefe will be attending LavaCon next week with free chocolate (of course!). Stop by our booth and don’t miss Sarah’s session on content strategy in technical communication. We look forward to seeing you there, or on our next round of webcasts! (Note: After our move, our direct phone numbers changed. Please contact us via 919-481-2701 or 866-605-9677.) For more information about Scriptorium, see http://www.scriptorium.com.

Controlled English with Congree – the New Standard in Technical Writing

Congree is the world’s premier controlled-English authoring assistance software. Working as a plugin to a variety of editing tools, including JustSystems XMetaL, Congree helps you leverage on sentences you and your team have already written, unify your abbreviations, terminology, and acronym usage, and ensure that everything you write conforms to your corporate style guide. Congree functions as a simple plugin, and is both customizable and extremely easy to use. Get the most out of your XML authoring with Congree. Please join our joint webinar with JustSystems on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 by following this link.

Dr.Explain 4.5 released

A new version of likely the most eccentric help file authoring tool, Dr.Explain, has been recently released. A free demo copy of Dr.Explain 4.5 is available at http://www.drexplain.com/download.

Unique to Dr.Explain is its innovative approach to creating help documentation much quicker than with other tools. The program parses a live application and automatically produces screenshots of its windows along with a sequence of explanatory callouts for each control.

Dr.Explain 4.5 update includes about 200 improvements, features, and optimizations in total.

Annotation Template Editor is one of the coolest new features of the new release. It allows to create callouts of any design, complexity & style. Now you can prepare amazing annotated screenshots and graphics and insert it into your help documentation in a single tool.

For more info about the Dr.Explain help file and on-line manual authoring tool, see http://www.drexplain.com.

Tedopres International – www.tedopres.com

Also known as Simplified English, the main objective of a controlled language is to make technical text easy to understand. Tedopres HyperSTE standardizes vocabulary and style according to linguistic style guides and standards like Simplified Technical English, aiming to improve consistency, eliminate ambiguity and reduce complexity. It also provides objective criteria for quality control. Controlled Language includes a general dictionary and a set of writing rules. In addition to the general vocabulary, companies can define their own Technical Names (terminology).

A few benefits of controlled authoring include:

• Quality assurance and improvement
• Standardized way of writing
• Improved safety
• Efficient authoring
• Reduced time to market
• Improved customer experience
• Facilitates XML, content management, structured authoring (Information Mapping,DITA, S1000D)
• Considerable cost savings
• Cheaper, faster and better translations

For more information, see www.simplifiedenglish.net.

You can also learn about controlled authoring with Tedopres’ HyperSTE at LavaCon. Join Tedopres at LavaCon, November 13–16, 2011, Austin, TX, where Berry Braster (Sales & Marketing Director and implementation expert) will be speaking in a panel discussion titled, “Controlled Language – Making it work for you!” The panel discussion will include Kit Brown-Hoekstra of Comgenesis (she will moderate the panel), Sherri Sotnick of Elekta (who implemented Elekta Approved Simplified English), Berry Braster of Tedopres (implementation expert) and Poppy Quintal (standard expert). For more information on Lavacon, please visit http://lavacon.org. Please contact us to be eligible for discount coupons. For more information, please contact us at ste@tedopres.com.

To learn more about TedoPres, see www.tedopres.com

Adobe Celebrates the 20th Anniversary of RoboHelp with a Limited Period 40% Off “Switcher” Promotion

Struggling with your current help authoring tool? Looking to “switch” to a tried-and-tested tool, one that has been the professional standard in the user assistance space for the last 20 years? Adobe has the answer … and the perfect reasons too!

Adobe celebrates the 20th anniversary of RoboHelp with a limited period 40% off “switcher” promotion. Switch from MadCap Flare, Author-it, or Doc-To-Help Enterprise or Doc-To-Help for Word and save 40% off Adobe RoboHelp 9!

Time frame: October 17th 2011 through February 16th 2012
Scope: US only

For more details (top reasons to switch, testimonials, switching resources) about the RoboHelp 40% off “switcher” promotion, please visit http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/switch.html

To learn more, please sign up for the upcoming Adobe RoboHelp “Switcher” webinar at 10.00 am PST on 30th November (Wednesday).

Information Design online grad programs at Southern Polytechnic

Life is full of choices. So why choose Southern Polytechnic’s online graduate programs in technical communication and information design and communication?

Because we’ve been in the “business” of teaching online for years, so we have the hard stuff down, and our MS degree has been around since 1988–yikes!  Almost before the Internet (well, not quite).  Nowadays, we have an online graduate certificate in tech communication, four advanced certificates, and the full MS in Information Design and Communication, all online.

We’ve got great grad faculty who practice what we teach, who engage with you in a combination of weekly discussions (asynchronous so you can communicate even in your bunny slippers, if that’s what works best for you), and weekly projects that grow to bigger projects, both individual and team-based.  The result: you learn by doing, by sharing, and by producing and you build a great portfolio of your products to take to market.

For more about our programs, visit us at idc.spsu.edu.

New Release: MadCap Mimic 6

MadCap Software is pleased to announce the release of Mimic 6, for software simulations and tutorials.

New features in Mimic 6 include:

• Audio Narration
• Audio Objects
• Improved Recording Workflow
• Flash Embedded Skin Enhancements
• Flare 7 Integration
• And Much More

Watch the What’s New video here:
http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/mimic/overview.aspx#whatsnew

To learn more about Mimic, visit:
http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/mimic/

Upcoming Webinar:  Strategies for Building and Managing Large Online Libraries – Nov. 30, 10am (Pacific)

In this webinar, learn some key methodologies for starting a large project, gaining client/employer consensus, and making your way from ground zero to useable, accessible procedures. These solid practices will help you regardless of the help authoring tool you have selected.

Presenter: Beth Gerber, Lightext, Inc.

Sign up: http://madcap.us/sa0YK3

For more information on upcoming webinars, and past webinar recordings, visit:
http://www.madcapsoftware.com/demos/webinars.aspx

Competitive Upgrade Pricing on MadCap Flare, MadPak

The reasons to switch to MadCap Flare from other tools such as RoboHelp® and FrameMaker® are growing.

As the original creators of RoboHelp®, the team at MadCap Software developed Flare from the ground up, using the latest technologies, with the vision to create the most advanced single-source, multi-channel publishing application on the market. Now in its 7th release, Flare boasts an impressive list of features and functionality.

Flare was the first to introduce features such as native mobile output, and to launch a complete suite of fully integrated tools to support the entire authoring, contribution, review and localization process.

Users switching from other legacy tools can save up to 50%.

For more information about switching to Flare, including case studies, white papers and transition guides, visit:
http://madcap.us/uKEjBT

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If you’re interested in getting your message out to technical communicators, let me know.

Blog Sponsors

• 3Rabbitz book
• Webworks ePublisher
• Scriptorium
• Help Generator help authoring software
• Southern Polytechnic: Information Design and Communication
• Simplified English
• MindTouch
• Madcap Software
• Dr.Explain
• Adobe Technical Communication Suite
• Congree

From Madcap Software

Driven by customer demand and request, MadCap Software is pleased to announce MadCap Consulting, a new service aimed to provide our customers with the resources necessary to perform skilled technical communication projects on both a full-time and part-time basis.

Find the Right Consultant.

Whether you are an existing MadCap Software customer or have general technical communication consulting needs, MadCap Software can assist you in your search to find the right candidate.  We match skill sets based on the unique needs of your project to better leverage their expertise.  Each of our qualified candidates have extensive expertise in technical writing and technical communication best practices.

Expertise is in High Demand.

Thousands of companies worldwide use MadCap Software to create, manage and publish their technical communication.  Due to the vast number of requests MadCap Software receives for consulting services, we are always looking to add qualified candidates to our database of MAD certified consultants.  We provide both part-time consulting as well as full-time contract positions.

For more information, visit: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/consulting/

From TechSmith

Snagit 10 is now available!
Capture anything you see on the screen. Edit and combine those captures. Share them via your favorite applications. Organize and find them again later. The more you use SnagIt, the more ways you’ll find to use it!

Want to get a laugh? Add a speech balloon to that photo of your cat and fire it off in an instant message.

Need to make an impression at work? Capture that sales chart and point out important details with a sleek-looking arrow. SnagIt can turn a simple screenshot into a powerful information graphic.

SnagIt is versatile, yet surprisingly simple! As one SnagIt user said, “It’s as basic or as powerful as you need it to be.”

Maybe that’s why millions of people worldwide love using SnagIt, in a million different ways.

Learn more or download a free 30-day trial of Snagit at: www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp.

Blog Sponsors

• 3Rabbitz book
• Webworks ePublisher
• Scriptorium
• Help Generator help authoring software
• Southern Polytechnic: Information Design and Communication
• Simplified English
• MindTouch
• Madcap Software
• Dr.Explain
• Adobe Technical Communication Suite
• Congree

MadCap Software has launched a new community-written newsletter, MadNewz, aimed to give users another channel to share ideas and information with their peers. The first MadNewz post, written by Chris Sullivan, Director of Technical Communication and Social Media at AVST, covers best practices for Flare single-sourcing and includes a cost-calculator sheet available to download.

MadCap also plans to host a free live webinar presentation for each article a few weeks after the article post date. Chris Sullivan’s webinar will take place July 1, 2010 at 10am PST. You can sign up here.

For those of you interested in submitting article ideas, you can contact MadCap Software at madnewz@madcapsoftware.com.

Blog Sponsors

• 3Rabbitz book
• Webworks ePublisher
• Scriptorium
• Help Generator help authoring software
• Southern Polytechnic: Information Design and Communication
• Simplified English
• MindTouch
• Madcap Software
• Dr.Explain
• Adobe Technical Communication Suite
• Congree

Scriptorium.com

Interested in DITA? Scriptorium is offering an ongoing series of free webcasts on DITA-related tools and technologies. For more information and to register, visit our website: http://www.scriptorium.com/events.

We recently launched a new set of forums on our web site. Join us to discuss topics of interest to technical communicators—writing, editing, tools, and of course the mandatory gossip board (rumors and innuendos). We invite you to participate with questions and comments—or answers.

Near Seattle? Scriptorium’s Sarah O’Keefe and Simon Bate will be presenting/exhibiting at WritersUA 2010 March 21–24. Simon will be presenting XSL Techniques for XML-to-XML Transformations on Monday at 3:25PM. The WritersUA conference is always an excellent source of information on a wide range of user assistance topics. Stop by our booth on Monday or Tuesday. The exhibition is open from 8:00AM to 6:00PM on Monday and again from 8:00AM to 5:30PM on Tuesday. If you’d like to schedule some time with Sarah or Simon, email info@scriptorium.com and we’ll set something up.

Scriptorium Publishing provides expert advice on how to develop, deploy, and manage content. If you are facing a difficult publishing challenge, we want to hear from you. Contact us at info@scriptorium.com or 919-481-2701 x105

Madcap Software

MadCap Software Adds Powerful New Features, Usability Improvements to the Latest Release of Flare, Blaze, and More

In an effort to provide the very best in technical communication, MadCap Software is pleased to announce the latest release of MadCap Flare, Blaze, Analyzer, X-Edit and Echo.

Web, Print, Desktop — and Now Mobile with MadCap Flare
Ensure your documentation is accessible to users, wherever they are, with Flare’s new mobile output feature. Add in usability improvements and other new features such as File Tagging for project management, and you have the most complete XML-based authoring and publishing solution available today.

New in Flare Version 6:

• WebHelp Mobile (iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android, BlackBerry and more)
• Batch Generate and Publish
• File Tagging and Reporting
• Link Viewer
• Improved Microsoft Team Foundation Server Integration
• Regenerating MadCap Capture Images
• Template Manager and Template Improvements
• Target Editor & Table of Contents Editor Improvements
• Import and Convert Multiple HTML Pages
• Send Multiple Files for Review
• Structure Bar Improvements
• Enhanced Multimedia Support
• Index and Concept Window Pane Enhancements
• New PDF Engine with Improved Font and Character Support
• Plus much more!

MadPak Product Suites

MadCapʼs newest releases can be purchased together in one complete product suite. The MadPak product suite—featuring MadCap Flare, X-Edit, Analyzer, Mimic, Capture and Echo—is a collection of tightly integrated authoring tools that give technical writers the power and flexibility to develop rich, robust documentation. For those involved in translation, The MadPak ML product suite includes everything you love about MadPak, and combines it with MadCap Lingo, the industry’s first fully-integrated translation memory and authoring solution.

For more information, visit www.madcapsoftware.com.

Blog Sponsors

• 3Rabbitz book
• Webworks ePublisher
• Scriptorium
• Help Generator help authoring software
• Southern Polytechnic: Information Design and Communication
• Simplified English
• MindTouch
• Madcap Software
• Dr.Explain
• Adobe Technical Communication Suite
• Congree

In this podcast, Mike Hamilton of Madcap Software talks about their phased approach to handling DITA with Flare. In Phase I, you’ll have the ability to import DITA topics and export to webhelp and other targets. In this sense, Flare functions as a transform engine. In Phase 2, you can use Flare for native DITA authoring. Phase 1 is on the cusp of release, but Phase II won’t be available until quarter one of next year.

Blog Sponsors

• 3Rabbitz book
• Webworks ePublisher
• Scriptorium
• Help Generator help authoring software
• Southern Polytechnic: Information Design and Communication
• Simplified English
• MindTouch
• Madcap Software
• Dr.Explain
• Adobe Technical Communication Suite
• Congree

Flare 4 was just released today by Madcap Software. In this podcast, I talk with Sharon Burton — product manager at Madcap Software — about all the main features of the Flare 4 release.

Flare 4 topics we discuss include the following:

• Page layouts
• New outputs (PDF, XPS, XHTML, and Adobe Air)
• Enhanced reporting capability
• Built-in topic reviews
• Additional help guides
• Global project linking
• Image resizing
• Smart cross-references
• Mini-TOCs for print

Although Flare 4 is the core focus of this podcast, Sharon also explains a little about Madcap’s other new releases, including Blaze, X-Edit, and Analyzer.

As if releasing 4 new products (Flare 4, Blaze, Analyzer, and X-Edit) on one day wasn’t enough, Madcap also totally redesigned its website.

If you have questions about Flare 4 or any other Madcap product, direct them to Sharon at sburton@madcapsoftware.com. You can also visit Sharon Burton’s blog at http://madcapsoftware.wordpress.com. You can visit Mike Hamilton’s blog at http://madcapsoftware2.wordpress.com.

If you have feedback on the podcast, add your comment below the post or send me an email at tomjohnson1492@gmail.com.

Contest Note: By the way, today is the last day to enter the Flare 4 giveaway. (If you missed the post about the Flare 4 contest, see “Flare 4 Giveaway — Enter to Win a Free Copy by Commenting on this Post“). In the contest deadlines, I said I would announce the winner on the day of the Flare 4 release. So Monday night (Sep at 9 p.m. MST, I will announce the winner. You can enter the contest up until that time.

Madcap Flare

Madcap Software is preparing to release Flare 4 shortly (an exact date hasn’t been announced). Being the cool people they are, they gave me a free copy of Flare 4 to give away. Flare costs around $899, so this is a deal.

I’ll also be doing a podcast on Flare with Sharon Burton later this week, and will post it probably on Monday.

Without further ado, here are the rules of the Flare giveaway contest:

In the comments below the post, explain what you feel is an important feature for a help authoring tool and why. Your answer can be short (one sentence), or you can write a novella.

By entering the contest, you agree to have your name submitted to Madcap Software so they can potentially contact you. (Sorry about that — I guess nothing is totally free.)

When Flare 4 is officially released, I will select the winner at random (how could I possibly choose anyway?) using some kind of random number generator I find online.

Tip: Although you can only enter one comment, if you write a blog post and link back to this post (resulting in a trackback), both your original comment and your trackback will be entered in the contest, giving you two chances to win rather than just one. (If your trackback never appears, you can add the link manually as a second comment.)

You don’t have to subscribe to my blog’s RSS feed or email subscription or follow me on Twitter to enter the contest, but it would sure make me happy if you did.

What else? Only one winner will be selected, and I will contact you using the email you enter when you leave a comment. Madcap will then send you a license key so you can officially activate the copy of Flare that you download.

Now, even if you don’t win the free copy of Flare 4, I do recommend acquiring a copy anyway. I’ve been beta testing it and think it’s a significant improvement from the previous version. For more details, read Paul Pehrson’s excellent review of what’s new in Flare 4.

Any questions? Just contact me using one of the methods on my contact page.

Contest Update: Flare 4 was released today, and I selected the contest winner using a random number generator. Congratulations to Linda Lee, owner of a new copy of Flare 4.

Looking into the future

A few months ago, I started to write a post about the cultural shift blogging would create in the near and long-term future. I didn’t get very far and quickly became mired in speculation. But when I learned today that RJ Jacquez now has a blog, I started to remember some of my predictions. Basically, it goes like this:

1. Amateur bloggers start to saturate Google with content that controls the reputation of company products.
2. Companies, fearing a complete loss of voice, start joining the blogosphere in masses.
3. With so many people writing and publishing daily, information grows to a ridiculous degree and becomes difficult to manage.
4. Search becomes the only way to find anything.
5. Writers, especially those gifted at SEO and content creation, and who have a lot of Google karma/page rank, become major corporate players, with more prestige than ever before.

And right about there I didn’t know what came next. I think at some point there’s a major shift and people move away from the web altogether, embracing a new form. But I couldn’t figure out the details.

Anyway, RJ Jacquez from Adobe, Mike Hamilton from Madcap Software, and Alan Porter from WebWorks all have blogs. I suspect AuthorIt will eventually launch a blog, and the dozens of other software vendors. They’re realizing that it’s marketing suicide to be offline and silent.

Although these bloggers are all intelligent, clear writers, with solid reputations to give them an authoritative presence, the question is whether they will have the creative muse to write day after day in a way that engages readers. We’ll find out.

—————-

photo from UCDavis

When I first heard of Blaze, my immediate question was — Doesn’t Flare already publish to Word and FrameMaker? If so, why would I need Blaze?

The short answer is, you don’t need Blaze if you already have Flare. But if for some reason you only write printed documentation, and never online help, then Blaze might be for you.

Despite the irrelevance of Blaze for my project needs, Blaze does have a new review feature that is unique and worth exploring. As you know, you often you need SMEs and other team members to review your content. When your content is trapped inside a help authoring tool, you can’t quickly send SMEs a file to review — how could they open it? As a result, we traditionally publish our help to Word or PDF, print it out, and then stick it on the SME’s desk.

However, in many cases getting a SME to review 100+ pages of documentation is a battle. Like most people, they’re busy. Reviewing something takes times. Writing is often not their expertise or interest. So, you know the story. Either it never gets reviewed, or it gets reviewed tenuously.

With Blaze, Madcap offers you a totally new review workflow. You send a topic to a SME for review from directly within the Blaze interface by going to File > Review > Send for Review. When you do that, the following dialog box appears.

Selecting the “Allow Reviewers to edit content” check box gives the reviewer control to make changes to your text. If you clear this check box, the reviewer can only insert annotations.

After selecting your options, Blaze packages up the topic with a stylesheet and any relevant images and puts it in a .bltrev file. In the same step, it initiates an email handler that interfaces with Microsoft Outlook to create a new message with the file attached. It then sends the file to the email recipient you selected.

But how does the SME open a .bltrev file? Here’s where X-Edit Express comes in. The SME downloads this free application (requires .NET 3.0 as well, if not already installed). When the SME then double-clicks the .bltrev attachment, it opens in X-Edit Express. The SME can then insert annotations or make direct edits to the content.

Note that X-Edit Express only allows you to edit and annotate existing content. If you want the SME to actually contribute new files for your project based on a template, you’ll need X-Edit (which isn’t free), and the review process is slightly different. But the workflow of sending an attached file back and forth through email is still the same.

After the SME finishes reviewing your topic, he or she clicks Return to Sender (an option within X-Edit Express) and the email handler pulls up Outlook and sends the file back to the author, i.e., you. When you double-click the attachment, you’re prompted to add it back to your Blaze project with the following dialog box.

The email handler then saves it in a special inbox folder that Blaze recognizes.

As an author, you open Blaze and go to File > Review > Topic Reviews. A Topic Reviews pane appears on the left with a filter at the top (the pane is similar to other panes, such as the Content Explorer or Project Explorer). In the filter, select Inbox, and you’ll see the SME’s review, with the edits or annotations. As desired, you can choose to accept the reviewer’s edits and overwrite the original.

Accepting annotations is different from accepting edits. If you accept the annotations, they’re added to the topic, but rather than appearing within the topic’s text, they appear in an Annotations pane to the right. When you select one of the annotations in the Annotations pane, it highlights the word related to the annotation. Kind of neat there.

Overall, I like the topic review, but I’m not thrilled about the idea of sending attached files back and forth over email. It feels too 1995-ish.

In contrast, a centralized review from a wiki-type editor makes much more sense to me. But I can see how implementing this would be difficult. Blaze would need to have wiki-like features, and require a database. Topics would need to be editable through a browser. And you would need a mechanism that prevented simultaneous overlapping edits. Maybe that’s what Team Server is about — I don’t know.

Still, the idea of sending one topic at a time to a SME for review may prove interesting. And the movement of files through email is relatively slick (if you have Outlook, that is. I have a clunky old email program called GroupWise that has some hiccups with Blaze email handler). Sending a topic for review is not as strenuous as manually attaching files to messages.

But here’s my question: If your project has 200 topics, does that mean the SME gets 200 emails from you to review? Yes, that’s how it currently functions. You can only send one topic to review at a time. In many ways, this makes the topic review feature less useful. The idea, however, is to send topics to the SME to review as you finish them, rather than in one big whallop near the release deadline. That workflow may actually prove to be more efficient.

Although I’ve limited tmy discussion to reviews by SMEs, I can see how a topic review would be helpful for team authoring. If you have a contractor, intern, or other assistant, the topic review provides them with a way to author content that you can add to your help project with relative ease.