Getting Ready for Pages

Get the most out paging from WriteRAP

Tiers 2-3: You have been using WriteRAP for structuring your content. Have your vendor ensure the styling in your content documents is correct to ensure good first pages in InDesign or Quark. Unlike keyboarded markup, you have an opportunity to see style errors visually and quickly and correct them before the compositor has to.

Tier 4: You are using WriteRAP for its structure and for a visual representation of first pages. You can take the structured content and go to first pages in InDesign, as above, but you can streamline your workflow by treating the WriteRAP file as first pages. Proofreading, editing and revisions can all be done in the MS Word environment! When the content is solid and as final as you can get in WriteRAP, you can finalize the chapter, move elements into their final position and make page breaks, or mark all of these for your vendor using comments or editorial notes.

The fewer content changes you have to make in composition, the smoother and quicker your composition passes will be. A quick proofreading pass to ensure the integrity of the content would take place, but the compositor can now focus on making good pages rather than correcting typos or sorting out a knot of marginalia on a single page. Remember that content changes in composition need to be made in the WriteRAP file as well, or logged for the next edition.

Tier 5: You are using WriteRAP and Word as the composition engine. You want to forget that Word is your composition engine as you go through the authoring-editing-proofreading-review cycle. Finalize your content in a template-driven, manuscript-like environment and then turn off Word's format protection and compose the pages when the content is final.

Because of the possibility of a slightly different representation in different versions or instances of Word, final review should be done in PDF format.

Vendor Refresh Training: Part 2

On the afternoon of Thursday, October 21st, we had the second installment of the refresher training. In that particular training session, the following vendors attended:

GEX

Progressive

Carlisle

Prepress

Juve

Element

It’s Time to Get Some Training! (Part Deux)

You may remember that last month, we talked about what to do when you needed to sign up for training. We’re pleased to announce that the new self-paced courses have been released both to the Pearson People Development Network, as well as into our Pegasus system (for external users such as authors or vendor contacts).

The courses have been revamped, rebuilt, and are more focused on specific skills used within WriteRAP. There are six new courses:

Getting Started – Getting Started focuses on logging in and out of WriteRAP and changing and recovering passwords.

Document Management – Document Management focuses on finding projects and documents, previewing documents, and uploading and downloading documents.

Toolbar Basics – Toolbar Basics focuses on opening a WriteRAP document and the toolbar, applying and removing character formatting, working with basic formatting, and applying and removing styles.

Boilerplates – Boilerplates focuses on downloading and opening the Boilerplates Library, inserting and editing boilerplates, working with common boilerplates, and cleaning up styles.

Basic Pagination – Basic Pagination focuses on repositioning boilerplates, resizing and deleting boilerplates, and breaks.

Advanced Pagination – Advanced Pagination focuses on finalizing pagination and the WriteRAP Library.

These courses are all self-paced, and include self-paced modules, job aids, a lab, and an assessment.

If you’ve already taken some training and are just looking for a little remediation, these course can provide that. You can also visit the CMS Website and peruse the Job Aids, which cover sets of skills for each course and can help you brush up on specific things as opposed to re-taking an entire training course.

Pearson People Development Network

Vendor Refresh Training: Part 1

This morning, we conducted the first vendor refresh training. Among the items we covered:

• Updates to the toolbar (Boxes macro, cleaning up Char styles, etc.)
• Updates to the interface (multiple document upload, packaging, etc.)
• Simplify templates so that they are usable
• Verify templates to the tagging guidelines
• Use of the QA checklist

The vendors at this refresh training were:

• Aptara
• Glyph International
• Integra
• Lapiz
• Laserwords
• MPS Limited
• PreMediaGlobal (PMG)
• S4Carlisle

Domestic vendors are scheduled for a similar session later this week.

We'll have an additional session later this week. The goal of this refresh training is to baseline all the vendors and Pearson in the knowledge we have to date for creating templates and working with WriteRAP projects.

We will follow up on these efforts with a monthly vendor forum to address any new issues, updates and questions that arise.

When the Toolbar and Boilerplates Don't Want to Load on the PC

We had an issue where a person was loading the WR toolbar for the first time on the PC, but was getting errors. Upon loading the WR toolbar off the website there was an error that opened a pop-up and then sent the toolbar document to the C: / Temp folder. All his office applications were turned off, as one is supposed to do. You could still activate the toolbar through Tools and Add-Ins, but this is merely a workaround that hides the issue and ultimately won't help.

Later they had a WR document open and wanted to load the boilerplates. We click Load boilerplates and get an error that is something like:

"Error #5 Invalid call or procedure"

...And no boilerplates load.

Here is more information on the computer with the problem: Windows running XP Pro version 5.1.2600, Service Pack 3.0

It turns out that these two errors are connected. Something was missing on their PC that most computers already have. The 0xc0000135 error ("The application failed to initialize properly") indicates that his .NET framework is bad or not installed at all. One should install Microsoft .NET Framework from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en> . One should install at least version 2.0.

This code should have been installed with Service Patch 2 years ago, but maybe it was missed on his machine. Every Windows machine needs to have .NET installed; there are just too many programs these days that depend on it and assume its presence.

Keep this in your bag of tricks should this happen to someone else.

Vendors! Update

Who has been certified, and who hasn't? What have they been certified for?

First, a few words of caution: Part of WriteRAP is about experience - and we are all gaining experience, even or especially the vendors. The best-trained vendors still may need help when they first start live work in WriteRAP, or take on a task or workflow they have not yet encountered.

Also, projects are unique, and WriteRAP is very flexible, so be sure your vendor is clear about expectations for your particular project.

yes

Vendor	Extractions	Styling	Template Build	Project Mgmt	Overseas/ Domestic Partner
Aptara	yes	yes	yes	yes
Element		Trained, not yet certified
GEX, Inc.	yes	yes	yes	yes
Integra	yes	yes	yes	yes	Bookmasters, Elm Street
Jouve		yes	yes	yes	TexTech
Laserwords		yes		yes	Pine Tree
Macmillan Publishing Solutions (MPS)	yes	yes	yes	yes
Premedia Global (PMG)	yes	yes	yes	yes	GGS, Prepress
S4Carlisle	yes	yes	yes	yes
Bookmasters				yes	Integra
Carlisle				yes	S4
GGS				yes	PMG
Pine Tree				yes	Laserwords
Prepress				yes	PMG
Progressive				yes	Integra

Who is being certified?

Currently training in template building: Progressive, Juve

Scheduled for all processes: Juve, Element

WriteRAP Image Library

WriteRAP includes two features for inserting images into a WriteRAP document: Insert Local Image (only available on Windows), and the Image Library. Both these features allow the insertion of an image while retaining the image name in the output, something Word would not naturally do on its own. Note the information box containing the image name that appears in the screenshot below, where the cursor is hovering over the image.

Other than this potentially useful line of code, WriteRAP offers no additional art program management. In addition, all limitations of artwork within Word apply: if your author uses Local Image to include a photo (instead of Word’s Insert Picture from File), the original high-res photo must still be supplied separately.

It is a project decision as to whether or not to use an image library. Some things to consider are:

Positives

• If your extraction was done using BatchXPortPro or BatchXSLT, jpeg files are automatically generated and are available without further conversion.
• Using a low-res image will allow you to editing of captions in context.
• For technical books and books relying on screen shots, the availability of the art can be crucial to the authoring/editing process.
• The author can mark broad changes to art within the WriteRAP manuscript. However, detailed art development is still probably best handled with a separate art manuscript.

Cautions

• A lot of art will increase file size. There is still a risk of server error, document corruption and slow upload/download times if files become ungainly.
• For the foreseeable future, WriteRAP neither helps nor hurts art program management. It is not currently integrated with other systems, and the timing of manuscript development in WriteRAP often does not coincide with art program development.

WriteRAP and Documentum

We are beginning to look at the potential integration of WriteRAP and Documentum. We're still some time away from knowing the full scope and details, but your Structured Authoring team is on the task.

Never heard of Documentum? Well, you will. If you are a Pearson employee, check out some Documentum info here.

Be on the lookout for more information in the future about what an integration means and how it will increase efficiency and ease collaboration.