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What is that smudge on the Office Ribbon?
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011In the previous post we looked at Office 2007 and the “Mystery Tabs“. Today let’s look at the Ribbon and it’s secret feature.
First, a quick overview of “The Ribbon” – In 2007 the menus are gone and replaced with a tabbed “ribbon”.
The Ribbon is set up in Groups and are organized in families. Things that never lived together before are now all on the same ribbon. For example, in Word and Excel there is a Page Layout Tab that holds nearly everything you would want when thinking about your document layout.
On the Insert Tab, the products all have a “Illustrations” group. This didn’t exist before. It is the home of Clip Art, Pictures, Shapes (which is really the old Drawing Toolbar), and “Smart Art” (which will need to be another post – just remember, it’s all about the bullets), which is a new way of creating diagrams. The idea is that come of the useful, but buried features are being given a second chance to be used now that they can be easily found. In Excel many helpful features were extracted from the buried Auditing toolbar and moved out were they can be seen (and used).
In Office 2007 and 2010 click each tab and look along the bottom of the big, thick bar (Ribbon) for labels. These are the Groups. In the picture in this post (click on the image for a larger view) you’ll see “Adjust, Picture Styles, Arrange, and Size“. These are the Groups for this Tab, and they have a secret.
Secret?
There are lots of ways to modify the clip art on the page. You can add frames, change colors, and so on.. Somewhere on that tab however is a button that will give you the hidden options. You won’t find it unless you have pretty good vision though.
The features are under the “Dialog Box Launcher Button” (gack, what a name). Not every group has them, but the Size Group on the Picture Tools/Format Tab does. Note:Â if you don’t see that tab, click on the image. See that little grey smudge in the lower right corner of the group? It’s a grey box with a little arrow in it (and is really, really tiny). That’s the button you want. Fun, right?
So? What’s the problem?
Here’s my frustration with this button. Someone looking for hanging indents in Word (without using the ruler) can spend a long time digging around to get the 2003 dialog box to come out. It’s under the button on the Home Tab in the Font Group.
Once you find it you’re fine but it’s not exactly intuitive now is it?
Intro to ePub – part 2 of 3
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011ePub Tips, Tricks, and Links
In the first post of this series, I had you create a very simple file (with a template the Terry White was nice enough to provide) and preview it in Adobe’s Digital Editions software.
In this post I’m going to share a lot of links and some general Do’s and Don’ts for epub and digial book creation. In the third and final post we will be making a file from scratch.
What am I getting into?
If you are a regular InDesign user making content for eBooks can be a bit of a brain twister. In essence you are making webpages. Much of the control you had is gone, and some of the really fun features that can be seen in interactive files won’t work in book readers. To give you a sense of how new this might be, I’m putting some of the tips I gathered together below
General
- .epub is an XML based format designed to enable text reflow. All content will be linearized so plan for one long stream for text and images.
Layout
- Make each page one text box with inline graphics
- Make the cover ONE image
- Create separate document for cover page – have it be one image or imported ID file
- The book panel is a good way to make separate chapters that are seen in the conversion
- InDesign has an option for automatically making a TOC in an epub file. Create a TOC style and specify it on export. The Automatic ID TOC is turned into navigation men
Formatting
- You are creating Cascading Style Sheets when you convert (think like a web designer)
- Change Nested or Grep styles to regular styles
- Use Space Above, Below, and Indent to make space around images
- Soft Returns are turned into hard Returns
- Use Paragraph and Character Styleson the text (these will convert to CSS for the .epub file).
- You can’t totally control the fonts the user will see (the type of reader that is used will determine how fonts are seen)
- Convert Nested and Grep Styles to Paragraph and Character Styles
- Epub does support font embedding, but not all eBooks formats do and not all eBook readers that support the epub format will use embedded fonts
- Use OpenType Fonts
Exporting
- If you don’t want to make a new file you can apply XML tags to existing content and use the Structure pane to reorder it for export
- For long documents break document into chapters and use the book panel
- Create a Table Of Contents – this will become navigation in the e-reader
- For a true TOC you may need to make a manual page with hyperlinks or cross-ref’s
- Un-anchored content will float and end up at the beginning or end of your file
- Keep main graphics between 300 and 600 px wide
- The cover is often best at 800×600
- Images are converted to RGB
- Add Metadata
Graphics
- Epub supports several image formats, including JPEG, GIF, PNG
- Anchor Images to an empty paragraph (then center align and use space before and after) or paste Inline
- Use color images
- InDesign coverts graphics to JPEG and GIF when exporting to epub unless you choose to copy the original images
- Convert InDesign art by Cut/Paste into Il or PS and Placing in ID
Conversion
Altered
- CMYK will be converted to RGB on export
- Convert Tables to lists or images if you can
Preserved
- Hyperlinks to URL’s, files, email addresses, and text anchors
- Cross Ref’s are converted to hyperlinks on export (Note: Some eBook readers don’t support any hyperlinks)
- Footnotes are kept, but are converted to endnotes
Discarded
- Multiple Carriage returns
- Empty Frames
- Frame attributes such as Fill and Stroke
- Custom settings for Anchored Objects
- Text wrap setting. Use Space before and After instead
- Hyperlinks that reference specific pages
- Master Page Items
- Automatic Page Numbers
- Page Breaks
- TOC generated by the InDesign TOC feature (do this anyway – it becomes navigation )
- Artwork made with InDesign vector tool (those you should copy into Illustrator and place back into InDesign)
- Not all text formatting is preserved
Links
- Digital Editions Reader
- Open-source EpubCheck program hosted by Google at code.google.com/p/epubcheck
- Free, standalone, cross-platform Javaâ„¢ app, ePubChecker
- More information on epub format -Â http://idpf.org/
- Free open-source eBook conversion tool www.calibre-ebook.com
- InDesign to Kindle – Adobe
- Terry White – http://terrywhite.com/techblog/
- Colleen Cunningham has a massive and massivly helpful list of resources here - http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/indesign-to-ebook-resources/
Ok, got it – now what?
Take an existing Indesign file (a reasonalbly fancy one) and export it to epub. Look at how the content is moved (and what doen’t convert). Next time we will finish will a soup-to-nuts tutorial – see you then!
Scooby-Doo and the Office 2007 Mystery Tabs
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011In the previous post, we looked at “The Office Button” briefly. Let’s take a quick look at another feature…
Scooby-doo mystery tabs
One of the biggest changes from a behavioral perspective in 2007′s Office Suite is the new “Contextual Tabs” – what I call Scooby-Doo Mystery Tabs. In short, you can’t see certain content from the main tabs.
If you want the see the details on manipulating a picture you must be touching the picture to get the options for it. If you click off the picture, the tab disappears.
In the screen capture you’ll see “Header and Footer Tools” in green. This is the tab you get when you insert a header or footer. When you click back into the document, the tab goes away. When you want the tab back you need to click into the header or footer.
It’s not a huge problem but it does take some getting used for for a lot of my students.
Just remember: Touch the content you want to change.
Trouble finding Print and Save As in 2007?
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011I enjoy a mystery as much as the next person (presuming of course that the next person likes to dig for information only when they are not under stress, a time crunch, or both). Because learning software is my job, a certain amount of digging and testing is normal for me. However, for the vast majority of people, spending time digging around in software to find what you need is comparable to a long, slow root canal.
In the last few years, whenever I teach a “Migrating to 2007″ class, I meet people who are extremely frustrated with the new layout. I understand why the software is all new but I don’t have the same frustration because of one simple fact – I don’t have to do the same tasks for a demanding boss today (on alien software) that I did yesterday, at the same speed.
If you are moving from office 2003 to 2007 there are a few things you need to know that will make the transition much, much easier! The next few posts will cover the “survival skills” that I give all my migration students.
Let’s begin
“where the heck did they move Print and Save As?
- Click on the image
- Look in the upper left corner
- Do you see that cheezy, 80′s drop-shadow monstrosity of a button? Click it
- Voila, meet “The Office Button”, essentially the file menu in disguise
Some people find this with no trouble, but many people don’t think of using office the way they use a website. Why click on a logo?
I assume that the people who designed this thought the web-like aspects would make things easier to find, not harder. If not, then they apparently feel hiding critical features would be no biggie and are either nuts or really miserable with the jones to spread it around. Is this a website? No, it’s an office application! (sounds of forehead hitting desk )
Next Post… Office’s Scooby-Doo Mystery Tabs
You are cordially invited to kick my butt
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011I am willing to bet serious coffee money that you have never read a post like this one. I am asking, in all seriousness, for your help in the form of a semi-regular digital butt kicking.
I am looking for bloggers and readers to give me feedback on my content. Right now this means opening the flood gates and asking anyone who reads this to play. The people I will reply (and listen) to are the ones who actually help. I need actual guidance and feedback not just the bloggers equivalent of “you’re ugly and you smell”. The criticism is fine as long as it’s constructive. I can be reached in comments, on the contact page of my site, or on twitter as @rourketraining.
Why? Because I’m trying to learn and it’s taking too damn long with me teaching myself. I started a blog years ago but never did anything with it. There were many months where there were 0 visitors (yes zero, even I didn’t go to my site).
And to make a long story a little longer, I finally want to get good at this. I have found wonderful sources of advice like the website Copyblogger and the book “Content Rules” – however while my list of blog post ideas is growing pretty long, I don’t post tutorials, book reviews, or advice for other software trainers because once I’m done writing and read it over, it just seems “meh”.
So… I’m going to start posting the content I’ve been sitting on and I’d like for it to go from “meh” to “now, THAT’S cool!” in record time. The starting bell has rung people. I’ve posted this … feel free to start kicking!
.
-Kirsten
eLearning Resources Everyone Should Know
Monday, May 23rd, 2011This is NOT a “Top Ten” list because there are a ton of great resources out there. These are simply the bare minimum that I think you should check out.
- Adobe – Adobe’s Rapid eLearning Blog and RJ’s Adobe in ELearning and MLearning are great places to start
- LinkedIn – Would you like a chance to make eLearning for a real group? Work on your skills and help people who need it at the same time! Check out The eLearning Global Giveback. There are a ton of groups on LinkedIn that I could list – If you want to see who I’d recommend look on my public LinkedIn profile
- YouTube’s eLearnChat by Rick Zanotti and Terrence Wing and Adobe’s eLearning Channels are both good channels to subscribe to
- Twitter – Start with following @CatMoore and go from there. Many of the other people in this list are on twitter as well
- Blogs – Be sure to visit Tom Khulmann’s Rapid eLearning Blog and Lieve Weimeis’s Blog “Lilybiri’s Posterous“.
- While you’re saving bookmarks in your browser, be sure to add… CP Guru, Flash Factor, CaptivateDev, The Widget King!, and Captain Captivate!
Enjoy!
Why is Copyblogger Hiring Psychics?
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011Psychic Power and Blogging
Why isn’t the New York Times onto this?
As some of you know, I’m new to the universe of content marketing and social media. When I knew I would be diving into this world, I approached it the way I do any new learning task – Full Monty, only with clothes on (…does that still qualify as a Full Monty? Probably not, but “all-out” is less snarky).
Knowing I had a huge amount of information to filter thru, I went to look for those people and organizations who already knew a ton about the subject and read, and read, and read. Eventually, I read enough to decide if they would be good to listen to or not.
Does that seem backwards? It’s not really.
I do a lot of research when teaching a new topic, even if I’m just going to be teaching it to myself. Often, even if it isn’t “for†a specific class, that information leaks into my teaching. I regularly give students suggestions on websites, videos, and books that they should check out. Those resources are generally ones I’ve been reading or using for a while. I don’t want to say “this seems useful†if I could say “this is good in these ways.. and not so good about this…†instead.
One of the best finds for me is a website called “Copybloggerâ€. They provide a great service. Easy to follow information on online marketing that makes a lot of sense and isn’t expensive – not that easy a thing to pull off.
But, in life, there are often two sides to any story. Copyblogger may be stunningly useful for people learning online marketing, but subscribing to their email feed is not an unbridled joy. An unexpected side effect to their service is a regular dose of “the willies†due to their unfortunate habit of writing posts that are so prescient as to be downright creepy.
It’s unnerving to be thinking “No one visits my website†only to open your email and see “Why nobody cares about your content (and what to do about it)â€. It’s equally odd to start looking at advertising for your website at 9am only to read an email at 9:30 titled “Why Advertising Doesn’t Work for Bloggersâ€. *shudder*
I think I’ve learned a lot from them, however, my blog has been gathering dust with lots of good intentions and no actual writing. Today was my “write for the blog†day for this week. As I sat down to type, my brain froze. I am very, very skilled… at procrastination. I should teach a mastery course to those less talented, more productive souls looking for help. When I opened my email to begin the time suck that is reading and sorting my mail, I saw “5 ways to Quickly Write High Quality Content†from… guess who.
OK, I give!
Brian Clark is clearly an evil genius and the people at Copyblogger are obviously all masters of blog-fu. I’m totally prepared to name myself after a chirpy bug if it will get me producing actual content rather than the many, many posts I’ve written in my head at 11:30 while trying to fall asleep.
Yes, you – the one reading this post (nice shirt by the way).
Please take 90 seconds out of your day and comment.
Which post do YOU think I should tackle next?
- The second part of the InDesign CS5 eBook introduction
- The five things I every Office 2007 user should know
- Something else, software related please. I do not know how to defeat a horde of Ninjas
Thanks!
Lessons learned
Saturday, May 14th, 2011If you get the feed for my site you might have just seen a post about Jeff Zeldman that was only a few lines and make little to no sense. This is what happens when you start writing a post, decide to finish it later, and then instead of saving it as a draft (like you’re supposed to do)… be a total nob-head and schedule it in the future (“I KNOW I’ll finish it this week”).
Well, DUH! Ok, clearly I was focusing on things other than the website because I just found two other things patially finished, though at least these were drafts.
Sorry all!
From the Blog
- WordPress, I both love and hate you
Saturday, April 28th, 2012 - A Learning and Development Professional’s Continuing Education
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012 - Photoshop CS6 Sneek Peek #3
Monday, February 13th, 2012