Missing underlines on menu items

Help! My menus don’t have those underlines under certain letters any more. Can I get them back?

Sure you can. These underlined letters are variously known as ‘access keys’, ‘hot keys’, or ’shortcut keys’—they give you access to functions in the program using the keyboard instead of the mouse. But the setting to re-enable them is pretty hidden so you’re not likely to stumble upon it.

To get your access keys back in Windows XP:

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Display > Appearance tab.
2. Click the Effects button.
3. Clear the Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key check box.
4. Click OK twice to save your settings and close the two open windows.

Where are the female presenters?

One thing I noticed about the AODC Conference was the lack of female presenters, especially considering how many females were in attendance.

In one of today’s sessions, I counted 30 females out of a total of 56 delegates in the room. That’s over 53%. But of the 14 presenters over the three days, only two were women (some 14%).

There’s no obvious reason that there aren’t more female  presenters. After all, anyone can submit a proposal to speak. There are some very talented women in the list of delegates, so how about it gals? You’ve got nearly a year to come up with a topic and submit a proposal. There’s no guarantee you’re proposal will be accepted, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.

AODC Conference 2008: Day 3

Only five sessions today - the final day of the AODC Conference.

We started with Matt Armstrong from Author-it talking about content reuse and the reasons why it is and isn’t done. Unfortunately, his talk was titled “Authoring Memory” but he hardly touched on that and didn’t show Author-it’s terrific XTend product (he may not have been able to because the speakers aren’t meant to promote their own products etc.). The audience response was very subdued, but that’s probably a direct result of last night’s festivities… Many seemed to be just waking up.

Dave Gash did another lively presentation, this time on separating content, structure, format and behaviour using XML, XSL transforms, external JavaScript files, and CSS. He explains it all so well! I finally ‘got’ the XML/XSL thing.

Next up was a case study session by Rowdy Bristol, where he described a large documentation project and issues relating to working with multiple teams in various locations, multiple products and projects. This was a terrific session and Rowdy gave a great presentation on how they’re overcoming some of the hurdles they have.

Lunch was very fried today - chips, fried squid, fried fish, fried chicken… all finished off with a great pavlova.

After lunch, Matthew Ellison did a session on Guided Help that I also saw at WritersUA in March. Like Dave, Matthew’s an energetic, enthusiastic and passionate speaker, and always a delight to listen to.

The final session was reserved for the larger-than-life Choco Munday, who regaled us on the topic of “The world’s worst error messages”. Choco is a funny man, and he had some brilliant examples to show us to get his point across.

For those who hung around, Tony played “Helvetica” - the documentary on the Helvetica typeface that had its 50th anniversary last year. An interesting documentary that will make me look at signs a little differently.

There’s a few of us left at the hotel so we’ll probably head out for a meal somewhere this evening before parting to our respective homes in Australia and beyond.

Thanks to Tony and Penny for organising yet another terrific conference! We sure fulfilled the conference aims of Learning, Meeting and Enjoying (sorry - I forgot the 4th one!)

Windows: Background processes and tasks

Windows slow on bootup? Not sure what all those strange-sounding processes are that are listed on the Processes tab in Windows Task Manager?

Then take a look at http://www.answersthatwork.com/. Click on Task List, then click the alphabetic icon for the task you want to learn more about.

(Thanks for this link, Gretchen)

[Link last checked March 2008]

AODC Conference 2008: Day 2

This will be a short post as Uncle Dave’s Trivia Night starts soon…

Thursday of AODC is always the busiest and fullest day, with six meaty sessions today. I’ll try and summarise them, but if you want good detail on each, hop on over to Sarah Maddox’s blog where she’s been posting extensive summaries about each session.

• AIR Help (Tony Self): Tony introduced us to Adobe’s AIR help ‘wrapper’ (AIR = Adobe Integrated Runtime), which looks to me like a CHM on steroids! He demonstrated a couple of implementations of it and it looks pretty cool. My biggest concerns, which I asked questions about, were to do with the installation of any AIR Help as a program. Tony assured us that developers could install AIR Help as part of the application’s installation routine.
• CSS: Image Maps using Backgrounds (Dave Gash): Like Matthew’s session yesterday, I also saw this one at the WritersUA conference in March. And just like Matthew’s it was as good today as it was then. In fact, second time round I understood it better.
• Usability of Embedded Help (Colin Dawson): Colin’s presentation was a case study of a project he’s been working on for some years: getting user-mediated Help into online Help. It was an interesting approach, and I don’t know of any Help vendors doing anything like this yet.
• Techniques for Reviewing a User Interface (my session): See Sarah’s blog post for details.  Slides, handouts, voice recording, checklists etc. for my presentation of this session at WritersUA are available here: http://www.cybertext.com.au/10353.htm
• Write More, Write Less (Joe Welinske): Joe put forward some compelling reasons for making sure that every word we write has meaning and purpose, and looked at minimalist (but focused) documentation as a strategy.
• Estimating Documentation Projects (Stewart Walker): This session hit some nice chords with me, as I have been using a combined approach similar to that he described for some years with my smaller, ad hoc clients. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one, and that I’ve been on the right track.

So to tonight… It’s traditional to have a trivia night at AODC and tonight will be no exception. Dave Gash comes up with some really obscure, arcane, and just plain puzzling conundrums, and he throws in a few groan-inducing questions just to spice it up. Add to that Tony’s silly interpretation of the rules and some ridiculous prizes (where DO they get them?), and it’s a fun night all round.

Funny emergency signs

Some very funny explanations for some very serious warning and safety signs: http://www.safenow.org

[This article was first published in the March 2007 CyberText Newsletter; link last checked January 2008]

AODC Conference 2008: Day 1

Well, Day 1 of the AODC conference is over, and it’s been a feast. A feast of information and a feast of food! I’ll deal with the food first… There were cupcakes and other goodies at morning tea, a pizza and salad lunch (which sounds far more ordinary than it was), sandwich fingers for afternoon tea, and heaps of drinks and *substantial* nibblies for the post-conference ‘networking function’. More than enough, and all good.

The opening session was by Jonathan Halls (ex-BBC) who challenged us with the concept of “The new grammar”: how technology is changing the world, how young people are interacting with this technology, and what this all means to us as technical communicators now and into the future.

The key changes he identified were:

• Multimedia: Instead of multimedia, think in terms of multiple methods.
• Narrative: Moving from linear to non-linear.
• Interaction: Control shifting back to the user; and personal.
• Shared authorship: The pro/am (professional/amateur) connection (such as wikis, citizen journalists).
• Audience: Shift to community.

His practical tips for making the shift to enrich text included:

• Avoiding ‘the karaoke syndrome’ (”I can do that” even if it’s not appropriate). For example, don’t do all audio or all video just because you can, or for the sake of it.
• Audio - is lousy for detail and complexity; good for warmth, intimacy and stories
• Video - is lousy for detail, complexity and non-action; but good for action (TV: ‘if it bleeds, it leads’)
• Text - slow to read and not immediate; great for detail and complexity
• Photos - lousy for detail and context; but instant, so great for emotions and storytelling
• Information graphics - lousy on details and specifics; but immediate, great for abstract mental models
• Animations - can be distracting, lacks detail; can be useful to show action/abstraction over time.

Jonathan’s key questions for us were:

1. How do I make my message quicker and easier to understand?
2. What’s the most effective method? (consider when NOT to use a method)
3. How can I share authorship?
4. How can it be more interactive?

Next up (after a fun networking session and morning tea) was Joe Welinske who updated us on the changes currently happening with web technologies. This was an expansion on the introductory session he did late yesterday for the newcomers, and was a great overview of some of the stuff happening with the standards groups, with hybrid technologies, open source technologies, and with some of the propietary stuff coming out of companies like Adobe and Microsoft. Joe had some great examples, particularly the interactive Flash simulation example.

After lunch Sarah Goodall showed us how the company she works for, TACTICS Consulting, is using DITA to streamline and automate the process of doing sales proposals. It was the first ‘real world’ example I’d seen of DITA, and it was a great case study. I finally ‘got it’. Up until now, all the stuff I’d seen and heard on DITA had been at a higher, more theoretical level, but this was very real, very practical, and very compelling.

Finally, Matthew Ellison did his presentation on creating table ’styles’ using CSS. This was the same presentation that I attended at the WritersUA conference in March, and was as good the second time round as it was the first.

Word 2003: Replace text in quotes with bold text

A word of warning about this procedure: If your document contains programming code that uses quote marks, you shouldn’t use this method without trying it on a copy first.

Occasionally I’ve received a Word document that has all the field names enclosed in quotation marks. My preferred typographic style for field names is bold, no quotes. Which means that I have a lot of find/replace actions to do in a long document. I can’t write or record a macro as I might replace legitimate quotation marks, especially single quotes used for apostrophes.

I knew that Word had some powerful wildcard/regular expression functions in its Find/Replace function, but they are very hidden and they’re not something I’ve needed to learn. However, when faced with a 50 page document (small compared to others I’ve received) peppered with field names enclosed in quote marks, it was time to bite the bullet!

Word’s Help, particularly the Help that goes out to the Microsoft website (I hate that!), is difficult to navigate unless you know what you’re looking for, so I turned to one of my favourite websites: the Word MVPs site (http://word.mvps.org). I found what I was looking for here, but there was a critical step missing.

So here are my steps for removing single quotes surrounding a field name and formatting the enclosed text with bold. I’ve adapted these steps from those provided on the MVPs site:

1. Select Tools > AutoCorrect Options from Word’s menu.
2. Go to the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
3. In the Replace as you type section (at the top), select the “Straight” quotes with “smart quotes” check box, then click OK. This is essential—you can change it back later if you always keep it turned off, but this check box must be on when you are doing the Find/Replace.
4. Open the Find and Replace window (press Ctrl+H, or select Edit > Replace from the menu).
5. Type ‘ in the Find what field.
6. Type ‘ in the Replace with field.
7. Click Replace All. Yes, you’re replacing the quote mark with itself. What this does is replace all the straight quote marks throughout your document with curly ones (smart quotes), including your apostrophes. You can always switch the apostrophes back to straight quotes later by repeating the steps above (don’t forget to clear the check box at step 3).
8. Put your cursor in the Find what field, delete the existing quote mark, then type (‘)(*)(’). CRITICAL: The opening and closing quote marks MUST be smart quote marks, so you’ll have to copy/paste them from the document into the Find What field to make sure you have the correct ones. Don’t accidentally copy any preceding or trailing spaces.
9. Select the Use wildcards check box. If you can’t see this check box, click the More button.
10. Go to the Replace with field, delete the quote mark, and type \2. (No, I don’t know what \2 means either, and it must be REALLY hidden in the Microsoft Help as I can’t find it there either, and a Google search brings up too many spurious results.)
11. Click the Format button, then select Font.
12. Select Bold, then click OK.
13. Back on the Find and Replace window, click Replace All. Everything that was enclosed in single quotes is now bold and the quotes have been removed.
14. If you really like using straight quotes, don’t forget to turn them back on!

Capture the text in a Command window

Problem: You’re in a Command window (the old DOS window) and you’d like to capture the text on the screen. However, the usual CTRL+C doesn’t work.

Solution:

1. Right click in the Command window.
2. Choose Select All.
3. Then press ENTER. Yes, ENTER! That copies the text to the clipboard.
4. Now you can paste it into any application—for example, to send it in an email to Support.

[This article was first published in the December 2007 CyberText Newsletter]

Word 2003: Why is the Select All button inactive in Styles?

Problem: The Select All button is inactive in my Styles and Formatting list, which means I can’t select all text with the same style and change it to another style.

Solution: It’s because you have Keep Track of Formatting turned off (Tools > Options > Edit tab). I recommend that you leave that ‘keep track’ option turned off (it causes other Word nightmares…), so the solution is to turn it on when you want to select all the same style, then turn it off after you’re done.

Full details