Upcoming Webinars: Content Accessibility

Posted on 17 May 2012 by CharJTF

I’ll be presenting a series of three webinars on accessibility. The webinars, hosted by Adobe, cover:

Part 1: Making Sense of Accessibility (June 19)

“But we don’t have any disabled users.” As with any discipline, making your content accessible makes it better for all your users, not just those with disabilities. The first part of this three-part series covers:

  • Myths
  • Web standards
  • Types of disabilities
  • Legal issues
  • Existing solutions
  • Possible future solutions

Part 2: Creating an Accessible Layout (July 17)

What can you do to make your content appear more accessibly? During the second part of this three-part series, you’ll learn tips to make your documents (printed or online) more accessible to more users. This session will cover:

  • Document structure and layout
  • Colors
  • Fonts
  • Padding, margin, and line-height
  • Borders and underlines
  • Custom Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Part 3: Developing Accessible Content (July 31)

You’ve learned why your content should be accessible and things you can do to make it appear more accessibly. In the last part of this three-part series, you’ll learn ways that you can create more accessible content and why they matter:

  • Grammar
  • Paragraph and sentence length
  • Alternative and title text
  • Link text
  • Data tables
  • Images and videos
  • Labels

Register at the Adobe site.

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Webcast: Trends in technical communication, 2012

Posted on 1 February 2012 by CharJTF

On January 31, Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium Publishing and I talked about tech comm trends for 2012. We each covered three trends (so six in total).

Many thanks to all who attended :-) You were a great group!

View the webcast recording. And visit the Scriptorium site for more videos and to see the list of upcoming events.

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WritersUA Early Registration Ends on Jan 15!

Posted on 9 January 2012 by CharJTF

Register now for the WritersUA Conference in Memphis from March 10-14, 2012, and take advantage of the early registration discount. (You can save $300!) The focus is on techniques for creating a better experience for people working with our software.

Hope to see you there!

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Plan your 2012 Conference Schedule Now!

Posted on 22 December 2011 by CharJTF

Have you planned your 2012 conference schedule yet? Registration is open for several now, if you have 2011 funding that you need to spend before the new year.

Some of my favorites:

  • 27th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN), February 27 – March 3, in San Diego, CA, USA. I’m not presenting at CSU (the Microsoft MVP Summit is taking place at the same time), but I’m hoping to attend at least one day.
  • WritersUA (The Conference for Software User Assistance). March 11-14, in Memphis, TN, USA. I’ll be presenting two sessions during UA 101 on Sunday (“HTML and CSS” and “Help Authoring Tools”).
  • LavaCon 2012 Graduate Event in Honolulu, April, 2012. If you attended LavaCon in November 2011, you can attend the Graduate Event (limited to 30 attendees). More information will be published soon.
  • Technical Communication Summit, May 20-23, Rosemont, IL, USA. This year’s conference has over 80 sessions, organized in 10 tracks. “Really Early Bird” registration (limited to the first 100 registrants) expires December 31, and “Early Bird” registration expires March 30.
  • Big Design Conference, May 31-June 2, Addison, TX, USA. You can purchase “Early Bird” tickets until February 29. The schedule is still being filled in, but a partial schedule is available.
  • LavaCon 2012, October 2012, Portland, OR, USA. This year’s management focus is “Increasing Your Corporate Value”, and the technology focus is “Creating and Deploying eBooks”. More information will be available in 2012.

Hope to see you in 2012!

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WritersUA “Early Registration” is open!

Posted on 3 August 2011 by CharJTF

Register now for the 2012 WritersUA Conference, which will be held in Memphis next year at The Peabody Hotel. You can get all the information from the WritersUA conference web page.

Hope to see you there!

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“Learning Author-it” Is Here!

Posted on 13 May 2011 by CharJTF

Way back in 2002, I started working on training materials for Author-it. This year, I pulled together a book based on those training materials, and it’s now available.

From the XML Press website:

Let Author-it guru Char James-Tanny teach you how to get the most from Author-it. Char has taught hundreds in her acclaimed classes, and now she has drawn from her extensive experience to create the definitive resource for learning Author-it. Whether you are new to Author-it or an experienced user, there is something here for you.

If you are just starting out with Author-it, Learning Author-it will make the sometimes daunting learning curve for Author-it smoother and easier. You will learn how libraries work, how to wrap your head around Author-it’s object-oriented structure, how to work with your content, and how to publish your output.

If you are an experienced Author-it user, get a refresher from someone who uses Author-it like a technical writer. Char provides dozens of tips, helpful screenshots, and more than 150 tasks to help increase your efficiency (and lessen any frustration). And you’ll find lots of tips and tricks that will improve your productivity.

Char wrote and published Learning Author-it entirely with Author-it beta version 5.5, except for the front and back covers.

You can purchase the book at:

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Using the Mark of the Web (MOTW)

Posted on 10 January 2011 by CharJTF

If you develop websites and you add even the littlest bit of JavaScript (like the “framebuster” script I used to add to my sites), you get a warning message when you preview the site in Internet Explorer because of Active Content. I thought the only option for disabling this message was to modify my security settings (which I’m very hesitant to do, given some of the files that I receive). However, Microsoft has provided a way to disable this message for those pages that you know are safe.

Called Mark of the Web (MOTW), it’s a comment added to the <head> section that indicates what website the content belongs to. The MOTW must follow a specific format, including the number of characters in the string. For example:

<!-- saved from url=(0025)http://www.helpstuff.com/ -->

The MOTW must start with the comment code and text “saved from url=“. The numbers in parentheses must match the number of characters in the URL string (including the trailing backslash).

If this is for a new site, or if the domain is not known, you can use about:internet as a valid URL. For example:

<!-- saved from url=(0014)about:internet -->

I’m slowly adding MOTW to the sites I develop…it will take awhile, but because it only helps me in development, there’s no rush.

For more information on MOTW, visit MSDN.

Don Lammers from Shadow Mountain has informed me that MOTW, when used locally, will prevent links to a PDF from opening, and users don’t receive any warning as to why the links aren’t working. If you have to create links to PDF files, you won’t be able to use MOTW. This only affects those folks developing local HTML-based Help.

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LavaCon presentation: Getting the Most Out of Twitter…Everywhere!

Posted on 7 November 2010 by CharJTF

On Friday, 1 October 2010, I presented “Getting the Most Out of Twitter…Everywhere!” at the 2010 LavaCon Conference in San Diego.

You can view the slides of that presentation at SlideShare. (I was hoping that my animations would be preserved…maybe someday :-) .)

Jackie Damrau from STC Lone Star Chapter reviewed my session (along with several others and LavaCon) in the October 2010 issue of Technically Write.

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Fierce Content Management: Net Neutrality

Posted on 14 September 2010 by CharJTF

Ron Miller asked me to write a guest post for Fierce Content Management. Read “What’s all the fuss about net neutrality?” and let me know what you think!

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Nov 8-12: Take advantage of Char’s visit to Houston!

Posted on 3 September 2010 by CharJTF

I’ll be speaking at STC Houston about HTML5 and CSS3 on Tuesday, Nov. 9, from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. (Get more information at the STC Houston website.)

While I’m in Houston, I’m offering half- and full-day consulting slots to companies who want me to come onsite. The time slots are being offered in the following order:

  • Tuesday morning (half-day only)
  • Monday afternoon or Monday all day
  • Monday morning
  • Wednesday morning or Wednesday all day
  • Wednesday afternoon
  • Thursday morning or Thursday all day
  • Thursday afternoon
  • Friday morning or Friday all day
  • Friday afternoon

Terms and conditions:

  • Any topic is fair game, EXCEPT for HTML5/CSS3. Some possibilities include collaborative authoring, creating CSS-based layouts, virtual teams, accessibility, and Help authoring.
  • Companies can choose to “pick my brain” or receive specific instructions on a topic, or a combination of both.
  • Fees will be determined after we discuss what you need. I will cover all expenses (although I won’t say “no” if someone wants to take me to lunch ;-) ).
  • A 50% non-refundable deposit is required, which holds your time slot. All deposits must be received by 15 October 2010. Purchase orders for the deposit or entire fee will be accepted.
  • First come, first served. Once a time slot has been reserved and the deposit or purchase order has been received, it will be removed from the list. (I’ll update the list as people tell me that they want slots.)
  • All arrangements must be in process by 28 September 2010. (I have to make travel arrangements that week!) If you make any changes after that date and those changes affect my travel plans, you are responsible for change fees.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions! (And I hope to see you at the STC Houston chapter meeting. Come by and say “hi!”)

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