To clarify, I told Carol that I don't know anything about Frameusers
being up or down. I unsubscribed from that a year or more ago because I
found that I wanted to spend way too much time trying to help everyone
whose problems I was familiar with. Until Adobe starts sending me a
paycheck, I have
Title: Conditional Text - general comments
I hate to correct Carla in public, but this
is a big one if youre working with conditional text. (Sorry, Carla!)
Its not always the best practice to
use an import from file to reset the show/hide settings of
conditional text in a book. All
Carol,
Conditional text isnt used in the
TOC, LOT, and IX. Those files bring in exactly
what they see at the time of generating/updating based on what your conditional
text is in other files, but it doesnt bring in the conditionalized text settings
and let you toggle between conditions.
I thought this article was interesting. It talks about challenging
yourself to do better at your job, even if youre getting rave reviews,
and how to know when its time to move on.
Enjoy!
Donna
---
When to Grow, When to Go
by Ram Charan
Hi Carol,
I think you hit on the cause of that particular problem and the correct
solution. :-)
A more foolproof way to set pagination at a book level is to NOT specify
whether a file must start on the right or left unless it's the first
page of a chapter and has to start on a specific side. In
Lisa Bronson wrote:
Thanks for all the on and offlist answers to my questions!! You can
request a copy of the outline I will use Monday night, if you are
interested. :)
Hi Lisa,
I'm going to request more than that. On Tuesday, how about posting the
outline and telling us how your
What would the wiki give us that we we are mising? Unless someone can
give me a current shortcoming that the wiki can fill, I won't be
participating in it.
Here are some thoughts on how a wiki could improve on just a list or on
a list combined with a web site. Can anyone add anything else?
That reminds me -- suppose you are new to a company and its products.
If
you are tasked with writing a FAQ page about a piece of software that
has been around for a few years and has come out in a new version, how
do you go about identifying what those frequently asked questions
are?
The
Maybe we should have a wiki to discuss the wiki?
Shouldn't that be a blog to discuss the wiki? ;-)
Donna
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I highly dislike searching list archives. Even if I know exactly what to
search for, I could still wind up with numerous hits and have to search
post after post to find the one that I'm looking for--if I manage to
find it at all.
Personally, I like the thought of a wiki being part of the TCP web
there are many newbies here and the same questions get asked all the
time.
Perhaps you're thinking of another list. This one is all of 34
days
old; no one here is newer than anyone else by more than a few
weeks.
I just looked through the entire list archive -- BOTH pages of
In the course of verifying cross-references in the PDF, I noticed that
cross-references to text with the paragraph tag Number1 did not work
in
the
PDF, even though they work in the FrameMaker source document. All
other
cross-references are to paragraph tags such as ChapterTitle, Heading1,
and
For a good example of a professional blog, check out Bill Swallow's:
http://techcommdood.blogspot.com/
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Came across this one this afternoon:
http://wwforums.com/eve/forums?s=6636029721a=frmf=8396015071
--
Milan Davidovic
Oh, how interesting. I hadn't seen that site before. I like the table
format. The topics are easy to scroll through, and you can see a lot of
them on each page with the
-Original Message-
Not sure which version of PhotoShop you are using, but in version 7,
you
would use File=Automate and set your destination to Save As
filename.GIF.
Al
tcp list wrote:
Hi. :)
I have a folder of .tif files that I want to convert to .gif format.
I
think
-Original Message-
So, where are you at in your technical communication career? Are you
in
management? If so, are you happy being a manager? If not, would you
like
to be a manager? Is that one of your career goals?
I'm a senior technical writer with no desire to move into management
I'm glad that you enjoyed the article, Jim. I thought the article could
apply to many of us.
It definitely applies to me because I work from home 3/4 of the time
already. Because no one sees me, it doesn't matter much exactly when I
start and stop work. But I'm still supposed to be available
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/online-map-linked-to-fatal-turn
/2006/12/08/1165081119464.html
This certainly adds a twist to the story. Even I wouldn't have
thought to
verify online information.
- Jim
The online mapping services can be an aid, but they're not always
accurate.
Does anyone out there use the professional networking web site called
LinkedIn? I've gotten back in touch with several people who I knew in
college or who were coworkers years ago. I doubt that I would have made
contact with them without LinkedIn.
I have a few of my fellow tech writers in my
- Dana Worley asked:-
Tell me what you see as the value of the LinkedIn network, relative
to your work in technical writing.
Dana W.
If I was looking for a job, it would be another resource. I've seen jobs
posted for technical writers from time to time. I have no way of knowing
if
John Garison wrote:
Also, the recommendations are an excellent feature. I'm proud to say
that I have 8 recommendations from former co-workers and associates.
That can be very helpful when you're looking for work (and as a
freelancer, I an ALWAYS looking for work).
Let me try sending this
-Original Message-
Those very militant people just don't get it. Not everyone can drive.
Does
that mean we should stop building roads because not everyone can use
them?
I'm all for accessibility, but I think we have to be reasonable about
what
extent we go to make things
-Original Message-
Sometimes I find that it's easier to *unselect* the ones you *don't*
want. Right-click the anchored frame, choose Select All in Frame, and
then hold the CTRL key down while you click the ones you don't want.
--
-David Castro
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
David's
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Brierley, Sean
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 2:10 PM
To: tcp@techcommpros.com
Subject: Re: [TCP] graphics frames in FrameMaker
Let me add, right-click each and every graphic in the anchored frame
- Tom Johnson wrote: -
... I like it when people expand their vocabulary. Yesterday, my
daughter was writing just for
fun and used downcast and perplexed in the same sentence. Oh, did
I
mention she's seven? She'll be teaching me in a few years. Okay, so
I'm a
proud dad that's excited
A new recruiter from my network on LinkedIn e-mailed me to ask if I knew
anyone who might be interested in a technical writing job in the UK. If
you are interested or know of someone who may be, please e-mail me
off-list at my personal [EMAIL PROTECTED] -dot- com, and I will
put you in touch with
I am not convinced buying the SMEs and managers lunch, or stopping by
with chocolates, or washing and waxing their cars before they leave
for
the day really does much ... but if it makes you feel better, then go
ahead.
I don't think it's a great idea to act that way. Food service and other
Isn't the TCP site looking for articles right now?
Yes, they are, but my article was rejected because it doesn't fit in
with the punchy tone that TCP is trying to set (I think that's a new
way of saying This is dull!). :-)
So many people say that they hate indexing, but it doesn't have to be
Thanks to some off-list suggestions from Milan, I was inspired to make
some changes to the indexing article. I daresay that it's a bit more
punchy now. ;-) And a little editing and reorganizing never hurts.
http://www.geocities.com/dljones3423/indexing.html
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Do you get to travel as a technical writer? For what purposes do you
travel? Do you wish you could travel more? Or less?
Up until now, none of my jobs as a tech writer have required travel, and
none of them involved customer contact for tech writers. As Carla
mentioned earlier, we may get to
Rae Burgess wrote:
This makes me wonder - how fast do you type?
Since I never took a formal course in typing (some call it keyboarding
now), I have found that I type so slow that it impacts my efficiency.
I suppose that if I practiced 10 minutes a day I would incrementally
improve my
Ola. After learning that not knowing what an diectic pronoun
disqualifies
me
as a professional writer, I decided it was time to leave that thread
and
move to where people are more interested in producing great
documentation
than knowing grammar terms.
A *what* pronoun? 8-|
You realize,
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Melissa Nelson
Donna,
I do not know about the grammar courses you and Tom took at MTU...I
did
not hear about deictic pronouns in my grammar course there. However,
someone mentioned it being a
I've been working as a professional writer for 10 years and as
project
administrator and manager for much longer.
Wait a minute...how *much* over 23?
Cheers Jim, coffee ALL OVER my keyboard..
Oh, good. I'm not the only one who snorted coffee while reading that!
:-)
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My last two webinars through Vasont have been miserable experiences. The
webinar that I tried to attend today did not include a dial-up for the
audio, and I could not access the internet audio broadcast even though I
jumped through every hoop that Microsoft Live Meeting required of me.
Without the
Hi Bob,
I had to switch from Firefox to IE as well. Then I upgraded from Windows
Media Player 10 to 11. Then I upgraded Microsoft Live Meeting. I had to
reboot my computer once and re-enter the meeting twice. Nothing worked.
I'm working from home and using a satellite connection.
A coworker
I got a combination of pleas of ignorance plus claims of technical
difficulties. I have the feeling that they considered it my problem,
not theirs. That's why I was wondering if anyone else has the same
problems.
Vasont offers webinars and workshops in things like XML,
single-sourcing, and DITA.
-Original Message-
What do you perceive to be the benefit of being a member? Or is it
just
'something I should join'?
G
I'm a member of STC. I'm not as active as I would like to be--first it
was lack of time because my kids were small and now we moved to
somewhere that doesn't have
Bill Swallow wrote:
Yeah but perfect and useful are not the same, and I would take
useful over perfect any day. Striving for useful is far more beneficial
than striving for perfect.
I think Bill has a wonderful point, and it goes along with an example I
Bonnie, I do not think you are prone to hyperbole beyond all reason,
at least on the basis of this single data point. :-)
My reaction to that document was, essentially, you gotta be kidding
me.
Can anyone enlighten the rest of us? I don't have my login ID handy, so
I can't sign in to see
An ad for this site popped up on my home page on LinkedIn when I logged
in tonight:
http://www.techwriter-certification.com/
Timely, isn't it? :-)
Donna
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Saw this one recently and I think I might adopt it. Shouldn't it be
good
for a $10K raise?
Text Engineer
Dori Green
The word text is too short. You would need to be a documentation
engineer to get the big bucks. :-)
Donna
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Is anyone planning to go to the conference in Minneapolis in May? I just
finished signing up, so I'll be there. I haven't been to one of these
since Orlando in 2000, so I'm looking forward to it.
The early bird registration deadline was extended to March 9, so you
can still save $150 by
Don't cram too much on each slide. Besides the fact that small text is
hard to read from a distance, you want people listening to you, not
ignoring you and reading the slide.
If you have the opportunity, sit at the farthest point away from the
screen where your PowerPoint presentation will be
Guy Haas wrote:
... I SUPPOSE I can use
PhotoShop to convert each image from BMP to JPG, and sharpen them. Might
be an idea time to cozy up with PhotoShop automation.
Hi Guy,
I don't know anything about CanoScan and not much more about PhotoShop,
but I would guess that going from BMP to JPG
Hi everyone,
Last year, I attended a one-day leadership seminar that was simulcast to
sites all over the U.S. and abroad. Another one is being held this year
on Friday, May 11. This year's theme is The Influence Index: Increasing
a Leader's True Value. More information is at
Hi Lisa,
Having been laid off myself in the past, I can try to help answer a
couple of your questions.
In most cases, you can file for unemployment right away if you're no
longer working. Your May 15 pay date may throw a monkey wrench into
that, but it can't hurt to go down to your unemployment
Don't forget to Google the subject -- much of what you're looking
for is on the web (tips, examples, etc.).
A Google search for grant writing tips resulted in 1.78 million hits.
Grant writing online course brought back 3.8 million hits. I was
hoping for something a little more specific. :-)
-Original Message-
I'll be there. I'm arriving on Friday evening and leaving Wednesday
morning.
:-)
Katie Roberts
Carla Martinek and I both arrive in Minneapolis Saturday afternoon and
will be there through Thursday morning, enjoying a mini-vacation at the
conference without our
I don't have this story online, but I have to share it.
I reported to someone who took editing of his work personally. So that
he wouldn't have to hear our criticism of his usually very poor efforts,
he decided to publish one book without having anyone else look at it.
When the printed copies
We will now create unique 'book title' user variables for each unique
book in TemplateVariables.fm and import all common variables from
this file.
Hi Carol,
You should only need one variable for book title and just change the value of
that variable for different books. If you create
Carla Martinek wrote:
Oh, and since Donna's too modest (hah!) to mention it...our
company had two documents which moved on to the Int'l Competition,
and both of them took Distinguished Awards at that level, which
shocked the daylights out of us. Donna was the primary writer
on both docs,
John Garison wrote:
As one of the people who helped put the conference together, I'd like
to ask What would be of interest to you? I'm sure that it would be
interesting to others as well, and as the work for next year's
conference starts now, we'd like to know.
Hi John,
I'm happy to have
Elizabeth wrote:
Congrats to both of you.
Thank you! :-)
(someday I'll send an intro to this list)
Welcome to tech writing and to the TCP list! You'll find that we're
pretty harmless, although most of have some pretty strong opinions and
aren't afraid to let them be known.
Part of being
Check out this folding bicycle shown on eBay. They have a cool animation
of the product, but picturing a person on it makes me think of a circus
clown.
The words in the product description are English, but that's about as
far as the resemblance to the English language goes. Here's an excerpt:
Hi Lisa,
Many moons ago, when I was single and looking into health insurance for
myself, I was told that I would get better rates if I formed my own
group. At that time and with that insurance company, it took only two
policies to make a group. I don't know if that route still exists or if
it's
Connie Giordano wrote:
When all else fails do COBRA, it's far better than nothing at all.
I'm not sure if that's true. If you're paying hundreds of dollars a
month in premiums, is it better to pay that or to put that money into a
personal account that you use to pay for health-related costs?
Hi Lisa,
Having met you last week, I can honestly say that I think you'll do just
fine. :-) You're personable and easy to talk to.
Don't go in with the thought that you need to impress them. Obviously
they were impressed enough already, or they wouldn't be interviewing you
in person. You're
-Original Message-
From: Milan Davidovic [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 5/18/07, Jones, Donna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
For those of you who weren't at the STC conference, I'm just curious
why.
Schedule conflict with other training -- but even without that,
there's the cost.
If I
Milan wrote:
And while you ponder your answers to that one, check this out:
http://www.keycontent.org/tiki-index.php?page=Is+Technical+Writing+Your+
Calling%3F
Good article, Milan. Thanks for passing it on. There appears to be a lot
of good reading on that site in addition that one.
-
Rhonda Bracey wrote:
...it's obvious that tech writing in one form or another has
been around for a long time.
Technical writing was around longer, but I don't think the job title
technical writer was coined until somewhat more recently. Weren't many
early technical writers deemed typists? In
Melissa Nelson wrote:
She has inspired me, although I never seem to get past the carrying
around a
notebook in my purse and jotting down ideas phase! :(
You've made it to the carrying a notebook phase? Wow! I've been stuck
in the I really should carry a notebook phase for years now. :0)
Donna
Arroxane wrote:
In a graduate class I asserted that the Old Testament is an
instructional manual--at least a couple of the books are quite
technical.
Did you know that there's a New Testament section on audience analysis
and communicating in a way that's appropriate for your audience?
1
John Garison wrote:
Question: Should I call the potential employers and ask where things
stand? Having been on the hiring side of the desk, I can see where this
would show some strong interest on the part of the applicant. On the
other hand, it could be construed as desperation. And I don't
This seems to be some new HR practice that has become
popular in the past 10 years or so.
Do you know why I think they do it? So they can keep people hanging as
long as possible in case Choice #1 doesn't work out. If they send
letters to people saying that they're not interested in them and
Hi Sean,
Is the masters degree that you're pursuing relevant to your job?
Donna
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Bill Swallow wrote:
Push back denotes opposition. I find it's best to collaborate. This is
where social engineering skills pay off folks. Seriously! Call it
collaboration, effective interpersonal communication, or what have you,
but it's manipulation through and through. And it's effective.
FYI -- If you're interested, please contact John directly. The
positions are in Chicago.
I am seeking candidates for a four-month technical writing position
(40-hr weeks, onsite in Loop) at a financial industry client. If you
know of anyone, whether
Hi everyone,
This message is forwarded from the STC Single-Sourcing list. I'm not a
PageMaker person any more, but I'm sure someone out there is. If you can
help Debbie, please reply to her directly because I don't know if she's
a TCP subscriber.
Thanks!
Donna
-Original Message-
From:
I posted on the Connecticut chapter's blog and e-mailed my suggestion to
the STC person who had sent out the confusing message. It seems that
there's a simple, automated solution to the problem.
Here's what I wrote (for those of you who don't feel like going to the
blog):
My job is
Hi everyone,
Is anyone in the London, England, area interested in a high-society copywriting
opportunity? Please reply directly to Kim and not to me or the list.
Thanks,
Donna
My business is an exclusive members club called Savvy Club with
Campbell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 1:11 PM
To: Jones, Donna
Cc: tcp@techcommpros.com
Subject: Re: [TCP] Copywriting opportunity in London, England
Sure, anyone living in one of the most expensive cities in the Western
world must be dying to take on a writing gig
What am I doing? Thanks to holiday traffic, I'm recuperating from my
longer-than-usual drive from Michigan to Chicago on Sunday. I spent more
than 9 hours driving when I can usually make it in less than 8. Because
I made a few stops along the way, my total trip was 11 hours long. Ugh!
I'm not
I thought that $250 might be high. As someone wrote me off-list, that
rate would be appropriate for places like Washington DC, New York City,
or Silicon Valley. I poked around Craigslist as Melissa had suggested
and found that what's more realistic for me would probably be in the
$100-150 range.
John Posada wrote:
1. How long is your resume?
Five pages
For any given job that you might want to apply for, does the hiring
manager really need to know five pages worth of stuff? If you repeat a
lot of the same skills under each job, move them to a bulleted list of
your skills in a
Do you want to be in the resume biz?
That's a good question, Milan. I've been thinking of hanging out my
shingle as a freelance writer. We're in a remote area, and there isn't a
thing in the local yellow pages for any type of writing service. If I
did my best for this guy and maybe offered him
John Posada wrote:
So, no...between real-life instances where a very detailed resume got
me
gigs, vs several people saying I don't like resumes longer than two
pages, I'll go with what has worked for me in the past.
That sounds eerily similar to audience analysis to me. Is that allowed?
John Posada wrote:
Where did this 2-page standard come from, anyway? Is the person behind a 2
page
resume also automatically a more qualified writer than one with a 3 page
resume?
Hi John,
It's not really the overall length of the resume that matters. I think the
point is that you
Aha! Using Notepad, I found that it's a Microsoft Publisher 3.0 file.
Not that this does me any good because I don't have that program either
and Frame doesn't have a filter for it, but at least I know. ;-)
My coworker was able to open the file in Ventura, so at least we were
able to print it to
On 8/8/07, Brierley, Sean [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Silently, and without notice it would reassign members
because it was turned on by default. That behaviour is unexpected and
harmful; surely having it off by default was the right thing?
Maybe harmful is too strong of a word. If you're not
In any event, the article mentions that you can call customer service
to request a simplified bill.
Call and sit on hold for how long? Not me if I had an iPhone! I suspect
that most people will just continue getting what they get and filing it
straight into the circular file when they get in
Melissa Nelson wrote:
OK I am feeling like a total techno-dork. I have NO IDEA how to work the
text feature on my phone, nor did I on my old phone! Once in a while I
will
get a text message from someone and then be like DAMMIT and have to
call
or email them back.
You're not alone, Melissa. I
Here's a clickable link to that story. The other one was cut in two by
line-wrap.
http://tinyurl.com/ywrhfz
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Just because it's Friday. :-)
'Virgin chicken' off the menu in Beijing
BEIJING - Hungry visitors to next summer's Beijing Olympics won't have
to choose between steamed crap and virgin chicken if Chinese
authorities succeed in ridding restaurant menus of mangled English
translations...
Doesn't the word Scrum sound disgusting? I thought the Agile process
by itself left a bad enough taste in my mouth, but Agile scrum sounds
even worse. Ick! :-)
-Original Message-
I've just created a blog for technical communicators who are working in
the agile Scrum environment. Please
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 1:59 PM
To: Milan Davidovic; Jones, Donna
Cc: TCP List
Subject: RE: [TCP] Scrumming blog
Thanks. turning pale
- CONFIDENTIAL-
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Hi Lisa,
It means that the original graphic is double the size of the 50%
graphic. The top one uses Auto, which isn't a particular percentage.
Donna
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Lisa Gielczyk (TCP)
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007
Hi Lisa,
Paragraph tags will only let you place graphics above or below a
paragraph. To the left or right isn't an option (but it should be!). You
should be able to accomplish what you're looking for by using a
two-column table. Put the graphic in the far left column, and make all
of the borders
I'm constantly aware that there may be other resources out there
that I've not yet found, but I'm particularly keen to hear what
(professional) mailing lists people are members of.
* TCP
* LinkedIn Chicago
* STC Chicago Chapter
* STC Quality SIG (not much traffic, if any)
* STC Single
There appear to be a lot of groups forming for different interests
within LinkedIn. I'm not sure how they all work. LinkedIn Chicago is set
up as a Yahoo group with a mailing list.
http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=groups_infotrk=ftr_grps
Donna
-Original Message-
From: Bill Swallow
Hi Lisa,
If you used the same paragraph tag for callouts, you can search for the
callout paragraph tag. In the Find/Change window, click the Find
drop-down list to see what types of things you can search for.
Here's a little trick I learned. Before you select paragraph tag from
that drop-down
Hi everyone,
I thought I would throw this out for your expertise. A former coworker
of mine, who is now living and working in Canada, approached me recently
about writing some white papers for his new company (freelance, not as
an employee). I know how to bill people who are based in the U.S.
Hi gang,
If you would be interested in writing some white papers, let me know,
and I can put you in touch with someone in Toronto who has some work
coming up. It looks for now as if you would have to write one 5- to
10-page paper per month. The pay rate as yet is undetermined. You would
be
Sue and Bill asked to hear from a non-leadership person, so I decided to
bite. I've been a member on and off for a number of years, but I have
never run for an office or gotten too heavily involved in how STC runs.
The years that I wasn't a member, it was a matter of not having an
employer who
Hi Lisa,
I would recommend NOT putting your contract work into another category
from other employment because you'll lose the benefit of having things
in reverse-chronological order. If you work as an independent contractor
for a few years, you don't want people to get the impression that you
Face time is good, but you can achieve presence over the phone and via
e-mail as well. Respond to e-mail quickly, and be prepared to speak up
if you're participating in a meeting by phone. That makes people realize
that you're out there.
Donna
- CONFIDENTIAL-
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Sue Heim wrote:
In fact, I'd say I'm more successful than the on-site writer.
I'm quite visible, have a great working relationship with
several VPs (which astonishes those writers who are not remote),
as well as others with whom I work closely (including several
remote developers as well as
My original post on the subject wasn't focusing on the personalities of
the tech writers, but on those who we come in contact with. There are
some abrasive SMEs who are best taken in small doses. Passing them in
the hallway doesn't do much other than give them another occasion to
snub you. Working
All of my manuals were officially classified as vaporware at some
point a year or two ago, meaning that they exist only electronically
now. For about two years before that, we released in PDF plus provided a
print on demand service for our users. We found that there was no demand
for printed
This job is located in Woodland Hills, California. Experience in the
financial services sector is a requirement.
Please don't reply to me or the list. The contact information is at the
bottom of the job description.
---
We are group of creative, energetic
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