One mistake to avoid when you start selling online is to offer too many products. Try to focus your site around 3-5 products at most and you’ll have get sales. Ideally, your site should focus on your money pages. To identify your money pages, use the advanced features in Google Analytics.

Identify Money Pages with Google Analytics

To get a better understanding of your money pages, log into Google Analytics.

• Select the blog/website you want to analyze.
• Select a 3 month range so you get better picture of how your site/products have performed.
• Select Top Content from the side menu.
• Select the top 50 pages from the Show Rows at the bottom of the screen. This is more than enough to determine and optimize your top performing pages.
• Select Percentage from the View option (far left of screen). This displays the top performing pages based on the percentage of traffic to the overall site. It’s also color-coded so you can identify the top pages faster.
• Click on the Second most visited page. This opens the Content Detail page.

Note: your homepage is probably your most visited page. Ignore this for now and look at the other pages as these are pages your customers (and prospective customers) are interested in.

Drill Down into Google Analytics

You now want to examine a few stats:

• How visitors found your content
• Navigation Summary,  i.e. Entrance Paths visitors used to get to your content and where they go next
• Entrance Sources per page
• Entrance Keywords per page.

To do this, you need to look at the Navigation Summary:

• Click Navigation Summary – this shows you the paths/pages visitors used to get to your content and where they go next.

This shows you the:

• Percentage of Entrances
• Percentage of Previous Pages
• Percentage of Exits
• Percentage of Next Pages

What you’re interested in is the Exits and Next Pages.

If you look at the Next Pages, you can see where they went next.

Did they go to your sales page?

Use this screen to examine where your customers are going and see what patterns emerge. For example, instead of going to the Buy Now page, they go to the About Us page.

That makes sense. They want to know who you are before they buy.

But, look at the About Us page in Google Analytics and see if they are going back to the Buy Now (salespages).

If they are not, then look at where they do and see how/where you can adjust these pages to return to the sales pages. Sometimes this is as simple as including a prominent link/button to the Sales page. Other times you need to be more creative.

Other Sales Stats to Examine

Once you get to know how Google Analytics works, look at the:

• Path they take once they enter your money page
• How long they stay on these pages
• Where they leave the site

Tip: if you’re running an ecommerce site, or any site that sells things, the Exit page SHOULD be the page where they buy the product, right?

You’re trying to get them to the site, read about the product, and then hit the Buy Now button.

Use Excel to Filter Sales Data

You can export all the data in Google Analytics into Excel (and XML and PDF). I often do this as I know Excel fairly well and can create charts faster in here. It also lets me compare the data against data from other sites such as Google Adwords, AdSense and other site analytics software.

To do this:

• At the top of the screen, click Export.
• Select CSV for Excel from the submenu.
• This downloads the stats to an Excel file you can examine when offline and /or data mine with Excel.

Next week, we’ll look at Entrance Keywords as these are the words, terms, and expressions that customers are using to land on your site. While the other information is useful, the keywords tell you what they are looking for and… how close your site/products meets their needs.

What other ways do you know for finding your money pages?

If you use Adobe PDFs to create technical guides, confidential reports and other business documents, then these ten PDF tips are for you. The web has many free PDF converters out there. That’s fine. But Adobe Distiller has some advanced features if you want more control of your documents, for example, increase download speed, password protection, embedding thumbnails, and color control.

Top 10 PDF Tips & Tricks

Adobe Distiller lets you optimize PDFs, for example, by embedding specific fonts, fine-tuning PDFs for web-viewing, and for allowing Postscript files to over-ride PDF settings.

Here are some things you can do.

1. Embed Thumbnails – use this option to embed a set of thumbnails that are displayed in the left navigation bar. Nice way for readers to see your document at a glance, rather than having to scroll all the way through it.
2. Save in Distiller Format – save the PDFs, with all the settings, in Distiller’s own file format (.joboptions). Later, if you want to modify the file, you can open this. I use this option on large projects when I combine multiple PDFs together. You can also pause the operation and go back to it later – without losing the settings.
3. PostScript – advanced settings let you allow PostScript to over-ride the PDF settings and also allow PostScript XObjects to be in included.
4. Font settings – you can embed all fonts in the PDF (rather than the default fonts) and also embed a subset of embedded fonts it the document reaches a certain percentage. You can also tell Distiller to always embed specific fonts, e.g. fonts related to your brand, logo etc.

   

5. Document Structure Conventions – here you can process DSC comments, log warnings, and preserve both EPS and OPI information.
6. Create Profiles – you can also save you settings as a Profile. Or create different profiles for different document types, such as for Print, Web, or Mobile. This saves you the time/effort when you go to do your next batch of PDFs.
7. Color Management – the color management settings lets you control how colors are displayed, for example, you can convert all colors to sRGB. There are also options for CMYK and preserving half-tones.
8. Tagging – further options let you tag everything, or just images, for color management.
9. Web Settings – create a profile (i.e. group of settings) and optimize the PDFs for web publishing. For example, configure Adobe Distiller so that PDFs download faster. Note that while the image quality may degrade slightly, the documents will open faster.
10. Password Protection – enables you to protect the document. There are different levels here: you can set it so that people need a password to open the PDF, to select text, or to print the document. For example, you may want people to be able to read your document but not print it and/or copy and paste text.

What Adobe Distiller tips do you have?

I’ve barely scratched the surface. Do you find the web quick save really makes a difference? What other improvements do you see when you use this tool?

RJ Jacquez shares this tip for sharing large files on Twitter.

“If you are on Twitter, you know how easy it is to share photos with your followers, as well as URLs; and in fact many Twitter desktop clients, such as TweetDeck, make it as easy as drag-and-drop because they include built-in support for services like TwitPic and Bit.ly.

However sharing large files with your Twitter followers isn’t yet integrated into these applications and it can be quite confusing to most people.”

RJ recorded the following short how-to video, where he goes over how the free Acrobat.com Share service can be used to store and share large files with your Twitter followers.

Click HERE to watch the how-to video on Sharing Large files on Twitter via Acrobat.com

You can now download the FrameMaker 9.0.3 patch.

Mahesh (http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm over on Adobe does a great job of keeping us up to date with all things FrameMaker. This is available through Adobe Update Manager (AUM). This patch (9.0p250) must be applied on top of 9.0.2 (9.0p237) only. You can check for updates through Help->Updates Menu in FrameMaker.

Manish writes that the following workflows are now enabled and/or supported with this patch:

• API Command — The “New document command” in the quick access bar doesn’t get disconnected from the API command “F_ApiDefineCommand”.
• DITA — On converting DITA map, which contains nested topicrefs, to a book the content of the topic files was hidden in folder templates. In 9.0.3, the folder containing template will be labeled as: []
• DocBook — The starter kit unifies the XML and SGML applications and fixes various formatting inconsistencies in the XML application.
• Fonts — Opening/importing files created in FrameMaker 7.2 with virtual fonts applied to the text now correctly shows the text in FrameMaker 9.
• Markers — The correct Index of Marker(IOM) is generated for a file containing Markers that use structured building blocks.
• Memory — Memory leak shouldn’t happen while creating a book with FrameMaker components from DITA map.
• Message Box — FrameMaker doesn’t crash while displaying a message box during FA_Note_PreQuitBook notification, on the second call of F_ApiUpdateTextInset() and when F_ApiAlert() is called from within a FA_Note_PostQuitDoc notification.
• PreserveEntity FDK client — This can be combined with XSLT in XML applications to preserve variables and special character handling when documents are round-tripped between FrameMaker and XML.
• Spelling Checker — This allows words with special characters to be added to dictionary. It also shows the words with suffix “(s)” as correctly spelled now.
• Table Designer — FrameMaker doesn’t crash on switching on different tabs of table designer when context is set for book and panels are iconized.
• Tables — Table row element hides while using DITAVAL filter.
• User Variables — Deletion of multiple user-variables from Variable Pod should not crash FrameMaker.

Image courtesy of Adobe.com

Structured Documents

Manish adds that in structured document, now you can hide child elements even when in Show state if the parent element is hidden using conditional text. This is an additional option.

How Conditional Text works in FrameMaker 9.0.3

Download PDF on how Conditional Text works in FrameMaker 9.0.3

Get the PDF on Acrobat.com - https://share.acrobat.com

DPI resolution for PNG, JPG and GIF files

Adobe says that the dimensions and default dpi resolution for PNG, JPG and GIF files should not get corrupted when imported in FrameMaker.

FrameMaker 9.0.3 Release Notes

Technical information is at: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/10/framemaker_903_available_now.html

Wording of this technical document

Some of the wording is a bit odd. It refers several times to features that ‘may’ work.

What do they mean it may work? When will it not work? And why not?

Maybe I’m just being picky but these vague statements don’t encourage me to believe that it actually works. It’s more like Adobe is saying “well, whatever, it might work…”

I find this a bit odd. Does it work or not?

C’mon guys!

I’m not a big fan of ebooks. To be honest, they’re just glorified PDFs and look terrible onscreen. So, I tend to avoid them. However, I came across this jewel in Adobe’s lab site and it’s terrific.

What does it do?

Adobe Digital Editions is a rather slick ebook reader that lets you read and manage eBooks, both online and offline, with support for PDF and XHTML-based content.

You can use it to download and purchase digital content, which can be read both online and offline. Transfer copy-protected eBooks from your PC to other computers. Organize eBooks into a custom library and annotate pages. It also supports eBook formats, including PDF/A and EPUB.

FAQs

• Digital Editions is built from the ground up as a lightweight, rich Internet application (RIA).
• Download is only 2.5 MB including Adobe Flash Player 9 and takes less than two minutes to install over a broadband connection.
• With an RIA service model, you always have the latest version of Digital Editions, giving you the advantage of new features and security enhancements.

What is Adobe Digital Editions?

Digital Editions is Adobe’s new rich Internet application (RIA) specifically designed for digital publishing. It lets you easily acquire, manage, and consume eBooks and other kinds of digital publications.

How does Adobe Digital Editions differ from Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat?

Adobe Reader supports a variety of workflows beyond consuming eBooks and other commercially-published content, such as interactive forms, digital signatures, and other workflows that involve integration with other office applications. This means that Reader’s functionality is not optimized for consumer-level eBook reading. Likewise, Adobe Acrobat offers advanced document generation and collaboration functionality.

Digital Editions extends the eBook capabilities (integrated in Reader and Acrobat) via a simplified, content-centric user interface. Digital Editions is distributed as a web-based RIA, ensuring that users will always have the current up-to-date version of the software.

Does Digital Editions replace Adobe FlashPaper?

For some, it might. Digital Editions delivers a lightweight Flash-based user experience for document viewing, and adds native PDF and XML document viewing capabilities, so that translation of content to SWF format is not required.

However, initially Digital Editions will not operate inside the browser, and requires a Player Add-in installation. Customers who require in-browser operation with the standard Flash Player may wish to continue to utilize FlashPaper, which remains a component of the Adobe Contribute product.

Interface designed for digital reading

I have to admit that I really love the ui. It’s clean, well-organized, and is an improvement over Adobe Acrobat. (Try it and you’ll see.)

• It’s expressly designed for reading digital publications.
• Use the Reading View to view bookmarks, annotations, and a table of contents.
• Display PDF files in a double-page, single page, or fit-to-width view — or specify your own custom fit.
• Increase and decrease text size with EPUB content.
• Fast, free download and installation

Stand-alone installer

You can distribute Digital Editions internally on an intranet site or a local network.

Content portability

Manage digital publications across multiple computers and devices using your Adobe ID and a simple authorization process. Digital Editions also provides support for content portability on mobile devices, so you can take your eBooks with you wherever you go.

Markup features

Add bookmarks to PDF or EPUB documents so that you can quickly navigate around a document. Highlight text and add comments for future reference within your digital publications.

Support for PDF and EPUB

Native support for PDF/A and EPUB formats. PDF/A is the ISO-approved standard for the long-term preservation of electronic documents. EPUB is an XHTML-based file format designed to reflow text according to screen and font size, which makes it optimal for reading content on mobile devices.

Borrowing eBooks

You can borrow eBooks from many public libraries for use with Digital Editions.

File organization

Organize digital publications and manage devices in the Library View. Sort by title, author, and publisher, and view the covers of your favorite eBooks. Create custom bookshelves to further organize and manage your content.

Multiple platform support

Digital Editions runs on many platforms for reading digital publications on laptop and desktop computers. In addition, it allows support for the Sony® Reader.

Multimedia support

Supports embedded SWF files so you can include multimedia experiences in digital publications.

Easy eBook creation

With Adobe InDesign® CS3 software, you can create content and output it to both the PDF/A and EPUB formats supported by Digital Editions.

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers

Copy protection

It works in conjunction with Adobe Digital Experience Protection Technology (ADEPT), a hosted service that provides publishers with copy protection in both retail and library environments.

Multilingual support

English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional.

Issues

Why do some PDF documents look different in Digital Editions beta than they do in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader?

It uses Adobe PDF technology that has been optimized for small code size and lower system requirements.

This technology is optimized for performance and on-screen readability, rather than graphics-arts or prepress-level fidelity. Some minor differences in graphics and font rendering are therefore to be expected.

In addition, the Digital Editions PDF implementation does not support several enterprise-oriented PDF features. These features are not typically used in PDF-based eBooks and, if present, are ignored, but could cause certain documents to render incorrectly.

Which PDF 1.7 features are not supported by Digital Editions?

PDF interactive forms, JavaScript, digital signatures, 3D, and annotations are not supported by Digital Editions.

Links:

Adobe Labs – http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/digitaleditions/

You can read more detailed and technical FAQs over here and then

FAQs – http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/digitaleditions/faq.html

Download a nice collection of free ebooks from the site here.

Free ebooks – http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/library/

Let me know what you think. What’s not to like?

This article explains how to convert large files between Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker.In this tutorial, the source file is the file being converted (Word) and target file is the file that it will be converted into (in this case, a FrameMaker file).

Our goal during this process is to reduce the Word document into an (almost) plain-text document — but keeping its style names, as these will be used to match styles and tags later in the FrameMaker document.

The overall process involves three stages:

• Preparing the Word file for conversion.
• Refining the FrameMaker file in line with the Style Guide.
• Creating the PDF file.

Note: Before you start, print out the Style Guide and use it as a reference during the overall process. This saves you time moving between files and also helps you become more familiar with the Style Guide’s format and presentation as it sits on your desk and is more accessible.

Preparing the Word file

The first step is to prepare the Word file so that its contents will convert more easily into FrameMaker. This involves deleting all formatting that is unique to Word, such as Text Frames.

For example, FrameMaker has very powerful Table of Contents generation features, so you can rely on this rather than trying to import Word’s or hard-coding it to match the FrameMaker format.

To start the process, delete all the Word constructs that need to be removed before the conversion process can start. This involves the following steps:

• Deleting the Table of Contents (TOC)
• Deleting headers and footers
• Deleting local paragraph overrides
• Deleting local character overrides
• Deleting text frames
• Deleting ALL Word specific features
• Deleting linked graphics

The next section explains what needs to be deleted in Word, and provides some information on why we use this approach.

Table of Contents

As FrameMaker has very advanced Table of Contents (TOC) functions, it is much simpler to delete the TOC in Word and then rebuild it in FrameMaker.

In Word, select the TOC and delete it. Save the file.

Note: If you’ve used bookmarks in Word to generate a TOC, delete them as well. The effort it takes to import them into FrameMaker is not worth the effort. FrameMaker can do it quicker.

Headers and Footers

Both Word and FrameMaker have a different approach to Headers and Footers. In FrameMaker, these are setup in the Master page and controlled from there. Trying to import Word’s header and footers into FrameMaker will only confuse it.

In Word, open the header and footer option. Select each one and press Delete. Save the file.

Local paragraph overrides

This involves deleting any formatting in paragraphs (which should have been formatted with Body styles) which has been done manually — rather than formatted with a Word style.

If you import these local paragraph overrides into FrameMaker, they will confuse the tag settings. It’s much simpler to delete them in Word and then rebuild in FrameMaker.

In Word, select the entire document and press Ctrl+Q. Save the document.

Local character overrides

An example of local overrides is when, for example, in Word a paragraph is entirely Times Roman except for the 3rd word, which is in italic. If the italic was set using a character style, the FrameMaker file may assign that style to the 3rd word AND to the remaining words in the paragraph—not what you want!

My suggestion is to delete all local character overrides in Word.

In Word, select the entire document and press Ctrl+Spacebar. Save the file.

Later, in FrameMaker, you will use the Paragraph Designer to modify the style correctly.

Word specific features

All Word specific features have to be deleted as they cannot be interpreted in FrameMaker. Even worse, if you do not do this, they may corrupt the FrameMaker document.

In Word, delete all borders, WordArt, callout boxes, arrows, text frames, etc. Save the file.

Text Frames — Word uses text frames to create what FrameMaker calls a side-head, i.e. text that appears in the left margin column. To recreate the Word text frame in FrameMaker, create a tag in FrameMaker called ‘TextFrame’ and design this in accordance with the style guide.

Linked graphics

Some Word documents ‘link’ graphics (Insert | Picture | From File) to the document rather than using the traditional cut/paste approach.

For a Word to FrameMaker conversion, this means that when you open the RTF file in FrameMaker the graphic file have to correctly link to the same folders as those in Word. In theory, this should work, but in my experience, this does not always work. Instead, follow these steps:

In Word, select each graphic file, save it with a unique name, e.g. Architecture.gif etc, and store it in the project folder. Once this is done, delete all graphics, and Save the file.

Note: In FrameMaker, you will import all these graphics back into the document.

Once all these steps are completed, you then need to modify different parts of the Word file, depending on how it was created.

Note: This does not involve deleting content as we have done above, but modifying how it is constructed, for example adjusting how the number and bullet lists are formatted in Word so that they can be imported into FrameMaker with less data corruption.

You don’t need to delete these constructs, but you do have to adjust their presentation otherwise they will create confusion in the FrameMaker file, for example you could end up with two bullets for every list entry rather than one.

For the conversion project, this involved managing the following areas:

• Master Pages and sections
• Headings
• Numbering
• Bullets
• Cross-references
• Artwork
• Spanned Columns
• Books and master documents
• Styles and tags

Master Pages and sections

FrameMaker uses Master Pages; Word uses sections.

In Word, sections are often used to insert different headers and footers throughout the document. FrameMaker’s approach is totally different.

Figure 1 – How to access FrameMaker Master Pages (View | Master Pages).

In Word, delete all section breaks. You can search for ^b to find all occurrences. Save the file.

Headings

FrameMaker doesn’t care how headings are named. Because of this, you don’t have to modify the style names in Word before the conversion — unless you want to change the style names to reflect the target template.

However, it’s recommended that you delete all redundant headings, and other redundant styles, as they hold no value.

In Word, delete all redundant headings (Format | Styles and Formatting) and save the file.

Figure 2 – In Word, delete all redundant styles and headings

Numbering

If your Word document uses automatic numbering and styles, you’re in luck! However, if the numbering has been done manually, delete the numbers (but not the styles) in Word.

Then, when you open the file in FrameMaker, you can attach a style with numbering applied. You will probably have to do some resetting to 1 and so on, but this is straightforward process in FrameMaker.

In Word, search for all numbers applied manually. Delete the numbers, but not the styles. Save the file.

Bullets

Like numbering, Bullets were done hopefully with styles and not manual overrides. If styles were used, then keep the style names but delete the bullet from the definition.

In Word, search for all bullets applied manually. Delete the bullet. Save the file.

Figure 3 – In Word, select pre-defined bullets and numbers

Note: If the bullets were done by hand in Word, you may find numbered paragraphs in FrameMaker with two bullets—one defined by the FrameMaker tag, and one kept from Word during the import. The quickest way to fix this is to delete the unnecessary bullet by hand. When you open the file in FrameMaker, the bullets should appear correctly as a result of FrameMaker‘s numbering system.

Cross-references

In Word, you can only cross-reference within the same file; by contrast, FrameMaker can cross-reference among other files within a Book. When FrameMaker reads a Word file with cross-references, it finds obscure marker such as “_Ref565989”. These are of no use to FrameMaker and need to be deleted.

In Word, delete all cross-references and re-create them in FrameMaker by hand. Save the file.

Artwork

Any artwork that was cut and pasted into a Word file can be imported directly into FrameMaker. However, there are two issues to consider:

1. The quality of ‘Cut and Paste’ files that you bring into FrameMaker often degrade, i.e. lose quality. Though it may be time-consuming, it’s recommended that you re-create these in PhotoShop and then import them into FrameMaker.

2. Linked graphics in Word files will not work in FrameMaker as the link settings affect what happens on the FrameMaker side. As discussed earlier, delete these files, save them individually, and then import into FrameMaker (File | Import | File).

Spanned Columns

In Word, delete spanned columns. These could open in FrameMaker as one pica wide and confuse FrameMaker’s setting. Delete the spans and re-build them in FrameMaker.

Books and master documents

Word has a Master Document feature that can be used for managing complex long documents. However, I strongly advice against using this feature; it is very unreliable and prone to corrupting documents. In turn, FrameMaker uses the concept of a Book to assemble project files and is very stable.

Figure 4 – FrameMaker’s Book feature

For the test conversion project, we use three files to create the overall ‘Book’; cover sheet; table of contents; main user guide pages. When working in FM, note that each of these files has a different master page and you need to update each master page where necessary.

Styles and tags

Wherever possible, use similar-named styles in both applications, for example, Copyright style; the only exception is when matching Word’s default Normal style with FrameMaker’s default Body tag.

Note: The fewer styles/ tags in FrameMaker, the easier it is to manage. Delete all redundant styles or tags and merge those that are similar.

Saving the RFT

After completing all these steps, save the Word file in Rich Text Format (RTF).

You can now open it in FrameMaker and refine it in accordance with the style guide.

Figure 5 – In Word, save the file as Rich Text Format

Preparing the FrameMaker file

You now have a modified Word file, saved as RFT, with all Word-specific features removed. The next phase involves:

• Returning the content deleted from the Word file, such as Artwork, headers, footers.
• Updating cross-references, indexes, TOC etc.
• Matching the file with the Style Guide.

To start the process:

In FrameMaker, in order to open the RTF file:

• Select File | Open | File Types | All Files (*.*).

Figure 6 – Select All Files (*.*) to view the RTF file.

• In the Unknown File Type pop-up window, select Microsoft RFT and click Convert.

Figure 7 – Select Microsoft RTF and click Convert

This opens the RTF file, though the format and presentation will be modified slightly from the Word version.

Save the file with a .fm extension. The next stage involves returning all Word content that was deleted (or modified).

Importing Graphics

You have two options when bringing graphics into FrameMaker. You can either:

• Option A – Cut and paste from Word or
• Option B – Cross-reference to a project directory.

Option A usually results in large file sizes as the file has to hold the graphics, whereas in Options B they are cross-referenced from their respective location.

The problem with using Option B is that you have to include the graphics folder when sending the FrameMaker files to other users.

However, the good news is that when you need to update any graphic file in the document (or documents) instead of manually going through each page, you simply update the relevant graphic – and all files are updated automatically!

Figure 8 – Option B – Import files by reference

Unwanted Tags

After you’ve opened the RTF in FrameMaker, you may find that you’ve gained a character tag called Default Paragraph Font.

The only way to delete it is to select the text, choose Default ¶ Font, and re-assign it.

Custom table ruling and shading

To delete custom table settings from the entire FrameMaker document, do the following:

• Select the document.
• Choose Table | Custom Ruling & Shading.
• Select both of the ‘From Table’ settings, and select all check boxes.
• Click Apply.

Updating the Header and Footers

As mentioned earlier, both Word and FrameMaker have a different approach to Headers and Footers. In FrameMaker, these are setup in the Master page.

FrameMaker provides default settings for each document’s headers/footers. Use the Paragraph Designer to modify them and, when finished, select ‘Update All’. You can then return to the Body Pages.

Note: when a Book is comprised of several files, you need to set the page numbers so that there is consistency between each file. To do this, open the FrameMaker file:

• Select Format | Document | Numbering | Page.
• Enter the start page number and Save.

Updating the Table of Contents

This process has 2 options depending on whether you want to integrate your TOC in the main document or you want to create a standalone TOC. For the Klariti project, I used Option B as outlined below.

• Option A – this places the TOC within the main FrameMaker file. This option makes sense when you have a small file that is easy to update.
• Option B – this involves creating a standalone TOC that will form one part of a large FrameMaker book. In this project, we used Option B as the main file was very large and other sections used different master pages, styles etc.

To create the TOC, follow these steps:

• Open the FrameMaker Book.
• Add files where necessary.
• Click Add | Table of Contents.

Figure 9– How to create a Table of Contents

This creates a standalone TOC file. Open this and check that it matches with Style Guide. To update the design/layout, open the Master pages and make the required amendments.

PDF Setup

Before you create the PDF document, you need to define the conversion settings in FrameMaker. To do this, go to:

• Format | Document | PDF Setup.
• In Settings, select Print and for Page Range, select All.
• In Bookmarks, check Generate PDF Bookmarks, and for Include Paragraphs add Chapter Title and Headings 1, 2, and 3.
• In Tags, check Generate Tagged PDF.
• Click Set to finish.

Figure 10 – In PDF Setup Settings tab, select Print from the drop-down menu.

Figure 11 – In the Bookmark tab, add the Chapter Title and Headings

Creating the PDF file

The final step involves converting the FrameMaker files into PDF.

In this test conversion project, we have used 3 FrameMaker files which together form a FrameMaker Book. A book, as the name implies, is a master file that controls the relationship between the files that it contains.

To do this, follow these steps:

• In FrameMaker, open the Cover Sheet FrameMaker file.
• Click the Print Option (File | Print). Select the PDF prnit driver from the Print drop-down menu, for example, Adobe PDF.
• In the options screen, select All and Convert PDF Data.
• Click OK.

Follow the same steps for the other two FrameMaker files. You now have three PDF files based on the FrameMaker files. After all files are converted, close FrameMaker and open Adobe Acrobat.

The next step is to create a master PDF file that will contain the 3 PDF files in the correct sequence. To do this, open the Cover Sheet, and add the other two files as follows:

• Open the Cover Sheet pdf.
• Click Edit | Insert Pages and Add the TOC pdf file.
• Click Edit | Insert Pages and add the Klariti.pdf file.
• Once all files have been added, choose File | Save As and save the file.

You now have the entire FM file in PDF format. The next step is to create hyperlinks for the main headings.

Creating Hyperlinks

In FrameMaker, when you add a table of contents, there is an option to create hyperlinks automatically. However, during this project, this option failed to work. An error message stated that it required additional fonts in order to compile. Therefore, the table of contents file did not create hyperlinks to the chapter titles and headings.

Nonetheless, in Adobe Acrobat, you can manually create these links. To do this, you select the heading and cross-reference it to the relevant page in the file.

Figure 12 – The Link tool in Adobe Acrobat

To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Adobe Acrobat, open the master PDF file, e.g. UserGuide.pdf.

2. Select Window | Bookmarks to display the bookmarks. This option shows the Chapter Title and H1/H2/H3 headings.

3. Navigate to the section of the document where you want to create a link.

4. Select the link tool.

5. Create the link rectangle in one of the following ways:

• Drag the mouse to create a marquee.

• Press Ctrl (Windows) and select the target text with the I-beam. This allows you to fit a link rectangle exactly around the selected text.

6. In the Create Link dialog box, choose a rectangle type.

7. Select a highlight option for when the link is selected.

8. Choose an action type.

9. Choose a magnification option.

10 Click Set Link.

Complete this step for all headings in the TOC.

Figure 13 – The Link Properties option in Adobe Acrobat

This process will create hyperlinks from all headings to their respective sections in the PDF document.

Security Settings

In Adobe Acrobat, there are various security options available. The most relevant for this project is to ensure that unauthorized personnel cannot modify the document.

In particular, you want to disallow unauthorised personnel from copying text from your PDF into their documents, for whatever reason.

Figure 14 – The Document Security option in Adobe Acrobat

To do this, follow these steps:

• In Adobe Acrobat, go to File | Document Security.
• Choose Adobe Standard Security from the drop-down menu.
• Under Permissions, check the four options, e.g. No Printing etc.
• Click OK. Click Close and then File | Close to save the settings.

Figure 15 –Security options in Adobe Acrobat

When you re-open the file, these settings will apply.

Matching the Style Guide

To get the styles to match, review the styles/tags in the FrameMaker file against those in the Style Guide.

For example, if the Style Guide’s Body style is Arial 10 etc, and the FrameMaker file has it set to Times Roman 11, you need to correct this as follows:

• Open FrameMaker and select all content marked as Body.
• Open Paragraph Designer and update the Body fields.
• Select ‘Apply to All’. This updates all occurrences of the Body style in the document.

To stop other technical authors from using the wrong styles, delete ALL redundant styles. For example, the RFT file may have several body styles, e.g. Body, Body + Left, Body + Indent. In FrameMaker, delete all of these otherwise future authors may use these inadvertently.

What do you think?

This approach has worked well for me when converting Microsoft Word documents into FrameMaker. I should add that the latest versions of Adobe FrameMaker offer a more streamlined approach to converting the docs.

With that said, you’re still going to have to clean up the Adobe FrameMaker docs to some extent regardless of how well the converter works.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll look at conversion software and work on the latest version of Adobe FrameMaker, which I’ve now got my hands on.

Let me know if you’ve come across better ways to convert these docs or maybe some of the issues you’ve had in converting these docs.

Thanks.

iText lets developers enhance web applications with dynamic PDF document generation and/or manipulation. iText is not an end-user tool. Typically you won’t use it on your Desktop as you would use Acrobat or any other PDF application. Rather, you’ll build iText into your own applications so that you can automate the PDF creation and manipulation process.

How to create PDFs Dynamically with iText?

For instance in one or more of the following situations:

• Due to time or size, the PDF documents can’t be produced manually.
• The content of the document must be calculated or based on user input.
• The content needs to be customized or personalized.
• The PDF content needs to be served in a web environment.
• Documents are to be created in "batch process" mode.

Key Features of iText

You can use iText to:

• Serve PDF to a browser
• Generate dynamic documents from XML files or databases
• Use PDF’s many interactive features
• Add bookmarks, page numbers, watermarks, etc.
• Split, concatenate, and manipulate PDF pages
• Automate filling out of PDF forms
• Add digital signatures to a PDF file

iText classes are very useful for web developers who need to generate read-only, platform independent documents containing text, lists, tables and images; or who want to perform specific manipulations on existing PDF documents.

The library is very useful in combination with Java technology-based Servlets; there’s also a .NET port available: iTextSharp (written in C#).

iText requires JDK 1.4. It’s available for free under a multiple license: MPL and LGPL.

Technical Requirements

If you want to use the iText classes you should be acquainted with JAVA (TM) programming.
You’ll also need the following Software:

• The Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.4
• The BouncyCastle: bcprov and bcmail
• Adobe Acrobat Reader from Adobe Systems Incorporated:

Getting started with iText

There are five places that are extremely important if you want to work with iText.

1. The first is the book page. If you own the book, you get access to hundreds of examples, and you’ll save a lot of time finding your way in the library by using the book as your tutorial.
2. There’s also a free tutorial that was written before the book. Not all functionality available in iText is explained, but it’s a good place to start. If you click on one of the features in the overview, you get some explanation and some examples on how to use these features.
3. Some special examples were compiled in the iText Wiki.
4. If the examples don’t work or you experience some typical newbie problems, please consult the Frequently Asked Questions page.

Security breaches with Adobe Flash files has been a hot topic recently. I came across the press release tonight that promises to secure Flash Files against intellectual property theft. This DRM product secures Adobe shockwave Flash (swf) files without tampering with the source code in any way.

Flashguard allows companies that publish or sell Adobe flash files (SWF files) to ensure complete protection of their intellectual property. It prevents decompiling of flash files and controls what users can do with the displayed content.

Flashguard secures flash files against decompiling, unauthorized viewing, copying, sharing, modifying, saving, screen grabbing and printing.

The source files (FLA files – multimedia objects, images and scripts that make up an SWF file) are always protected against editing and misuse.

It provides the usual DRM controls such as setting an end date for the use of a file (useful if a product is being rented rather than sold) and includes the ability to remove licenses in real-time if the recipient is misusing the product.

Flash Player Security ensures your flash files cannot be compromised by other applications, browser flaws, bugs, or the common Adobe flash security issues.

What it’s not

Flashguard is not an obfuscation product. It’s a fully-fledged Flash DRM protection system. Obfuscation products don’t encrypt source code, they just alter the code and structure, often causing flash files to stop functioning correctly or at all.

Flashguard encrypts the source code (with AES 256 bit encryption) preventing programs decompiling your SWF files to FLA files.

The source code is not altered in any way – ensuring your flash files continue working as before they were protected.

In addition, Flashguard controls who can view your flash files, how long or how many times they can be viewed, and whether printing is allowed.

"The introduction of Flashguard allows many organizations that were previously unwilling to commit their IPR into flash because of security concerns, to move ahead," said Dr Mathews. "Many companies have realized the potential of flash as an interactive medium, but have been afraid to publish content in this format as there has been no means of protecting it. Now, more than ever before, the new technologies have to earn their promise of lowering cost and increasing profit. But without giving everything away."

LockLizard Flashguard Flash Security is priced from $2495 for a subscription license. More information on securing flash can be found at http://www.locklizard.com/flash_security.htm.

This free PDF-to-Excel online conversion service lets you create highly-editable Excel files, making it simple to re-use tables and spreadsheets from PDF files in MS Excel, OpenOffice, and Google Docs. We haven’t tested it on Zoho yet.

In our PDF to Excel testing, it accurately detected tables and maintained the look and feel to match the appearance of original files.

The new service from Nitro’s adds to its free PDF software suite which currently has a base of over 25 million users and comprises the world’s #1 free PDF creator, PrimoPDF

Link: www.pdftoexcelonline.com