The newsletter of Scriptorium Publishing

Volume10, Issue 1
January 2007

In this issue:

1997–2007: Scriptorium Publishing Celebrates 10 Years

Get 10 Percent Off Any Public Class

Wake Up Screaming?

Say Hello to Betty Prioux and Lydia Wong

Get Your Hands Dirty in DITA at the WritersUA Conference

1997–2007: Scriptorium Publishing Celebrates 10 Years

We can hardly believe it, but Scriptorium Publishing celebrates its tenth year in 2007. (Do you think we look our age? On second thought, don't answer that!)

Thanks to all of you for helping us reach this milestone. Here's a rundown of some (but not all!) important events in our history:

• January 1997: Scriptorium commences operations as an incorporated company. We also offer our first FrameMaker class.
• October 1998: We open our first office in Cary, NC.
• January 1999: We offer our first WebWorks Publisher class.
• September 1999: Our office moves to Morrisville, NC. The office includes a classroom for our training program.
• October 1999: IDG Books publishes Sarah O'Keefe's FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Dummies.
• June 2000: We offer our Technical Writing 101 course for the first time.
• October 2000: We establish our own publishing imprint, Scriptorium Press, and release our first title, Technical Writing 101, by Alan Pringle and Sarah O'Keefe.
• May 2001: Scriptorium Press releases its second title, The WebWorks Publisher Cookbook, by Sarah O'Keefe, Sheila Loring, and Bill Burns.
• February 2002: Scriptorium Press offers workbooks for FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher as an alternative to classroom training.
• August 2002: Obsorne/McGraw-Hill releases FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference by Sarah O'Keefe and Sheila Loring.
• September 2002: We move into our current office in Cary, NC, with a bigger, brighter classroom.
• December 2002: We offer our XML and Structured Authoring class for the first time.
• May 2003: We release DocFrame, our XML-based single-sourcing solution for FrameMaker. The solution enables fast creation of XML, HTML, and HTML Help from structured FrameMaker files.
• August 2003: Scriptorium Press releases the second edition of Technical Writing 101.
• May 2004: We release the second version of DocFrame, which includes new JavaHelp output.
• April 2005: We start our blog, Palimpsest.
• December 2005: Scriptorium Press offers the FrameMaker workbook series as instant downloads.
• January 2006: We offer our first TrackAccess webcast. The webcasts offer conference-quality presentations over the web.
• July 2006: Scriptorium Press obtains the rights to FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference and republishes the book as Publishing Fundamentals: FrameMaker 7. We also begin offering many of our classes online.
• August 2006: We offer our XSL in Publishing class for the first time.
• January 2007: Scriptorium Publishing celebrates its tenth year.

To commemorate this anniversary, we are going to offer discounts and giveaways throughout the year. Read the next two stories for details about our current promotions.

Get 10 Percent Off Any Public Class

January's tenth-anniversary special is 10 percent off any public class on unstructured or structured FrameMaker 7, XML, XSL, InDesign CS2, or Photoshop CS2. The discount applies to both classroom- and web-based training.

To get the discount, use the following coupon code during the checkout process in our online store:

10for10training

For information about upcoming class dates, check out our online calendar, or select the following links:

• Unstructured and structured FrameMaker 7 classes
• XML and XSL classes
• InDesign and Photoshop classes

Register soon: the discount expires on January 31! You can use the coupon code once. If you want the discount on multiple classes, be sure to group all the classes in one order.

If you have any questions, contact training@scriptorium.com.

Wake Up Screaming?

So, how bad is your company's documentation workflow? Your horror story may win you 10 hours of free consulting from Scriptorium in our Publishing Nightmares contest. Tell us about the awful applications, persnickety production problems, and cruddy computers you endure.

To enter the contest, fill out our survey, which includes a field for a brief essay describing your current workflow (or challenge). Creativity and a sense of humor will win you bonus points during judging!

The deadline for entering the contest is March 5. We will review all the entries and announce the winner in the March edition of Illuminations.

Say Hello to Betty Prioux and Lydia Wong

We've added some folks to our roster recently, and we'd like to introduce you to them:

• Betty Prioux joined our staff as a consultant and trainer. Betty has already been involved in several projects, and she's slated to teach some of our classes this year. You can meet Betty at the WritersUA conference in March. (More on that conference in the next story.)
• Lydia Wong has taught several of our FrameMaker and XML courses, but she recently came on board to do some part-time consulting as well.

Please help us welcome Betty and Lydia to the Scriptorium team.

Get Your Hands Dirty in DITA at the WritersUA Conference

On March 27 during the WritersUA conference in Long Beach, CA, Sarah O'Keefe will offer a double-length session, Introduction to DITA. The session is a hands-on workshop, so bring your laptop. Sarah is also offering a presentation about Coping with XML Paradigm Shift on March 26.

We will have our booth in the exhibition hall during this conference, so drop by for a visit. Hope to see you in Long Beach!

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