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Éric Bergeron explains the MadCap acquisition of IXIASOFT (podcast)

In episode 140 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Sarah O’Keefe and Éric Bergeron, president and CEO of IXIASOFT, share the story behind the MadCap acquisition of IXIASOFT.

“The question that everybody is asking, and we really want the answer to, is this seems like a very sensible combination, but MadCap as an organization has done a really excellent job with their marketing, and much of their marketing has been based on the concept that DITA is not something that you need. Flare is happy and easy and safe and wonderful, and DITA is none of those things. So, when you say this is a bit of an odd combination, I think everybody’s looking at, ‘Well, wait a minute, there’s been a lot of DITA bashing over the past 10 years or so.’ What do you do with that?”

—Sarah O’Keefe

Sarah O'Keefe
March 27, 2023
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Conferences News

tcworld China recap

The tcworld China event took place in Shanghai April 18 and 19. I was there to present on content strategy and advanced DITA (yes, I hear your gasp of surprise), but for me, the most interesting part of the trip was getting a chance to connect with the technical communication community in China.

Sarah O'Keefe
April 25, 2016
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News

New LearningDITA course: reference and glossaries

March 2025 update: Read this article to learn about what’s new with LearningDITA. The Introduction to DITA course is still free, and you can sign up for courses at store.scriptorium.com.

Thank you all for your great response to our DITA courses at LearningDITA.com (over 500 registrants and counting)! Now that you’ve got your feet wet with the Introduction, concept topic type, and task topic type courses, are you ready for the next challenge?

Dave Young - originally posted to Flickr as surfer chicks

Dave Young – originally posted to Flickr as surfer chicks

Simon Bate
November 2, 2015
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News

More free DITA training: the concept topic

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for LearningDITA.com and taken the free Introduction to DITA course. The introductory course offers a high-level overview of DITA.

Want a deeper dive into the DITA information types (concept, topic, reference, and glossary)? Today, we are releasing our second course on the DITA concept topic. The course and supporting videos were created by a Scriptorium team led by Gretyl Kinsey (with help from Simon Bate, Jake Campbell, and me).

Alan Pringle
August 31, 2015
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News

Talk amongst yourselves…introducing forums.scriptorium.com

Our web site now has forums for discussions of technical communication issues. We want to give you, our readers, a venue where you can set your own agenda instead of just responding to our blog posts.

Given Scriptorium’s particular interests, I expect to see a lot of emphasis on publishing automation and XML. But frankly, we don’t know exactly what might happen. Communities often develop in unexpected ways. It will be up to you—and us—to figure out what direction these forums go.

(We have an internal pool on how long before Godwin’s law is applied.)

The forums are available in our main site navigation. There are also RSS feeds so you can subscribe to a topic or category of interest. Or, if you prefer, you can get email notifications for new forum posts.

And how do we feel about this launch? We’re…perfectly calm.

Please join the conversation.

Sarah O'Keefe
February 9, 2010
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News Opinion

ePub + tech pub = ?

At Scriptorium earlier this week, we all watched live blogs of the iPad announcement. (What else would you expect from a bunch of techies?) One feature of the iPad that really got us talking (and thinking) is its support of the ePub open standard for ebooks.

ePub is basically a collection of XHTML files zipped up with some baggage files. Considering a lot of technical documentation groups create HTML output as a deliverable, it’s likely not a huge step further to create an ePub version of the content. There is a transform for DocBook to ePub; there is a similar effort underway for DITA. You can also save InDesign files to ePub.

While the paths to creating an ePub version seem pretty straightforward, does it make sense to release technical content as an ebook? I think a lot of the same reasons for releasing online content apply (less tree death, no printing costs, and interactivity, in particular), but there are other issues to consider, too: audience, how quickly ebook readers and software become widespread, how the features and benefits of the format stack up against those of PDF files and browser-based help, and so on. And there’s also the issue of actually leveraging the features of an output instead of merely doing the minimum of releasing text and images in that format. (In the PDF version of a user manual, have you ever clicked an entry in the table of contents only to discover the TOC has no links? When that happens, I assume the company that released the content was more interested in using the format to offload the printing costs on to me and less interested in using PDF as a way to make my life easier.)

The technology supporting ebooks will continue to evolve, and there likely will be a battle to see which ebook file format(s) will reign supreme. (I suspect Apple’s choice of the ePub format will raise that format’s prospects.) While the file formats get shaken out and ebooks continue to emerge as a way to disseminate content, technical communicators would be wise to determine how the format could fit into their strategies for getting information to end users.

What considerations come to your mind when evaluating the possibility of releasing your content in ePub (or other ebook) format?

Alan Pringle
January 29, 2010
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News Opinion

Are you ready for mobile content?

A report from Morgan Stanley states that mobile Internet use will be twice that of desktop Internet and that the iPhone/smartphone “may prove to be the fastest ramping and most disruptive technology product / service launch the world has ever seen.” That “disruption” is already affecting the methods for distributing technical content.

With users having Internet access at their fingertips anywhere they go, Internet searches will continue to drive how people find product information. Desktop Internet use has greatly reshaped how technical communicators distribute information, and having twice as many people using mobile Internet will only push us toward more online delivery—and in formats (some yet to be developed, I’d guess) that are compatible with smaller smartphone screens.

The growing number of people with mobile Internet access underscores the importance of high Internet search rankings and a social media strategy for your information. If you haven’t already investigated optimizing your content for search engines and integrating social media as part of your development and distribution efforts, it’s probably wise to do that sooner rather than later. Also, have you looked at how your web site is displayed on a smartphone?

If you don’t consider the impact of the mobile Internet, your documentation may be relegated to the Island of Misfit Manuals, where change pages and manuals in three-ring binders spend their days yellowing away.

Alan Pringle
December 16, 2009
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News

XML 101

My latest XML Strategist article, “The ABCs of XML,” is available as a PDF file (144K). This article was originally published in the September/October 2009 issue of Intercom.

The technical side of XML is not much more difficult than HTML; if you can handle a few HTML angle brackets you can learn XML. […] If […] you don’t like using styles and
prefer to format everything as you go, you are going to loathe structured authoring. 

Just trying to make sure that there are no surprises. The article itself is a very basic introduction to the principles that make XML important for technical communication: automation, baseline architecture (sorry…I had problems with B), and consistency.

Sarah O'Keefe
September 29, 2009
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News

Liberated type

(or should that be “Liberated typoes?”)

We have opened up free access to two of our white papers:

  • Hacking the DITA Open Toolkit, available in HTML or PDF (435 KB, 19 pages)
  • FrameMaker 8 and DITA Technical Reference, available in PDF (5 MB, 55 pages)

These used to be paid downloads.

Why the change of heart? Most of our business is consulting. To get consulting, we have to show competence. These white papers are one way to demonstrate our technical expertise.

(By this logic, our webcasts should also be free, but I’m not ready to go there. Why? We have fixed costs associated with the webcast hosting platform. Plus, once we schedule a webcast, we have to deliver it at the scheduled time, even if we’d rather be doing paying work. By contrast, we can squeeze in white paper development at our convenience.)

What are your thoughts? We are obviously not the only organization dealing with this issue…

Sarah O'Keefe
August 25, 2009
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