Webcast: Ensuring success with your CCMS
In this webcast, guest presenter Chip Gettinger of SDL discusses key success factors for component content management systems.
Content management
Adapt or die: style guide edition
Being cognizant of your environment and adapting accordingly is a good survival technique for any being (as Darwin recognized), and it’s particularly true in the professional world. And that’s why I’m puzzled by how much time tech writers spend agonizing over style and word choices in tech comm forums, on Twitter, and elsewhere.
Counterfactual ExtendScript history
In the late ’50s, my mom worked for the library at a large Canadian university. One day the library received an official letter from the U.S.S.R. asking the library to please return the Soviet Union’s encyclopedia for “revisions.”
Mission: Impossible? Consistently good ebook formatting across devices
Your mission, should you decide to accept it: distribute content as ebooks.
The power of complexity in visual communication
One of the axioms of technical communication is to keep things simple. But sometimes, complex communication is the better alternative.
DITA for presentations, aka how to avoid PowerPoint
After a number of years using PowerPoint and OpenOffice/LibreOffice Impress to create slide decks, I’ve grown frustrated with the enforced separation of information in PowerPoint-like products.
Gone with the width: what’s the optimal length for a line of text?
When it comes to a line of text, how long is too long? And do the rules for text column width change when content is rendered on different devices?
Perils of DITA publishing, part 7: the displeasures of distributing ebooks
In which we uncover some unpleasant realities about distributing ebook editions.
Perils of DITA publishing, part 4: PDF acrobatics
In which we bend PDF publishing to our will. Eventually.
Stairway to Həll
We’ve been in our “new” offices in Durham for about a year now. Overall, I’m quite happy to be here, nice building, good restaurants for lunch, lock on the door to keep sales people out…all those things.
Perils of DITA publishing, part 3: Indexing
In which we are boxed in by the limitations of DITA indexing support.
New to tech comm? Expect the unexpected
When I started at Scriptorium a year ago, I knew almost nothing about tech comm. I knew what technical content was, having used it many times, but I’d never really thought about how it was produced.
Breaking the batch habit
The batch publishing paradigm is deeply ingrained in technical communication, and breaking out of it is going to make the transition from desktop publishing to structured authoring look easy.
Webcast: Collaboration: A hands-on demo using Confluence wiki
In this video recording, guest presenter Sarah Maddox explains why collaboration is a good thing, why a wiki is a good solution for it, and how to do it on Confluence.
Even wireframes need real content
We all know that Lorem Ipsum is not your friend. But sometimes, even sample content fails.
Integrating accessibility features into technical content
Accessibility is a term commonly associated with the process of making content available for people with vision, hearing, and mobility impairments.
Avoiding an extinction event
The elimination of the distribution monopoly for content is upending the publishing industry and technical communication specifically.
Another peril in ebook publishing: Amazon KF8 compatibility
KF8. Nope, it’s not K2‘s long-lost mountain cousin. It’s Amazon’s new ebook format.
While dealing with this new format probably isn’t as daunting as scaling a 28,251 ft. mountain, KF8 is providing a particularly bothersome challenge right out of the gate: it’s not compatible with any Kindle devices other than the Kindle Fire!
The dawn of digital publishing
Is a week long enough to gain some perspective on the new landscape in ebook publishing?
Tempus fugit
I’ve been thinking about how time affects communication. We have constant deadlines, some of which are easier to meet than others. But there are other ways in which time affects content strategy.
The perversion of indexes
In addition to mixed column and copyfitting, the shift from desktop publishing to structured authoring may result in the demise of the traditional index.
The latest style for tech comm: adding value
Over the weekend, a friend showed me an episode of a reality show that featured some commentary by a “style expert.” This expert offered his advice while dressed in an outfit that would work well as a costume in a production of Oliver Twist (and that’s being charitable).
Content monoculture
I’m having some trouble with the idea of “extending DITA” outside the world of technical communication. DITA is obviously important in the right environment, but should we be advocating the use of DITA for more and more content?
