February/March 2006

Volume 46, Number 4

Solutions, Inc.

Some recent tips, how-to's, and advice from the Rocky Mountain Chapter Listserve:

Thread #1:MadCap Software

Is anyone familiar with MadCap Software OR does anyone have any information/input/opinion about making the transition from RoboHelp x5 to MadCap?

I'm investigating this as an option and was curious about any input my fellow STCers could provide. Thank you!!

Flare is in Beta 4 right now and will be released sometime in February to the public. How soon were you hoping to convert? Unless there is a pressing need, you might want to wait until the typical new-product-bugs are smoothed out. Flare is a tremendous product and would definitely be my HATT of choice. And MadCap reminds me of the good old days when a software company still cared about its users. It will be worth waiting for.

Their Web site is www.madcapsoftware.com. You can sign up to download a sneak peak of their final release version due out the end of February. The company was founded by former RoboHelp developers who were unceremoniously downsized by Macromedia after they bought eHelp. I've been impressed by what I've seen of the application so far, though my one greatest disappointment is that version 1.0 will not support double byte languages, which kills it for us at the present time.

Since the company was founded and operated by former RoboHelp programmers, they are promising that Flare will take the next step beyond X5 plus an easy transition from RoboHelp to Flare. I'd check it out.

My company needs to distribute a lot of shared content in multiple print and online help formats. Most of our deliverables have at least 50% common content with other deliverables, and 50% unique content.

I contacted Mike Hamilton (MadCap's VP of Product Management) after the WritersUA conference in the spring to find out whether the content in MadCap is stored in a database to enable this flexibility or if it is more like a conventional HAT. For version 1 at least, it will basically be like a traditional HAT. For that reason, we decided to migrate to AuthorIt from our current FrameMaker/WWP solution. I wasn't convinced that MadCap is taking a progressive enough approach to make content truly usable in multiple formats without significant re-work. This may or may not be significant to your situation, but it is certainly something to consider before making your decision.

We are also currently evaluating AuthorIT as a possible replacement for FrameMaker/WWP. I have to admit that I do like the way FrameMaker/WWP handles single souring, but the fact that it does not offer any CMS capability has us looking elsewhere, especially since our department is scattered across several different locations in different states. I also was hoping for a more aggressive approach for Flare, but I do think it has a lot of potential and in future releases may prove to be everything and more that MadCap is promoting.

My opinion is that authoring tools that are not based on a database (repository if you prefer techbabble) are obsolete. Those of you that now have to transition your content from RoboHelp to something else are enjoying an object lesson in why it is so important to separate your valuable content from particular tools and formats. More importantly, only a database will allow you attain true componentization, customization, and reuse. Flare, like RoboHelp, has no database capability.

Thread #2: Frame Font problem on XP

I have a client whose product is going to target older users. I'll be producing a hard copy manual for them, and they'd like to know what the "standard" font size is for books and journals (they specifically mentioned the Reader's Digest Large Print edition) that use large print. Does anyone know if there is a "standard" size and what that size is?

Thanks for any input you can provide.

Place your cursor in the row you want to be the header. Select multiple rows if it's more than one. Click Table>Table Properties from the menu. Click the Row tab. Check the "Repeat as Header row..." checkbox.

I'm one release back on Word and don't recall that feature. If someone else has it, I'm looking forward to it.

(Side question to everyone: what's new in the Word 2003 that is a must-have feature?)

One can encode cell content with the Paragraph attribute Keep With Next, which effectively keeps the encoded row and following row on the same page (Format > Paragraph > Line and Page Breaks).

The last row of the table might be encoded with CellKeep or with Cell, depending on the desired pagination.

Related features:

• specify that row content may not break across a page boundary (Table > Properties > Row)
• repeat table header rows on subsequent pages (same place) .

I hope this is helpful.

Oops, sorry, misread your question. Not that I know of.

Not sure if this is the only/best way to do this, but you can format the text in the row that you want to keep with the next and in the paragraph formatting, in the Line and Page Breaks tab, select Keep with next.

Yes, you can do that in Word.
Place your cursor in a cell of the table row you want to keep with next.
Select Format, Paragraph. The Paragraph dialog box appears.
Select the Line and Page Breaks tab.
Select the Keep with next option and click OK.

Just to make it unanimous...

As far as I know, you can't set a table row to stay with the next row, but as long as the paragraph inside the row is set to keep with next, it accomplishes the same thing.

Word 2003 has a lot of fancy new features, but I wouldn't call any of them "must have."

The Reading layout is kinda cool, and there are some nifty features in mail merge.

Otherwise, I still turn off as many of the automatic features that it will let me. And it's still NOT a desktop publisher, whatever else it might pretend to be.

Thread #3:What if Microsoft designed the iPod box?

I wanted to give you a Friday giggle. This came in yesterday's Windows Secrets Newsletter (http://windowssecrets.com). View the video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k, but make sure your marketing department isn't around. Or perhaps maybe you should simply send it to them and get it over with.