The newsletter of Scriptorium Publishing

Volume 11
Issue 9
September 2008

In this issue:

New Publication: Authoring DITA Content in FrameMaker

DocTrain East Drawing Winners

Scriptorium International

Web-Based Training: FrameMaker, XMetaL, XML, DITA, and XSL

More News at Palimpsest

New Publication: Authoring DITA Content in FrameMaker

The Internet has plenty of information about DITA, but not a whole lot about authoring DITA using FrameMaker's built-in DITA support. We're about to change that.

Scriptorium will publish Authoring DITA Content in FrameMaker this October as a $10 PDF download. This reference will be around 50 pages in length and will explain how to create topics and DITA maps, reuse reference content, insert images, add cross-references, and more.

DocTrain East Drawing Winners

Congratulations to Denise Kadilak and Adam Newton, the winners of our free DocTrain East tickets. They will be joining many other attendees, exhibitors, and presenters in Burlington, Massachusetts from October 29–November 1.

This year, Scriptorium's Simon Bate is giving an all-day workshop on Authoring and Publishing with XMetaL and DITA and a presentation on Comparing DITA Support in XMetaL and FrameMaker.

If you're attending, stop by our booth in the exhibit hall to speak with Matt Arnold and pick up some of our white papers, solution briefs, and chocolate. You can also catch Simon at our booth between sessions.

Scriptorium International

The tcworld conference and tekom-Trade Fair will be in Wiesbaden, Germany, from November 5–7. If you have never attended before, this is a good opportunity to go. Tcworld is the largest gathering of technical communicators in the world, and you could get in at a discount.

First-time attendees from non–German-speaking countries can register with this form and get 20% off the cost of registration. That's up to €160 off.

While in Wiesbaden, you can take in the historic scenery, tour the hot springs, participate in Sarah O'Keefe's Introduction to XSL workshop, and attend her presentation on The Implications of Web 2.0 for Technical Communicators. If you would like to talk with us, you can find Matt Arnold and Sarah at Scriptorium's booth in the exhibit hall.

Web-Based Training: FrameMaker, XMetaL, XML, DITA, and XSL

We have posted our class schedules through December.

The complete course progression for Scriptorium's FrameMaker classes on the unstructured and structured interfaces starts this October. Class dates are as follows:

• October 14–17
  Accelerated Introduction (unstructured FrameMaker)
• October 20–23
  Template Design (unstructured FrameMaker)
• December 8–9
  Introduction to Authoring (structured FrameMaker)
• December 10–12, 15
  Building EDDs (structured FrameMaker)
• December 16–17
  Structured Applications (structured FrameMaker)

It's hard to talk about structured authoring without mentioning XML, XSL, or DITA. Scriptorium's web-based classes cover what you need to know about these technologies and standards, and how they apply to a publishing workflow:

• November 12–14, 17
  XML and Structured Authoring
• November 18–21
  Introduction to DITA and XMetaL
• December 1–5
  XSL in Publishing

For information about private on-site or web-based training, see our training options page. If you have any questions, contact training@scriptorium.com or call 919-481-2701.

More News at Palimpsest

Our blog, Palimpsest, is updated several times a week and covers anything and everything to do with Scriptorium and technical writing. Take a look at these posts from the past month:

• InDesign CS4 = Hannibal?
  CS4 InDesign has many features that it was previously lacking. Is it enough to close the gap and cannibalize FrameMaker?
• Zohoho, and a bottle of rum...
  Find out why Zoho is making all the difference in the technology jungle. Title inspired by Talk Like a Pirate Day.
• Poor Spore
  The long awaited galaxy sim takes a beating on Amazon, not because of the game content, but because of its digital rights management.
• An incomplete puzzle: DITA OT stylesheets
  A few tips on customizing the DITA OT despite its lack of documentation.
  

Comments? Questions? 

Subscribe

We welcome your suggestions for newsletter topics. Drop us a line at comments@scriptorium.com.

If you know colleagues who could benefit from our services, please let them know about us. They can also contact sales@scriptorium.com or training@scriptorium.com.

Want to read a back issue? Check out our newsletter archives.