HyperWrite News

UA Europe 2012 in Dublin

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:24:55 GMT

The annual UA Europe conference for user assistance will take place in Dublin, Ireland, on June 14th and 15th, 2012. UA Europe is an annual conference that focuses specifically on software user assistance and online Help. It provides a unique update on all the latest industry trends, technical developments, and best practice in software user assistance. Topics to be covered in this year's conference include collaborative authoring, HTML5, cloud-based authoring, getting feedback from users, generating good PDFs, mobile user assistance, usability testing, structured authoring, and localisation in an Agile environment.

New Edition of Five Steps to MadCap Flare Book

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 23:20:18 GMT

Fiddlehead Publications have released the third edition of Lorraine Kupka's "Five Steps to MadCap Flare". This edition contains many additions and changes, including the new Flare v8 ribbon interface, an appendix about creating eBooks in EPUB format from a Flare project, global project linking, HTML5, more shortcuts, all new screen images, plus more.

Flare v8 Released

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 23:14:24 GMT

MadCap Software have released version 8 of Flare, the popular authoring tool. The new version introduces an updated user interface, HTML 5 support in its WebHelp outputs, and greater support for publishing to mobile platforms. MadCap are offering upgrade pricing from any previous version of Flare for USD499.

XDocs DITA CMS Now Also for Mac

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:55:26 GMT

Bluestream have released version 3.1 of their XDocs Component Content Management System (CCMS). This new release breathes life into DITA for Mac users, as it is the first CCMS to run natively on the Mac OS. XDocs also includes an Oxygen XML Editor connector. XDocs v3.1 also provide users with fully integrated CHM publishing, XHTML Help output, enhanced PDF output with switches between landscape and portrait in the same document, and speed and memory improvements.

DocToHelp 2012 Supports Mobile Help

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:26:48 GMT

ComponentOne have announced the release of DocToHelp 2012. This release offers a brand new Mobile Help output designed for mobile devices. (Doc-To-Help's Mobile Help turns any content into a self-contained website designed for mobile devices.) Other highlights in this release include right-to-left output support, Eclipse Help output, and Microsoft Office 365 support. A free trial version is available for download.

Codex DITA Editor

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:37:44 GMT

Version 1.5 of the Codex DITA editor has been released. Codex is a simple editor that promises easy and affordable DITA content authoring. The 1.5 update, available free to existing customers, enables Codex-authored DITA content to be published to Office Open XML format documents for distribution to content consumers, or for conversion to other formats using Microsoft Word or other compatible word processor. Codex single-user licenses are available now for $99 US per year, and include free updates during the license term. A free trial version of Codex is also available. Codex runs on most Windows and Mac systems.

Author-it Cloud Launched

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:48:04 GMT

Author-it Software Corporation has announced the launch of Author-it Cloud, an interesting development in enterprise content authoring. Author-it Cloud is essentially the popular Author-it Enterprise Authoring Platform re-engineered as an on-demand, Software as a Service (SaaS) package. Instead of installing and maintaining software, you simply access Author-it via the Internet, therefore avoiding software and hardware management. This simplifies deployment and reduces upfront costs. Author-it will continue to support its traditional On-Premises software for clients who prefer it.

FrameMaker and XDocs Integration

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:23:46 GMT

Bluestream - a provider of DITA-enabled Component Content Management System (CCMS) solutions - has allied with Adobe to provide tighter integration and advanced connectivity between FrameMaker10 and Bluestream's XDocs CCMS v3.0. This tighter integration promises enhanced productivity for content creators. The connector in XDocs CCMS v3.0 provides FrameMaker (FM) 10 users with increased dexterity and greater control over XDocs content. FM10 users can now access files and perform more actions on content in the XDocs repository all from within the FM authoring environment.

MadCap Offers Special Upgrade Pricing for Flare 7

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:01:16 GMT

For a limited time, you can upgrade from any version of MadCap Flare to the latert Flare version 7. Whether you are using Flare v1 or Flare v6, any existing Flare user can upgrade now to the latest edition for USD499. MadCap are also offering up to 50% off competitive upgrade prices.

DITA Europe in Prague

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:06:36 GMT

The DITA Europe Conference will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, from November 7-8, 2011. This event, organised by Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM), provides an annual meeting place for all those interested in the latest developments in DITA and content management strategies.

Bluestream Adds Online Reviewer Module to XDocs CCMS

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 04:17:53 GMT

The XDocs CCMS Online Reviewer module allows SMEs to comment and mark up DITA content from the XDocs repository in a familiar word processing interface using only a Web browser. The Online Reviewer tightly integrates with XDocs Workflow to provide a seamless and more productive process for content creators. In addition to reviewing DITA documents, the Online Reviewer gives SMEs the ability to contribute new content directly in the DITA document.

MadCap Releases Lingo v5

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:51:24 GMT

MadCap Lingo is a translation management solution designed to assist technical writers, documentation specialists and professional translators in the translation and localization process. The newly released version 5 includes FrameMaker import and export support, XLIFF support, improved review workflow, and enhanced statistical reports.

2012 WritersUA Conference for User Assistance to be in Memphis

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:37:50 GMT

The 2012 WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance will be held March 11 to 14 in Memphis, Tennessee. Special Early Registration discounts are available through August 31. The focus of the Conference is on developing the best possible user experience for all types of software applications through well-designed interfaces and helpful and accessible support information.

Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:36:13 GMT

Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps is a new book by Joe Welinske of WritersUA. Joe's book provides unique and detailed instruction and guidance regarding design, writing, tools, and planning of mobile UA. It addresses an important pair of questions for user assistance professionals: What is our role going forward in mobile and how can we prepare to take that on? The book is available in print and ePUB versions.

MadCap Software Launches Feedback Server 4.0

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 02:35:05 GMT

MadCap Feedback Server 4.0 is a server-based feedback system for content development teams that provides Web 2.0 features, such as blog-style comments and topic rating. These features help to capture readers’ insights and opinions on content such as knowledge bases, online Help, intranets and more. It also delivers valuable statistics, such users’ search terms, the results they are getting, and which search terms are not providing results. Several new features have been added in version 4.0, and other features have been expanded, including e-mail notifications, statistics reporting, comment handling, and customisable charts.

XDocs CMS and oXygen DITA Editor Now Tightly Integrated

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:55:07 GMT

Bluestream, makers of XDocs, a DITA-enabled CCMS (component content management system), have announced a strategic technology partnership with SyncRO Soft, makers of oXygen XML Editor and oXygen XML Author. This new partnership enhances the DITA authoring experience within the XDocs CCMS by allowly tight integration between the content management features of XDocs and the authoring features of oXygen.

The DITA Style Guide Released

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 01:07:47 GMT

Scriptorium Press have published "The DITA Style Guide", a valuable new resource for DITA authors written by HyperWrite's founder, Tony Self. As more companies implement DITA to streamline the development of technical content, the demand for DITA-literate technical communicators is growing. "The DITA Style Guide" provides comprehensive, practical explanations of DITA elements and attributes. Real-world examples and clear recommendations show you how to create clear, consistent, and semantically-correct DITA content. The book is available in paperback, and ePub and Kindle digital editions.

UA Europe 2011 Conference in Brighton in June

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:57:34 GMT

UA Europe is an annual conference that focuses specifically on software user assistance and online Help. Previously it has been held in September, but this year it moves to the northern hemisphere summer in June. The venue for UA Europe 2011 is the seaside resort of Brighton in England. The conference provides a unique update on all the latest industry trends, technical developments, and best practice in software user assistance. UA Europe 2011 runs from 16th to 17th June 2011.

Flare ver 7 and Contributor Released by MadCap

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:37:28 GMT

MadCap Software have announced the release of Flare 7. This latest release features direct SharePoint and Subversion integration, support for SVG and EPS vector graphics, mathematical formula support (through MathML), QR Code generation , and table row sorting and merging. The new reviewing tool from MadCap, Contributor, also integrates closely with the new version of Flare.

Doc-To-Help 2011 v1 Released

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:54:50 GMT

The first release of Component One's DocToHelp 2011 is now available. This release includes translation support (with SharePoint), a new NetHelp search engine, a build scheduler, and a number of interface improvements. The new search engine includes exact phrase, fuzzy, Boolean, and synonym search, automatically built into every NetHelp output. Doc-To-Help always allowed you to schedule builds via command line, but now there is a convenient interface to schedule one-off or recurring builds. This latest Doc-To-Help version integrates with SharePoint’s translation management features to help you manage and track translations

The State of Structure Survey 2011

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 04:10:29 GMT

In early 2009, Scriptorium organised an extensive survey of structured authoring practice. Two years has passed, and it's time to take another survey to see what has changed. The new State of Structured Authoring survey asks about plans to implement structured authoring, existing implementations, biggest mistakes, and the like. The survey only takes about 15 minutes, so it's not hard to find the time to complete it. The survey will be open until the end of February. Two lucky participants will each win a $50 gift certificate from amazon.com. The results will be published in April. Please participate! There is very little research available on this topic. Your input will provide important information about the use of structured authoring in technical communication.

Adobe Releases RoboHelp 9

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:25:22 GMT

Adobe has launched RoboHelp 9 and RoboHelp Server 9. This release celebrates the 20th anniversary of RoboHelp. Amongst the new features and improvements is "Collaboration workflows", built upon advanced PDF shared reviews, live linking of shared resources, moderation-enabled commenting workflows, and topic commenting. The new RoboHelp also makes it easier to integrate community-generated content, and makes it possible to deliver personalised filtering of content to the end user.

No AODC in 2011 - Expedition to WritersUA in Long Beach Instead

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 01:32:35 GMT

The AODC Conference will not be run in 2011. Instead, Australian and New Zealander technical communicators and Help authors are invited to join an expedition to the famous WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance in Long Beach in March. The 2011 WritersUA Conference, now in its 19th year, will be held from 13th to 16th of March at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Long Beach, California. Attendees will benefit from three days of detailed, high quality sessions, with over 60 sessions on offer, spread over five streams. But wait, there's more! There's a comprehensive vendor exhibition, a peer showcase of innovative and though-provoking case studies, and even a "launch pad" programme for newcomers to the industry. Some sessions are hands-on workshops in a computer lab environment, where you can be guided through the effective use of different authoring tools. A special conference and hotel accommodation package gives you the option of staying at the Hyatt at a heavily discounted rate. With airfares across the Pacific at all time lows, this is the year for you to visit the world's premier user assistance conference, and find out for yourself what everyone has been raving about! There is a special discount for return AODC delegates.

Author-it 5.4 Update Released

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:03:07 GMT

Author-it Software has announced the release of updates 5.4. The key new features in this release are a German and French UI option for Author-it Live, support for Office 2010, support for Google Analytics, re-import functionality for Word documents, and placeholders for controlling the word order for chapter numbering in Print outputs.

Trends in Technical Communication Webcast

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 01:20:13 GMT

On 20 May, Scriptorium hosted a Webcast featuring three thought leaders from the technical communication industry: Sarah O'Keefe from Scriptorium in the US, Ellis Pratt from Cherryleaf in the UK, and Tony Self from HyperWrite in Australia. In the Webcast, the three panelists share their views about where the industry is going. The event was aimed at managers with tech comm responsibility, with or without prior technical writing experience. The recording of the Trends in Technical Communication Webcast is now available on Slideshare.

Cherryleaf Introduces Learning Zone for Technical Communicators

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 01:25:08 GMT

Cherryleaf has announced the launch of a new service, the Cherryleaf Learning Zone. The Learning Zone is a new, affordable way to develop your technical communication skills. It's an alternative to conferences and formal training courses, giving you the freedom and versatility to learn from home or workplace on your own schedule, as well as the flexibility to choose the topics best suited for you and your business.

2011 WritersUA Conference for User Assistance Heads for Long Beach

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:39:39 GMT

The 2011 WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance will be held March 13 to 16 in Long Beach, Californiaa. Special Early Registration discounts are available through August 31. The focus of the Conference is on developing the best possible user experience for all types of software applications through well-designed interfaces and helpful and accessible support information.

UA Europe 2010 Conference - Stockholm in September

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:55:37 GMT

UA Europe is an annual conference that focuses specifically on software user assistance and online Help. It provides a unique update on all the latest industry trends, technical developments, and best practice in software user assistance. UA Europe 2010 takes place on 16th to 17th September 2010 in Stockholm, Sweden. All conference sessions and workshops are presented in English. Anne Gentle, writer of Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation, is the keynote speaker at UA Europe 2010.

DITA2Go Version 1.0 released

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:15:48 GMT

DITA2Go is a Windows application from Omni Systems (makers of Mif2Go) that converts DITA source (ditamaps and bookmaps) to HTML and XHTML, Word RTF, WinHelp, HTML Help, JavaHelp, Oracle Help for Java, Eclipse Help, cross-platform FOSS OmniHelp, DocBook, generic XML and other DITA information types. PDF output is still in development. A DITA2Go license costs $US 295 per seat, with quantity discounts starting at 5 copies. This includes support and all upgrades for the first year, renewable at $US 75/year.

MadCap Releases Flare version 6

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:18:49 GMT

MadCap’s latest version 6 of its Flare authoring tool features a new mobile output target, allowing content creators to publish their documentation to mobile handsets. A built-in mobile simulator lets authors test their mobile output within Flare if they don’t have access to the actual devices. The Web-based XHTML output has also been optimised to improve performance on low-bandwidth connections. Other features and changes include a link viewer, template improvements including the addition of a Template Manager, upgrades to the TOC editor, Import and Convert Multiple HTML Pages, and enhanced multimedia support. The MadPak Suite has also been updated with new versions of Blaze, Echo, Analyzer and X-Edit.

New Workflow Management Module for 4.ST HelpServer

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:35:26 GMT

4.ST have released a new Workflow Management module for HelpServer, a web-based enterprise content management system for help and documentation. 4.ST is now focussing development effort on the planned DITA Support and Snippets functionality scheduled for a March release. HelpServer is a web-based content management system that enables companies with dispersed authoring teams to work closely together on documentation-projects through a web-based platform. The Workflow Management module will allow HelpServer administrators to define the flow of tasks to be performed by different team-members on folders and topics. A trial version of HelpServer is available.

Inmedius Release iConvert, for the Conversion of Complex Technical Documents

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:23:48 GMT

iConvert is a software tool for the conversion of documents into structured XML. It supports conversion from legacy paper, Microsoft Word, and PDF files. iConvert comes pre-configured extensive out-of-the-box XML conversion of original S1000D, 40051B and ATA documents, and supports any Document Type Definitions (DTD) or XML schema. iConvert synchronises the original document with the converted XML document in a multi-pane, on-screen display. This unique approach to XML conversion allows for the continuous fine-tuning of document conversion rules for increased automated transfer, and more efficient production completion rates for the entire project.

instinctools Releases DITA Visual Specialization Manager

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:08:12 GMT

instinctools have launched the DITA Visual Specialization Manager (DVSM) product. The DVSM software designed to help Information Architects to develop and maintain project-specific documentation models (DITA Specialisations). The software makes complex DITA specialisation tasks easier through its user-friendliness and hence opens a new dimension in customisation of DITA to specific needs. This breaks down a significant barrier to DITA adoption. This software is available either as a stand-alone application or as a part of DITAworks, the structured documentation tool from instinctools. The stand-alone application can be used for working with DITA based information models that can be later exported in other DITA tools for further use.

Amazon Sells More eBook than Paper Books

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:07:38 GMT

On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, Amazon customers purchased more Kindle books in a day than physical (paper) books. Amazon's Kindle Store now includes over 390,000 titles. Amazon also sold more Kindle reading devices in the lead-up to Christmas than any other electronic device, including the iPod Touch. Competitor bookseller Barnes and Noble have launched their own eBook reader, named Nook.

Darwin Venue for AODC 2010 Conference

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:43:17 GMT

The 13th annual Australasian Online Documentation and Content Conference, AODC 2010, will be held in the famous city of Darwin in Australia's spectacular Northern Territory. The event, to be held at the Palms City Resort right in the centre of the northern capital, will run from Wednesday 12th to Friday 14th May. AODC is the event of the year for anyone involved in corporate documentation, online Help, content management, Web authoring, DITA (fittingly!) and other forms of technical writing.

Vasont releases version 12.2 of CMS

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:44:11 GMT

Vasont Systems announces the latest release of their Vasont Content Management System. This release focuses on enhancing productivity for writers managing modular content using DITA, other industry-standard and custom DTDs. New features include terminology management, content branching, and additional reporting capabilities. This release is available on December 14, 2009 for both the perpetual license and hosted (SaaS) content management system models.

User Assistance Tools Survey Open

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:13:35 GMT

The WritersUA Tools Survey is now open. This survey provides a look at the tools technical communicators use and the value they place on this. The results of the WritersUA Surveys are publicly posted for anyone's consumption. Please contribute your experiences.

Author-it 5.3 Update Released

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:12:45 GMT

Author-it Software has announced the release of updates 5.3.206 (for Author-it Live) and 5.3.207 (for Author-it and Author-it Service Manager). These update releases have addressed some gaps in the embedded topic functionality, as well as introducing minor improvements and bug fixes. The update is available at no cost to all clients with a current maintenance plan. To help users better understand the embedded topic feature, Author-it have included a "Best Practice Guide on Embedded Topics", containing key "how to" guidance on rules, basic actions, styles and tables when working with embedded topics.

WritersUA Conference Set for March 2010 in Seattle

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:58:44 GMT

The 18th Annual WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance will be held in Seattle, Washington, from March 21 to 24, 2010. The Conference offers the most comprehensive and timely information specifically designed for user assistance professionals. The conference goal is to continue to provide an event with the most comprehensive and timely information specifically designed for user assistance professionals. The event covers all aspects of information and training as a means of support for software users and toward a better user experience.

Confluence for $10

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:28:59 GMT

Atlassian, a Sydney-based software company best known in technical communication circles for its Confluence enterprise Wiki product, is currently selling $10 licences for six of its products, including Confluence. All of the money from sales during this special drive will be going to charity. In the first week, the company has raised $100,000 for Room to Read, a charity that aims to increase access for children in the developing world. The $10 price point for the products includes support and maintenance, which will continue upon yearly renewal of the licence.

Bluestream Releases XDocs v2.1 DITA-enabled CMS

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:25:56 GMT

Bluestream has announced a release of XDocs 2.1, an XML content management system that enables technical writing departments of all size to create, store, manage and publish end-user documentation. This version of XDocs has been in production and has been successfully used by end-users for over a month. The out-of-the box DITA capability enables companies of all sizes, and irrespective of their technical abilities, to install and deploy XDocs easily. New features in 2.1 include a fully configurable and integrated workflow system, and Adobe FrameMaker integration through Leximation's DITA FMx. The base price of XDocs 2.1 for unlimited number of users is $10,000.

Kindle eBook Reaches Australia

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:50:15 GMT

Amazon's Kindle eBook reading device is now available in Australia. The Kindle, which uses light-reflective eInk instead of the LCD screen used in computers and phones, has been an outstanding success in the US. It is claimed that for each 100 traditional paper books that Amazon sells, they now sell 30 eBook titles. In the US, the price of the Kindle starts from less than USD300.

XMLmind DITA Converter Announced

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:50:23 GMT

XMLmind, developers of XML Editor and XSL-FO Converter, have released a new product, XMLmind DITA Converter (or ditac). The new tool is open source and free of charge, and is being promoted as an alternative publishing engine to the DITA Open Toolkit. Output formats supported include XHTML, HTML Help, EPUB, WordML, Office Open XML (docx), and OpenOffice ODF, although word processor formats require the purchase of FO Converter. Ditac is a Java-based tool, and runs on any Java 1.5 platform or above.

XMLmind XML Editor (XXE) ver 4.5 Released

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:45:23 GMT

XMLmind have released version 4.5 of their XML Editor. The most important addition in this new version is out-of-the-box support for DITA. (Previously, DITA add-ons had to be downloaded and installed.) XMLmind XML Editor is available in two editions: Personal Edition and Professional Edition. Personal Edition is free of charge, is restricted to non-commercial use and has fewer features than Professional Edition.

DITA Pharmaceutical Content Subcommittee Formed

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:42:12 GMT

The OASIS DITA Pharmaceutical Content Subcommittee (DITA-PSC) has been formed to allow DITA to streamline the design and creation of the complete body of pharmaceutical documentation required to represent a product for scientific and regulatory purposes throughout its lifecycle. The subcommittee is likely to recommend changes to the DITA standard for facilitating the internal business processes of content design, authoring, document review , submission assembly and regulatory portfolio management. In particular, DITA-PSC addresses the documentation needs of medical writers and clinical scientists. A recording of an initial Webinar on the work of the Subcommittee has been made available on the OASIS Web site.

Inmedius Horizon ver 2.1 Released

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:22:56 GMT

Inmedius, developers of DITA Storm, have released Horizon v2.1. Horizon is a management system for the business processes in a technical documentation departement using XML, SGML, ATA, DITA or DocBook. The latest release features a significantly enhanced user interface and improvements to usability, efficiency and system performance. Bursting (the ability to break up a large document into multiple smaller documents) is one of the most important features to be introduced in this release.

New OASIS DITA Subcommittee Formed

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:41:31 GMT

The OASIS DITA Technical Committee has formed a Technical Communication Subcommittee. DITA supports a growing set of industries and vertical markets via subcommittees that are responsible for their specialisations. As a result, the technical communication specialisations, including bookmap and the concept, reference, task, and glossary topic types, have been moved out of the base DITA package into a new "tech comm" package. The purpose of the Technical Communication Subcommittee is to take ownership of the "tech comm" specialisations, driving new developments for technical communication and providing ongoing maintenance of the existing specialisations.

Serna Goes Open Source

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:34:53 GMT

Syntext has announced the release of Serna Free Open Source XML Editor. Serna is a feature-rich but easy-to-use WYSIWOO XML editor based on open standards, which works on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Sun Solaris/SPARC. Serna Enterprise remains a commercial product. The Enterprise version has additional importing (drag and drop) features, better conref and cross-reference support, has a configurable interface, and integrates with publishing tools.

Author-it 5.3 Released

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:33:32 GMT

Author-it Software Corporation have announced the release of Author-it version 5.3. This latest version includes performance improvements, new Web Help publishing templates, and new and improved dictionaries. Version 5.3 also takes some more steps into structured authoring support, adding more fine grained control of topic structures and introducing book structures. Upgrades to Author-it 5.3 are free with a current maintenance plan.

User Assistance Symposium in Newton, MA, USA

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:11:15 GMT

WritersUA are presenting the User Assistance Symposium, a full day of cutting-edge user assistance content and discussion in the Boston area. The event takes place Tuesday, September 29 in Newton, MA. This information-packed event will be valuable for technical communication newcomers as well as seasoned veterans. The networking at this event may be worth the price of admission all by itself! The cost is just $295 for early registrants.

Bluestream releases XDocs 2.0 DITA CMS

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:16:29 GMT

Bluestream Software have released version 2.0 of their flagship product, Bluestream XDocs. The XDocs CCMS (component content management system) is a standards-based, true DITA CMS designed to simplify the management of content components. This type of CMS is ideal for managing technical content, whether that content is destined to be published in technical documentation, training material, or a knowledge base. With most flexible pricing model on the market - an unlimited user license costs a budget-conscious $10,000 - the basic XDocs system ships with a fully configured XML editor, a PDF rendering server (XEP by RenderX), and a robust Knowledge Base Creator.

XMLBlueprint 7 XML Editor Released

Fri, 29 May 2009 00:58:46 GMT

Monkfish XML Software has released version 7 of XMLBlueprint XML Editor, priced at USD85 per licence. The new features in version 7 include Code Folding, Schematron support (Syntax Coloring, Validation and Easy XML Completion), and MSXML6 support (more useful error messages). XMLBlueprint will now also run on Windows 7.

UA Europe Conference to be held in Cardiff, Wales

Thu, 28 May 2009 09:44:06 GMT

The 2009 UA Europe Conference is being held in Cardiff, Wales, from 17th to 18th of September. UA Europe is the only European conference to focus specifically on software user assistance and online Help. Aimed at technical authors and user assistance specialists, the conference provides a unique annual update on all the latest industry trends, technical developments, and best practice. The year's event features expert speakers Mike Hughes, Carsten Brennecke, Leisa Reichelt, Tony Self, and Joe Welinske.

DITA Pharmaceutical Subcommittee Proposed

Mon, 25 May 2009 01:57:25 GMT

The OASIS DITA Technical Committee is considering the formation of a Pharmaceutical Industry Subcommittee. The new Subcommittee will define DITA topics, maps, associated metadata properties and terminology to streamline design and creation of the complete body of pharmaceutical documentation required to present a product for scientific and regulatory purposes throughout its lifecycle. If you are interested in this area, you can monitor the work of the DITA TC, or join and participate, through OASIS.

Syntext Release Serna Enterprise 4.1

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:29:53 GMT

Syntext has announced the general availability of Syntext Serna Enterprise v4.1. The release introduces drag-and-drop functionality from Microsoft Office Word and Web browsers to DITA documents, an API for extending interaction between Serna and external applications, and new hot keys for Zoom commands and switching between documents. A number of stability issues have also been fixed.

MadCap Release Mimic 3 and Capture 4

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:23:08 GMT

MadCap Software has announced the release of MadCap Mimic 3.0 and Capture 4.0. Mimic is MadCap’s native XML software simulation application. Capture is MadCap’s native XML screen capture and graphics editing software, which is designed specifically for documentation professionals. The newest product versions introduce industry firsts with MovieSync for quickly transferring movie properties between different Mimic movie versions, as well as expanded single-sourcing via conditions, targets, and reusable movie frames and images. Mimic and Capture are available separately or as part of the MadPak suite. A standalone Mimic package is priced at USD299 per single-user licence. Capture is priced at USD89 per single-user licence. The MadPak, which also includes MadCap Flare, X-Edit, Echo and Analyzer, is available for USD1,299 per licence.

Quark DITA Studio Released

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 02:08:18 GMT

Quark have released DITA Studio, a companion tool to Quark XML Author and a component of Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution for Technical Publications. DITA Studio lets the publication editor or technical author easily assemble DITA content created in Quark XML Author and automatically publish it to multiple types of media including print and Web. Quark XML Author is different from most other DITA authoring in that it is a plug-in to Microsoft Word, giving the author a familiar editing environment for producing DITA, a widely accepted standard for dynamic publishing. Quark XML Author is a development of the XPress Author product, which Quark acquired through the purchase of In.vision in mid-2008.

DocToHelp 2009 v2 Released

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:33:41 GMT

ComponentOne has released version 2 of DocToHelp 2009, which boasts more wizard interfaces, greater drag-and-drop functionality, and a style gallery. Although initially designed as a Microsoft Word extension to allow Word to Help conversion, recent versions have seen the elminiation of reliance on Microsoft Word. DocToHelp now features an inbuilt XHTML editor with integrated as-you-type spell-checker, style gallery, and drag-and-drop linking. The DocToHelp licence now includes 12 months of free technical support and upgrades.

New Features in HelpServer Release

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:49:29 GMT

HelpServer, a Web-based team authoring tool, has released a new upgrade that introduces some interesting new features. The most intriguing is a "project gallery" facility, which takes files copied into the gallery folder through Windows Explorer and makes them reusable authoring objects. If a gallery file (such as an image or a document) needs to be updated, an authorised author simply needs to replace the file in the gallery folder.

JustSystems Release XMetaL Reviewer 5.5

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:35:19 GMT

JustSystems have released version 5.5 of XMetaL Reviewer. The latest version is an indication of the central role that document review and collaboration plays in the overall authoring process. It allows subject matter experts and others to make edits and additions to the documents under review. The latest version of XMetaL Reviewer gains usability, connectivity, integration, and administration enhancements. New features include support for transclusion in DITA (content references), integration with content management systems, and support for Microsoft Vista.

MadCap Lingo ver 2 Available

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:21:19 GMT

MadCap Software has announced the availability of Lingo version 2. Lingo is a translation memory and authoring solution which aims to maximise translation re-use, shortens project cycles and reduces costs. The new features in Version 2.0 include support for import, translation, and export of DITA content, side-by-side viewing of original and translated documents, and statistical reporting.

Melbourne Venue for AODC 2009 in May

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:34:21 GMT

The 12th annual Australasian Online Documentation and Content Conference, AODC 2009, will be held at the Vibe Savoy Hotel in Melbourne from Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd May. AODC is the event of the year for anyone involved in corporate documentation, online Help, Web authoring and technical writing. There will be two pre-conference half-day workshops, on the topics of Captivate and DITA, on the day before the conference proper.

Article Explaining DocToHelp's NetHelp Format

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:13:30 GMT

NetHelp is ComponentOne's Doc-To-Help's Web-based format. It provides a tri-pane HTML output which is cross-platform compliant. When you build NetHelp using Doc-To-Help, Doc-To-Help takes your content, does everything that it would normally do for you (create a table of contents, create an Index, catalog everything for Search), and also compiles all of the content and project elements into the NetHelp interface. Brad Keller from ComponentOne has written a good description of NetHelp and its features, and explains the interface helps users find the information they're looking for.

Author-it 5.2 Released

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:12:20 GMT

Author-it announced the release of Author-it 5.2, which includes a number of interesting new features including structured authoring support. Structured authoring enables you to use rules and a well defined process to enforce consistency throughout your documentation. By using structured authoring you can control the content in each type of topic you create. However, one of the difficulties in moving to structured authoring is the need to migrate all existing content while maintaining critical deadlines and deliverables. Author-it's approach to structured authoring means this can be implemented gradually for both existing and new documentation as priorities and deadlines allow.

MadCap Feedback Server Version 2 Now Available

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:06:15 GMT

The MadCap Feedback Server provides live user feedback on your web, intranet, or computer desktop documentation. In addition to the passively collected statistics, MadCap Feedback Server's Web 2.0 capabilities enable customers to rate the usability of published content and to even comment blog-style directly on documentation. You can benefit from "community" documentation while maintaining an important division between content officially published and the customer notes and annotations that have been added. If you prefer the simplicity of a hosted solution, MadCap Software offers the MadCap Feedback Service.

Adobe Releases Technical Communication Suite 2

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:00:58 GMT

Adobe have released the second generation Technical Communication Suite (TCS), with Photoshop now part of the TCS bundle, in addition to old favourites RoboHelp, FrameMaker, Acrobat and Captivate. Along with Photoshop, another addition to the package is Adobe Presenter, a new presentation and eLearning product build around PowerPoint. All of the software in the TCS bundle are new versions. FrameMaker 9 has many new features, including a new user interface and support for DITA 1.1. RoboHelp 8 also boasts new features such as XHTML support, improved search functionality and integrated AIR Help outputs.

Tech Writer Photo Project

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:39:44 GMT

Technical Writers (aka Technical Authors, Content Wranglers and Documentation Managers) have an unfair image. The "I'm a Technical Writer" project aims to challenge this image, by showing technical writers in a different light. The photos on the imatechwriter.com site are of technical communications professionals, doing a variety of activities. If you are involved in technical writing, you can submit your photo if you'd like to be included.

Dynamic Help Control for .NET Applications

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:52:56 GMT

The 2008 v2 release of ComponentOne Studio Enterprise introduced a new product, ComponentOne DynamicHelp for WinForms. C1DynamicHelp is a Windows Forms control that allows developers and Help authors to collaborate on robust, context-sensitive help to their applications. This can be done either at design time or at run time using Authoring mode. C1DynamicHelp's Authoring mode enables developers to pass the application off to the Help authors so they can assign topics to controls. This method saves time and eliminates the errors that are more likely to occur when repeatedly passing the topic/control map between developer and Help author.

Structured Authoring Tools Survey

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:27:30 GMT

The Gilbane Group is conducting a survey to identify which tools are being used most predominantly for structured authoring. The survey should only take 5 minutes of your time, and will provide an insight into how content technology is currently being used.

DITA Workshops in London

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:25:41 GMT

HyperWrite's Tony Self will be presenting two DITA workshops in London in November, through leading UK documentation company, Cherryleaf. The two workshops are: Getting started with DITA and Implementing DITA. The number of delegates on each workshop is restricted; this is to make sure everyone receives the best possible level of training. Both workshops will be conducted on Monday 10th November, and a discount applies for those who choose to attend both workshops.

MadCap Releases New Product Versions

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:37:27 GMT

MadCap has released version 4 of its Flare Help Authoring Tool, along with new products Blaze and X-Edit. Flare version 4 features a new reporting engine that show the health and status of a project, supports new publishing formats including direct to PDF, XPS, XHTML, and AIR, and has an improved print publishing engine. MadCap Blaze is a topic-based, enterprise print publishing tool, which MadCap says has the ease of Microsoft Word with the power of Adobe FrameMaker. MadCap X-Edit is an editing tool that works with Flare and Blaze projects, but aimed at occasional contributors. X-Edit aims to improves documentation workflows by allowing subject matter experts to seamlessly review and provide content alongside a documentation team using Flare or Blaze.

CHM Viewer for Linux

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:07:30 GMT

xCHM is an open source viewer for Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. It shows the Table of Contents tree in a tri-pane window arrangement, let's the user print the current topic, and provides the normal history (back and forward) functionality. It allows the user to change text sizes and fonts, and to search for text in all the pages of the file or in the pages' titles. xCHM is released as an Ubuntu package.

UA Conference Europe - September 2008 in Edinburgh

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:20:16 GMT

This year's European Online Help conference took place in the historic and vibrant city of Edinburgh, Scotland. To reflect the current trends towards single sourcing, collaborative authoring, and embedded user assistance, the traditional concept of "online Help" has broadened considerably in recent years. With this in mind, the Conference formerly known as "Online Help Conference - Europe" was renamed to UA Conference - Europe. The event continues to cover the full range of skills and technologies that combine to assist users, and retains its unique position as the only European conference to focus on software user assistance. The next UA Conference - Europe will be held in 2009.

STC Australia Chapter Competitions

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:31:25 GMT

STC Australia is hosting competitions in three categories: technical publications, technical art, and online communication. Entries of an appropriate standard are entered in the STC International Competition, and Australian entries have won awards in this competition in past years. In last year's competition, ASIC received a distinguished award for one entry and an excellence award for the other. Entries close on 31 October 2008. Contact Monica Allen at competitions@stc-aus.org.au for details.

WritersUA Software User Assistance Conference in Seattle in 2009

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:19:30 GMT

The 17th Annual WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance will be held in Seattle, Washington, from March 29 to April 1, 2009. The Conference offers the most comprehensive and timely information specifically designed for user assistance professionals. The conference goal is to continue to provide an event with the most comprehensive and timely information specifically designed for user assistance professionals. The event covers all aspects of information and training as a means of support for software users and toward a better user experience.

New Adobe Acrobat Package: Pro Extended 9

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:07:15 GMT

Adobe have released Acrobat 9 Pro Extended, a package that includes Adobe Presenter, Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES, and Adobe 3D Reviewer software. Pro Extended is designed for business and technical professionals creating interactive presentations, as it allows PDF files to include video, voice-over, demos, and interactive quizzes. It also provides a number of form and collaboration features, making it easy to gather feedback, interactively review, and build consensus from a distributed document.

Author-it ver 5.1 Released

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:38:59 GMT

Author-it Software Corporation has released version 5.1 of the Author-it authoring tool. The new version has new functionality including Object Variant capability and a Quick Search function. Object Variants are an extension of the Author-it model that allows content components, be it text, graphics, links, or even formatting, to have any number of variations created for them based on user-defined criteria. This allows authors to easily create these variations for whatever purpose they need, and manage them together as a single component. Author-it 5.1 runs on Windows Servers and Windows-based PC's. Current Author-it 5 clients who have maintenance agreements will get an automatic upgrade to Author-it 5.1.

DITA Storm Desktop Released

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:29:02 GMT

Inmedius have released DITA Storm Desktop, a standalone XML editing solution based on the DITA Storm Web-based DITA Editor. Desktop allows the user to create and publish DITA documents in a self-contained environment on a single workstation. Installed locally on the end user’s computer, files are accessed, edited, saved and published from local or network drives, regardless of Internet connectivity. With WYSIWYG editing capabilities, authors with little or no DITA or XML knowledge can create valid, structured content. Desktop runs on Mac OS, Windows (including Vista) and Linux operating systems, and costs USD474.

Mimic News from MadCap

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:52:10 GMT

MadCap Software announced the availability of Mimic 2.0. MadCap's native XML software simulation application adds new online and print output options, as well as support for MadCap Lingo to facilitate translation. New output formats from Mimic 2.0 include Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe AIR, PDF and XPS.

DITA Open Platform Project

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:12:07 GMT

Claude Vedovini has initiated the DITA Open Platform project. The goal of this project is to provide the DITA community with a free and easy-to-deploy DITA oriented production platform. It is targeted at small companies or teams that do not need a complete CMS solution.

Sibersafe Introduces New XSL-T Creation Tool

Sat, 31 May 2008 06:55:00 GMT

Providing a specific look and feel to documentation published from your XML source is often technically difficult and costly to develop, and equally expensive to maintain. A new product from Sibersafe provides an alternative approach to XSL-T development. SiberSafe Styler is built around Microsoft Word's XML capabilities and familiar document formatting interface. It allows you to produce a sophisticated stylesheet draft in minutes without any programming or XSLT scripting skills. Sibersafe Styler works with Microsoft Word 2003/2007 (Professional Edition), and costs USD2000 per licence.

Describing User Interface Elements in Vista

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:52:31 GMT

Microsoft Vista introduced a number of new graphical user interface devices. (In fact, "graphical user interface", or GUI, is now obsolete; the latest term is "UX", or User Experience. For technical communicators, documenting the use of these new devices is problematic - what are they called? Is this a ribbon or a concertina or a collapsing menu? Microsoft have documented the names of these new UX devices, and have provided a "Visual Index" to make it easy to identify and understand them.

Inmedius Opens Australian Based Subsidiary

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:56:49 GMT

Inmedius, a US-based provider of applications to capture, create, manage, and deploy technical information information, announced today that it has opened a new sales office in Queensland, Australia, to service clients in the Asia Pacific Region.The Inmedius Australia operation will sell and service product lines across S1000D, DITA and Content Management market segments. The Inmedius S1000D Publishing Suite, currently in use by several global aerospace and defense organisations, is a comprehensive seven-module software set that supports the entire ASD S1000D documentation lifecycle. New to the Australian and Asia Pacific marketplace is Inmedius Horizon, a technical publication production system that delivers the tools and information needed to comprehensively manage a technical documentation operation. The recently announced Inmedius DITA Storm Suite enables users to easily create DITA-compliant content in WYSIWYG mode regardless of their DITA or XML knowledge.

Microsoft OOXML Becomes ISO Standard

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:32:26 GMT

Microsoft has been successful in its bid to have the Open XML (OOXML) file formats ratified as international standards by the International Standards Organisation (ISO), after 15 months of effort. The ISO/IEC certification means that development of the specification, officially called Draft International Standard (DIS) 29500, will be done by members of a committee within ISO, rather than by Microsoft itself. On a technical level, changes proposed during the standardisation process will need to be incorporated into OOXML, which is now the default document format in Microsoft Office 2007.

MadCap Add New Products to Line-up

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:19:25 GMT

At the WritersUA Conference in Portland, MadCap announced a number of new products to add to their existing authoring tool lineup. One of the new products is MadCap X-Edit, a word processor designed to make it easy for "occasional contributors" to create short documents for inclusion on Flare or Blaze projects. It can also produce native PDF and XPS output, and can integrate with MadCap's translation tool, Lingo. A free "Express" version of X-Edit can also be used for sharing, reviewing and annotating Flare and Blaze projects. The other tools announced were MadCap Press and MadCap Team Server.

HelpServer at WritersUA Conference

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:17:39 GMT

The HelpServer CMS and Help authoring tool from 4.ST will be on show at the WritersUA Annual Conference in Portland Oregon from March 16th to 19th. 4.ST will be conducting detailed product demonstrations during the conference.

Update to AuthorIt 5.0 Released

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:14:58 GMT

An update for Author-it 5.0 is now available (Build 5.0.11.625). This update resolves a number of known issues, including significant improvements to performance for JET databases and enhanced table functionality. For AuthorIt users still using version 4.5 Desktop or Workgroup editions, there is a limited opportunity to upgrade to the full functionality provided in the Enterprise Edition at the current 4.5 pricing before upgrading to Author-it 5.0.

Screen Captures from USB Drive

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:26:18 GMT

If you need to take screen captures on PCs other than your own, you will often find it difficult to install the capture software on the target PC. The Hypersnap application from Hyperionics might help you get round this problem, because it can be run from a USB drive without having to install it on the target PC. The tool costs around USD35.

RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:41:03 GMT

Adobe Labs have released a RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR. This utility converts existing WebHelp files generated using RoboHelp 6 or 7 to a platform-neutral Adobe AIR application. Help and knowledge bases delivered as Adobe AIR application will have a consistent look and feel across all platforms. Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system runtime that allows developers to use their existing Web development skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.

2008 AODC on Gold Coast

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:17:23 GMT

The eleventh annual Australasian Online Documentation and Content Conference, AODC 2008, was held at the Mantra Legends Hotel on Queensland's Gold Coast from Wednesday 14th to Friday 16th May. AODC is the event of the year for anyone involved in corporate documentation, online Help, Web authoring and technical writing. The next AODC will be held in Melbourne in 2009.

Word and FrameMaker to DITA Conversion Service

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:57:26 GMT

Stilo International recently announced the introduction of Stilo Migrate, an on-demand service aiming to simplify the migration of legacy documents to DITA or other single-source publishing environments. The service, which is currently in the beta testing phase, enables users to upload source documents via the Web, and through a series of easy-to-follow steps, generate high quality DITA components, which can be immediately used in collaborative XML authoring applications.

JustSystems Release New XMetaL Versions

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:14:24 GMT

JustSystems have announced the release of XMetaL Enterprise 5.1 and XMetaL Reviewer 5.3. In an important change to the product line-up, XMetaL Author and XMetaL Author DITA Edition have both been subsumed by the new XMetal Enterprise. This change was as a result of an evolving market where companies have become more sophisticated in their structured authoring and publishing processes. XMetaL Reviewer is a tool for for synchronous and asynchronous collaboration on the creation, review and approval of XML content across distributed teams and workgroups.

MadCap Release Analyzer and Lingo

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:28:37 GMT

MadCap Software have released Analyzer, a reporting and analysis tool, along with Lingo, an XML-based, fully integrated translation memory system. Analyzer allows you to design and generate reports for Flare and Blaze projects. Analyzer also suggests changes to your content, such as where to more effectively use variables, snippets and styles. Lingo is designed for aiding the translation of Flare or Blaze content into any Asian or left-to-right language. It is aimed at professional translators, technical writers, software developers, human resource professionals, and anyone else who needs to provide online or printed documentation in more than one language.

WritersUA 2008 Salary Survey

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:33:14 GMT

The annual online WritersUA Salary Survey is now in progress. The survey is designed to collect data about User Assistance authoring professionals, so that a picture can be drawn about how much Help authors are paid, and how industry, location and experience affects salary. Having been run for many years, the survey can also reveal trends, and identify what skills are the most rewarded in the marketplace. Over 32,000 people reviewed the 2007 survey.

DITA Users Membership Now Free

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 03:31:46 GMT

The DITA Users service will offer a free membership category for 2008. The DITA Users service offers access to an online DITA Storm editor, private workspace folders, a publishing service (to HTML, PDF, and Help formats). Members can upgrade to a paid membership level to access WebDAV folders and discounted conference and tutorial fees.

Netscape Officially Declared Dead

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:46:03 GMT

AOL, the owners of Netscape, have announced that development and support of Netscape Navigator will cease on 1st Februrary, 2008. AOL have recommended that Netscape users migrate to the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser. Old versions of Netscape can still be downloaded from a Netscape Archive. Firefox is based on the Netscape source code released under a free software/open source licence in 1998.

AuthorIT Xtend Review

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 07:03:17 GMT

Char James-Tanny has published a review of AuthorIT's new tTend authoring memory tool. Xtend lets you make conscious, intelligent re-use decisions based on your existing AuthorIT content. You begin by simply typing the content you are seeking to create. After as few as only three words, fast intelligent, searching suggests matches with content from your database is similar, and let's you simply re-use that block.

DITA Storm Acquired by Inmedius

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:38:41 GMT

Log Perspective's DITA Storm has been acquired by Inmedius, a major CMS vendor in the S1000D industry. They will extend their XML expertise into the DITA structured authoring space. DITA Storm creator Alex Karezin has joined Inmedius as Senior Product Architect. As a larger organisation, Inmedius can support multi-national companies more easily, and are in a better position to market DITA Storm internationally. DITA Storm is a web-based editor for DITA XML format. It is entirely implemented in JavaScript making it easily embeddable in any Web application. No browser plugin installation or server side script deployment is required.

WritersUA User Assistance Conference - Portland 2008

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:18:11 GMT

The 16th Annual WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance was held in Portland, Oregon at the Hilton Portland, March 16-19, 2008. The Conference offered the most comprehensive and timely information specifically designed for user assistance professionals. Attendance has surpassed 8,000 people in the 15 years of the conference's existence. The next WritersUA Conference will be held in Seattle in early 2009.

HelpNDoc Help Authoring Tool

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:25:17 GMT

HelpNDoc is a Help Authoring Tool focussed on creating Microsoft HTML Help and Web-based Help. It was first released in 2005. An unusual feature of this application is that there is a free version (for personal use), although this version places an advertising banner at the bottom of each generated HTML page. The commercial version (without the advertising banner) costs EUR45. The Web-based Help generated by HelpNDoc features a very tidy DHTML Table of Contents. The simple user interface of the application itself makes it easy to learn.

Flare ver 3.1 Released

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:20:25 GMT

MadCap Software have announced the release of version 3.1 of the Flare Help authoring software. Enhancements include the ability to specify custom sizes for popups, TOC depth for heading levels in Word output, and skin styles for feedback forms. All MadCap Flare v3.0 customers receive this v3.1 release as a complimentary update.

Adobe Unveils Technical Communication Suite

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:13:49 GMT

Adobe have announced the Technical Communication Suite software, a first-of-a-kind, integrated solution for authoring, managing, and publishing technical information and training content across multiple formats and languages. The suite includes Adobe RoboHelp 7, Adobe FrameMaker 8, Adobe Captivate 3 and Adobe Acrobat 3D Version 8 software. Product and workflow integration, and support for SWF, MP3, AVI, PDF, XML and DITA, empower authors to deliver compelling information, save time and reduce discrepancies in content.

TCANZ Conference in Wellington, NZ

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:18:24 GMT

The Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand held their 2007 conference in Wellington from 7th to 9th November. The theme of this event is "Absolutely Positively Cutting Edge: Communication Strategies for the 21st Century". Speakers from New Zealand and overseas will provide the latest information in their areas of expertise.

STC Australia Technical Communication Competition

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:02:24 GMT

The STC Australia Chapter Technical Communication Competition is being held again in 2007, and will include three categories: technical publications, technical art, and online communication. Entries are being accepted until 31 October 2007. Further information can be obtained by writing to competitions@stc-aus.org.au.

Doc-To-Help 2007 v2 Announced

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 03:53:12 GMT

ComponentOne have announced Doc-To-Help 2007 v2. This new version of the Help authoring tool includes text and rich content variables to improve efficiency and single sourcing. This feature allows authors to designate any content for reuse. Frequently used content, such as product names, descriptions, and entire topics, can be managed in one place and inserted across the documentation project. Microsoft Sandcastle integration also allows authors to use reference documentation as part of the Doc-To-Help project. A free trial version of Doc-To-Help v2 is available.

Microsoft Office XML Formats Explained

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:51:44 GMT

The 2007 Microsoft Office system introduces a new file format that is based on XML. It is called Microsoft Office Open XML Formats and applies to Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007. Microsoft have published an article summarising the key benefits of the new format, what the new file name extensions are, and how the new format works with earlier versions of Office.

Author-it Live Released

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:24:44 GMT

Author-it Software has released Author-it Live the first complete, Web-based authoring, content management and publishing solution. Author-it Live is an online version of the company's flagship product, and provides the user with an enterprise-level content management system combined with the benefits of editing from any location over the Web. In this way, geographically distributed teams can more effectively collaborate on the creation, sharing/reuse, and management of content while working remotely.

RoboHelp 6 Patches Released

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:02:29 GMT

Adobe has released three patches for RoboHelp 6 and a security patch that applies to Adobe RoboHelp 6 and older versions. The patches address "internal errors" when generating a merged project, a Windows crash when generating Microsoft HTML Help, and inadvertent renaming of the title tag of imported HTML files.

DITA 1.1 Approved

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:41:35 GMT

OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, has approved DITA v1.1 (the Darwin Information Typing Architecture) as an OASIS standard. The members of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee and members of the many companies and user groups testing DITA 1.1 have made significant improvements to the DITA bookmap specialisation, to translation support, to metadata handling across the boards, and to overall scalability. DITA offers business advantages such as single sourcing (books, help, training, multimedia), translation efficiency, information reuse even between an organisation and its business partners, scalability, and leveraged tools and infrastructure. The acceptance of DITA v1.1 as an OASIS standard an important step in the publishing community.

Microsoft Office Open XML Rejected as Standard

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 05:09:38 GMT

A US standards body has rejected Microsoft's Office Open XML document format as an international standard, which could further boost the popularity of open source standard OpenDocument (ODF).

Firefox Eats Into Browser Market Share

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:58:48 GMT

According to a recent survey by Web Monitoring company XiTi Monitor, Firefox now has almost 30% of the browser market in the European Union. The XiTi Monitor survey covered 32 European countries. The results seem to reflect HyperWrite's Web statistics, which indicate that about 25% of browsers visiting the site last month were Firefox browsers. The moral of the story: don't develop public content that only displays in Internet Explorer!

Flare 3.0 Released

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 09:53:24 GMT

MadCap has released version 3 of their Help Authoring Tool, Flare. New features in version 3 include source control system (SCC) integration, including direct integration with Microsoft Visual Source Safe. Other changes include enhanced WebHelp delivery functionality, expanded style support, and a number of improvements to the XHTML editor interface. Existing Flare users with a current maintenance plan can update to the new version free of charge.

Serna 3.4 Released

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:25:47 GMT

Syntext have released version 3.4 of the Serna XML Editor. The latest version adds DITA V1.1 support, including for Bookmap and Glossary elements. A number of improvements to the editor have also been incorporated, including enhanced publishing functionality with the DITA Open Toolkit, enhanced stylesheets and improved rendering of elements.

AODC Wedding Bells!

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 05:53:55 GMT

HyperWrite's annual AODC Conference normally provides opportunities for learning and business networking. But for some, it provides an environment for romance! Next weekend, two regular AODC delegates will marry! Tom James (or Doctor Tom as he is affectionately known to AODC delegates) will wed Katharine O'Driscoll in a very international wedding. Although they met the 2002 AODC conference in Australia, Katharine is originally from Palmerston North in New Zealand, while Doctor Tom is from the UK. Katharine has a special status at AODC: she was an original member of the famous AODC Band. On behalf of AODC delegates, HyperWrite would like to extend to Tom and Katharine our very best wishes for a beautiful wedding and a wonderful marriage.

Wikis for Documentation - Case Study

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:41:26 GMT

Wiki software for collaborative web publishing has emerged as one of the viable and inexpensive options to consider for maintaining group documentation. There are many inexpensive or free Wiki packages at our disposal and while they may not necessarily bend to meet our every requirement, with a little work can serve many of our needs. Michael Angeles, of Lucent Technologies, has written a very informative and practical summary of his experience implementing a Wiki for documentation.

Org Chart Wiki

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:32:49 GMT

Forbes.com has developed a Web-based tool for creating organisation charts based on Wiki principles. The tool is currently in early Beta form. The tool is an experiment in collaborative problem solving. The Wiki already contains all of the publicly listed US companies, their boards of directors and senior executives. It is searchable, so that you can find where a person fits into an organisation.

Feedburner Acquired for USD100 Million

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:26:17 GMT

Feedburner is an RSS management company established in 2003. In June 2007, Google bought the company for a rumoured USD100 million. Feedburner provides statistics information an advertising management for close to half a million blogs and other RSS feeds. Its Web-based tools help publishers promote, deliver, and commercialise their RSS content. It also makes feed-based content more accessible and manageable for its end users.

Xerox Releases "FactSpotter" Smart Searching Tool

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 04:07:33 GMT

Xerox has developed a new text-mining tool that understands text like a human being. "FactSpotter" is a new technology that takes ordinary search to the next level by digging deeper into documents, analysing meaning of words and context. The tool is designed for retrieving information from massive data bases, such as is required in legal cases, fraud detection, drug discovery and risk management. FactSpotter can comb through almost any document regardless of the language, location, format or type; take advantage of the way humans think, speak and ask questions; and discriminate the results highlighting just a handful of relevant answers instead of returning thousands of unrelated responses.

Microsoft and IBM Pushing Wikis

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:37:02 GMT

Microsoft has jumped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon with the launch of an add-on for SharePoint server that enables businesses to make use of collaboration features such as wikis and blogs. The notion of integrating Web 2.0 technologies from the public Internet (blogs, wikis, and social networking features) in businesses has been gaining momentum for the past few years and is sometimes referred to as "enterprise 2.0". IBM too is releasing a series of tools in the next month or so. Lotus Connect, which provides blogs and bookmarking tools for business users, is one such tool.

RoboHelp 6 Wins Visual Studio Magazine Award

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 03:51:14 GMT

Adobe RoboHelp 6 has won the Visual Studio Magazine's Reader's Choice Award for Help Authoring Tools. The result was announced in the June edition of the publication. These awards, chosen by Visual Studio Magazine's readers, honour excellent software in 22 development categories. A Readers' Choice Merit Award was also awarded to ComponentOne Doc-to-Help Enterprise.

There's More to Audio than You Think

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:28:39 GMT

It is becoming easier and easier to include audio in manuals, Help systems and Web content. Sound and acoustics are very specialised areas. More specialised than you would think. Consider this. The BMW car company employs over 100 acoustic engineers, and uses the services of a number of acoustics companies. Their role? Not only to make the engine noise just right, and not just to keep the cabin quiet. Acoustic engineers work on "driving pleasure" sounds (the sound of the machine) and on "quality sound'. The acoustic design ensures that actuating noises, switch noises, door closing noises, seat tilt noises and any other noises play their part in the overall impression of the car's quality. Perhaps we should be deliberately designing the sound of our online content?

HyperWrite Web Site Renovated

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:37:57 GMT

HyperWrite's Web site has been completely overhauled. While retaining the main structural elements of the old site, the new site features wholesale integration of DITA and XML technologies to make the site easier to update. The use of XML, and a standards-based approach, also ensures consistency of presentation.

Review of Adobe RoboHelp 6

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 00:52:42 GMT

Rob Houser has written a comprehensive review of the latest incarnation of RoboHelp, Adobe RoboHelp 6. In the review for WritersUA, Rob explains what has changed, what is new, what's improved, and what has remained the same.

Online Help Conference Europe 2007

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:39:27 GMT

The annual Online Help Conference Europe is this year being held in Vilnius, capital of the Baltic country of Lithuania. Catch up on the latest developments in the field of user assistance, online help and documentation at this great event, in a must-see location!

Avoiding Physically Dangerous Content

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:02:56 GMT

It is now possible to incorporate animations and "movies" into HTML-based content. Tools such as Captivate and Mimic, for example, make it easy to include short tutorials or demonstrations within online instructions. As we move into this new area, it is important to come to grips with some unexpected dangers. Scientists have known for many years that epilepsy can be triggered by TV images. For this reason, most TV broadcasters test programmes and advertisements for harmful moving images. In fact, a tool called the Harding FPA can check images real-time as they are being broadcast. Web content, like TV content, is susceptible to the same issues. Combinations of colours on computer screens can also trigger physiological episodes such as photosensitive epilepsy and flicker vertigo. If you want to check your Web content, you can take advantage of a free downloadable analysis tool called PEAT, which was developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

MadCap Feedback Server

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:19:02 GMT

At the WritersUA Conference in Long Beach, MadCap Software announced the upcoming release of the MadCap Feedback Server. This new product, when released, will provide the ability to run end-user feedback reports and see how readers are using Web-based Help, as well as desktop Help such as HTML Help and DotNet Help. Getting feedback from your audience allows you to measure the effectiveness of your documentation. Web 2.0 collaboration features are included in Feedback Server, including allowing readers to add their own comments and rank the quality of the topics and content.

AuthorIT Update to Build 4.5.610 Released

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 06:01:13 GMT

A new update to AuthorIT version 4 has been released. This update introduces several new features including a new translation export wizard, new options for including images with XML, EPS and TIFF Support, new Word publishing templates, and a new HTML frameset.

'Wiki' Included OED

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:55:50 GMT

The latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary now includes the word 'wiki', as well as 'virtualise'.

Microsoft Clarify HTML Help Support in Vista

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:46:08 GMT

Microsoft HTML Help 1.x (HH.exe) is a Help system included in Windows releases starting with Windows 98. HTML Help is required to display compiled Help files with the .CHM file name extension. The current version of HTML Help is 1.4. HTML Help will ship in Windows Vista. However, only critical updates to the engine will be made. No new features or feature improvements will be added to the HTML Help engine for Windows Vista or future Windows releases.

WinHelp Deprecated in Windows Vista

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:23:10 GMT

Windows Help, or WinHelp, is a Help program that has been included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with the Microsoft Windows 3.0 operating system. The WinHlp32.exe program is required to display 32-bit help content files that have the ".HLP" file name extension. Microsoft have announced that Windows Help is being deprecated for Windows Vista. To view 32-bit Help files with the .HLP file name extension in Windows Vista, you will need to download and install WinHlp32.exe from the Microsoft Download Center. Microsoft strongly recommends that you discontinue using the Windows Help application in Vista, and encourages you to transition your Help to an alternative file format, such as CHM, HTML, or XML.

New Book by JoAnn Hackos

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:20:20 GMT

The 1994 bestselling classic "Managing Your Documentation Projects" by JoAnn Hackos set the industry standard for technical documentation. Since then, much has changed in the world of information development. For this reason, JoAnn has completed "Information Development", where she looks beyond the structured project of the 1980s and 1990s to focus on the rapidly changing projects of the 21st century. The new title builds on the original ideas and first-hand experiences of the author, and provides you with a clear understanding of the direction of information development, and explains techniques of project development with innovations in information design.

New Echo Product from MadCap

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:27:23 GMT

MadCap has released Echo, a new type of application that provides an easy way for authors to create and incorporate state-of-the art audio and customisable Flash controls into online output. It is built around industry-driven file formats such as XML, SWF, MP3, and WAV. Echo lets you do innovative things such as integrating podcasts directly into documentation. Echo has tight integration with other MadCap products like Flare and Mimic, but can also be used as a standalone tool for the recording, editing, and distribution of audio. Echo costs only USD89.

Flare Version 2.5 Released

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:08:29 GMT

MadCap Flare ver 2.5 is now available. New features include fully localised Flare interface into German, French, and Japanese, Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Word 2007 support, synonym support search in WebHelp and DotNet Help, and new XPS and DOCX output supports through Word 2007. Flare ver 2.5 also integrates more closely with MadCap's other products, Capture and Mimic. All existing MadCap Flare ver 2 customers can upgrade to version 2.5 at no charge.

WebCGM 2.0 Becomes an OASIS Standard and W3C Recommendation

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:03:14 GMT

The World Wide Web Consortium and OASIS jointly announced the approval of WebCGM 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation and OASIS Standard. WebCGM is a profile of the Computer Graphics Metafile, an ISO standard used to interchange two dimensional vector and mixed vector-raster graphics for technical illustration, documentation and data visualization. Advanced by the OASIS CGM Open Member Section, WebCGM is optimized for Web applications used in the defense, aviation, architecture, and transportation industries.

ExtremeEase Software Inc. releases WebHelp Author 2007

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 02:54:55 GMT

ExtremeEase Software has announced the release of WebHelp Author 2007. This brand new product is tool, aimed at technical communicators, for creating web-based help systems, online product manuals, product demos, FAQs, and knowledgebase solutions. Help systems are created in a WYSIWYG, Web-based design environment. Features of WebHelp Author 2007 include the ability to track most commonly viewed pages, unique "in-place" editing, drag and drop page management and security management.

Novell Says Open.Office is the Key

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:35:58 GMT

The popularity of OpenOffice, the open source productivity suite, will be key to the financial success of Novell, said company president and CEO, Ron Hovsepian, who hopes to be a 'custodian' between the open source community and the commercial world.

Spam at Peak Levels

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:55:25 GMT

Security vendor Marshal's threat research and content engineering team said spam volume had increased 280 percent globally since October last year.

HelpServer ver 4.4 Released

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:46:25 GMT

4.ST HelpServer is a multiplatform, Web-based solution for the organisation and management of all help and documentation throughout an enterprise. It is a server that can be deployed as a content management system and as a help system. It is equipped with an authoring tool for managing complex document structures and help projects. The product supports a virtually unlimited number of content types such as text, still images, sound, video, PDF, and HTML. The latest version, 4.4, includes improved feedback collection and reporting, and a notification feature to alert users of changes to documentation.