Logical Writers' BlogFest

When should you call Logical?

2012-04-05T13:14:45Z

People often ask me: "Who is your ideal client?" I don't have an easy answer for that, such as an industry or a client size. We literally serve clients of all sizes, from one-person to Fortune 500 companies, in a breadth of industries. So instead, I generally answer by explaining what inspires clients to call us.

Generally, clients call us when they don't know what to do with a communication need. Here are some reasons clients have called us in the last year:

a client wants to improve its win ratio on its technical proposals.
a client has tech writing, instructional design, or content development needs and wants a professional deliverable, but doesn't need a full-time employee.
a client needs extra hands during peek times from someone who can join a project in play with virutally no ramp-up.
a client doesn't have access to a communicator with subject matter expertise, and so it want someone who is good at leveraging other people's knowledge.
a client has a team that is having trouble putting together software requirements, because of limitations like lack of consensus among stakeholders or time constraints.
a client needs online learning materials, produced in an application like Captivate or Articulate.
a client has a unique business or technical communication need, such as a video project.

How can we help YOU? :) Call me (Ann) for a free chat about your world: 717.927.6168.

Tina the Tech Writer: On Beauty

2012-03-29T20:42:43Z

For my writing friends: Poor Tina the Technical Writer finds herself succumbing to her surroundings.

Hide style variants in Microsoft Word

2011-10-15T19:20:06Z

On occasion, you may notice that your list of styles in Microsoft Word contains a ton of styles you didn't create. It may seem that every time you apply special formatting, Word is generating an extra style.

You can hide the extra styles easy enough. First display, display your list of styles. (In Word 2003, click Format >> Styles and Formatting.)

Below the style list, change the Show drop-down list from Available Formatting to Available Styles. All variants that word generated due to special formatting will be hidden.

Storyboarding templates for instructional design

2011-10-05T13:17:05Z

Trainers and instructional designers sling around the term "storyboarding," as if it is a process that is unique to our field. The term tends to sound a bit mysterious to clients and others outside of our circle, although other professions use similar approaches.

At its essence, storyboarding is a method used to sketch out content at a high level in order to validate flow, find gaps, and iron out complicated areas. Walt Disney is often credited as inventing storyboards for his animations.

Instructional designers use storyboarding to sketch out content for courses that are ultimately delivered through various formats, such as by an instructor or online. The storyboard defines content, slide by slide or screen by screen, to show the progression of learning topics, and can be developed in PowerPoint, Word, a special storyboarding tool, etc.

Many designers use a two column format, with slide or screen text in the left column and either detailed instructor notes or, for online learning, a narration script in the right column. Here are some free storyboard templates for you to check out: http://theelearningcoach.com/resources/storyboard-depot/

For elearning, the storyboard also contains notes on graphic ideas for the developer who puts together animations and visual presentation of the content using tools such as Flash. For instructor-led training, the narrator script is replaced with instructor notes, which provide more detailed talking points than the content that appears on the slides. Instructor-led presentations are often developed in PowerPoint, which allows the instructor to update the content as he or she gains classroom experience with presenting the content.

Now that you know about storyboards, I bet you can see the similarity to screen mockups or can envision storyboards used for web sites.

Dilbert on Standards

2011-08-04T20:21:32Z

Why this is a great time at Logical

2011-05-12T02:11:38Z

The U.S. recession actually has proven to be a vibrant and wonderful time at Logical. Yes, really! We have two main sources for our excitement:

Companies that were once somewhat satisfied to pay too much for mediocre results are looking for better options, often turning to smaller specialty companies like Logical.
Our contacts, previously somewhat concentrated at our larger clients, have been dispersed into other organizations where they have carried our brand, and tools like LinkedIn have made it easy to stay in touch.

We have a saying: "With change comes opportunity." To expand: "With unprecedented change comes unprecedented opportunity."

And already in business for 10 years, Logical is well positioned to respond.

Free alternatives to Illustrator, Photoshop, and SnagIt

2011-03-01T14:27:35Z

If your graphic needs are minimal, you may want to try these free tools, which may be adequate:

Use gimp in cases when you normally use Photoshop.
Use inkscape in cases where you normally use Illustrator.
Use Screen Hunter for screenshots,when you might use SnagIt.

gimp and inkscape are opensource.

My thanks to Dick Hamilton, author of Managing Writers, for offering the tip on the first two tools an STC listserv.

How to fix Internet Explorer

2010-12-27T17:01:14Z

Something was broken in Internet Explorer. On occasion, when I clicked a link, I would get an error message in a dialog box and, when that closed, I would see "Page Cannot be Displayed." Ugh.

Most Microsoft programs have a self-repair these days, and IE does too. Before you use it, just be sure to figure out what add-ons you are using, because those will have to be reloaded after the repair.

Then click the Tools menu... Options, open the Advanced tab, and click Reset.

Microsoft Word: Section starts with page 2

2010-09-10T19:40:37Z

Did you ever have a pesky section that started at page 2, instead of page 1? Or the section continues numbering from the previous section, although you want it to restart numbering?

The easiest way to fix this is to change the kind of break you are using. Seems to me the Continuous page break is often the culprit.

Try Insert menu >> Break command. Select any other type of section break and click OK.

By the way, if you add an odd section page break, it forces the next page to start on an odd page, which is a right hand page when using double-sided printing. But you can't see the blank page it inserts unless you use Print Preview.

Rotating text in Word

2010-08-23T19:36:13Z

Did you ever want to rotate heading text in a table in Microsoft Word? In Microsoft Excel, you can specify the number of degrees of rotation. However, in Microsoft Word, you can only rotate text by either 90 degrees clockwise, or 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Right-click the desired text, and click the Text Direction option. Select the orientation, and click OK.

The feature is a little tricky to find, since it is not accessible from either the cell or font formatting areas (or so it seems to me).

Note: The text must be located in a table or you won't see the Text Direction option on the right-click menu. Also, for older versions of Word, the only available text rotation was Word Art. I think the rotation-in-table feature was added in the 2003 version.