Archives

New Slack Channels – TC Dojo and Arbortext Users

Slack reminds us of the old IRC channels, if anyone out there remembers those. Liz was invited to Slack pretty early on but resisted using it because she said it was so isolated. In its earliest days, it was mostly browser-based, every space was separate, and you could only see…

Problems upgrading your Arbortext Styler stylesheets from 6.1 to 7.0?

Quite by accident, we noticed that some stylesheets can have issues when upgrading to 7.0 from 6.1. A day or so ago, Liz was working with some stylesheets that hadn’t been touched since mid 2016 when she published her books. When she opened the stylesheet in 7.0 M080, Styler crashed…

Teaching Martians to make a sandwich–How Technical Writers can improve patient safety

There’s a well-known exercise to experienced technical writers: How do you teach a Martian to make a sandwich. It’s so well known that we talk about it as an exercise in best practices for user experience and modern instructional design. In the last few years, this exercise has become a…

Adepters – What is it and how do I find it?

Are you an Arbortext user? Have you heard the word Adepters and wonder what it means? Adepters is the name of the original Arbortext user mailing list which was launched in 1996. At that time there the web was still new, so this mailing list quickly became the go-to resource for Arbortext customers. Where…

Which TC Dojo level are you?

The TC Dojo is a virtual meeting place for the Technical Communications professional. Whether you are just starting out in the field or you are a well-seasoned expert, everyone can gain valuable learning at the TC Dojo. We called it the a dojo because a dojo (dōjō) is a Japanese…

Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?

Technical writers are paying more attention to UI/UX because documentation is part of the user experience. Technical writers, who explain user interface elements and design how-to documents for user tasks and procedures, know when a design choice will have repercussions. We can recognize when a design choice is similar to one we’ve encountered…

Subscription licenses are here to stay

Updated: May 2017 The software companies of world has decided the answer to that question is yes. I first heard about subscription licenses from Adobe back in 2013. Then Microsoft followed. For good or bad, whether we like it or not, it’s here to stay. I’ve had a crash course in subscription licensing…

12 tips from UX designers that Techcomm folks should know too

Next to API docs, UI/UX is one of the fastest growing sub-domains in technical writing. Not surprising, because documentation contributes to the user experience and explain how to use a product’s user interface.In May, I spotted an article by Robert Hoekman, Jr. that I’ve now read several times. He called it…

Released: Arbortext 102 Best Practices for Creating Arbortext Styler Stylesheets

Announcing the release of Arbortext 102: Best Practices for Creating Arbortext Styler Stylesheets. The second book in the Arbortext Monster Garage series, Arbortext 102 is the second book about Arbortext and the first book about creating and publishing with Styler. Written in DITA using Arbortext Editor and published with Arbortext Styler,…

Tell a good story (It’s the shape of the curve that matters)

Seems like everyone is talking about story telling. Last April, it was the theme at the STC Spectrum conference.  At STC Summit in 2015, Nancy Duarte gave the keynote based on research she did for her book, “Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences,” on the way great speechwriters use emotional trajectory…

XPath and XSLT for Everyone

Anyone working with XML content can benefit from learning XPath. XPath is the way that elements are identified and located inside an XML Document. Want to find the first title in your document? Or the fifth? Or the 2nd one that also has those 3 special notes following it? Stylesheets…

Inclusive vs Exclusive Language and Corporate Culture

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA.gov) website recently published an article about how they customized a Slack bot to gently correct people who use the word “guys”. The GSA has a big job and a big audience and they wanted to make sure that the people writing content for that audience were aware…

We all solve the same problems

We’ve all been in that position where we are trying to work something out and wish we had someone to bounce ideas off of. Someone who knew us, what we were going through, who had expertise that was the same as ours. Only different. Someone we could leverage in real…

DITA 1.3 available with Arbortext 7.0 release

Arbortext 7.0 includes support for DITA 1.3—no plugins or additional modules required. With the release of Arbortext 7.0, all DITA 1.x documents are supported by the Arbortext suite of products. Arbortext has had support for DITA since 2004, when it was originally being designed by IBM. Although DITA 1.3 Draft Specification…

Arbortext Styler 7.0 includes Stylesheet IDE

APP became available to anyone who wanted to do high-quality print output about midway through the 5.4 release stream. Since 6.0 we’ve been encouraging people creating new stylesheets to use APP as their main rendering engine over FOSI. It’s new technology for many of us, but it’s so powerful that…

Released: Arbortext Version 7.0

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

New Forums available to Mastermind Members

When we checked in with our TC Dojo Mastermind members, they asked us for a place where they could collaborate with each other outside the regular meetings. Until this point, we had a wiki where everyone could collaborate, but it just wasn’t meeting their needs.  So, earlier this week we stood up…

The Adepters email list is ending – here’s where to go…

In 1995 Arbortext started the adepters mailing list for users and staff to communicate. It was primarily a place where staff handled issues and questions about the Arbortext Adept editor. The mailing list was called adepters: a combination of the product name “Adept” and “users.” When PTC acquired Arbortext, that…

How to Document your Stylesheets

by Karie You’re working on a big project or a book using DITA, but your boss asks you to change the style of the font at the last minute. This was something you had set months prior and you don’t remember how you did it or how to change it…

Need Help? Check out our YouTube Channels

Last week we launched three YouTube channels to make our videos more accessible and more generally available for everyone out there. Over the next few weeks we’ll be launching the iTunes channel again: Interviews with people doing interesting things with Arbortext, XML, and Content Strategy. But that’s the next project… For…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M100

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.1

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

TC Dojo has expanded!

Due to popular request we have added an Arbortext specific TC Dojo each month. We wanted to keep the topics covered in the Open Session varied and not specific to any particular tool set. However, we have a large enough interest in Arbortext tools that we decided to launch a second Dojo to focus on PTC’s Arbortext tool…

TC Dojo Mastermind Sessions starting Monday

At Single-Sourcing Solutions, our customers know we enjoy helping them invest in themselves and their future when they take on a new project and new technology. What struck us most these last few years is that we’d find ourselves on a call with one customer and thinking how much they…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M090

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Welcome to the TC Dojo

We took what we learned from the popular Arbortext Monster Garage virtual meeting series and the overwhelming requests we received from the first annual TC Camp held in Santa Clara in January 2013 and blended them together. The result — a new twist on the typical web session. What is…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M080

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M070

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher (APP) Version 11 M030

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

5 Tips for keeping your content flexible

Whether you’re translating or not, some practices can make it easier for you to future-proof your content. There are five basic tips that localization experts agree on: Tip #1: Use numbers for your call-outs and have a legend table. There are two benefits to this “old school” method. If you…

Announcing TC Camp

Join us in Sunnyvale, CA in January for the first annual TC Camp. The first unconference for content creators, strategists, publishers, and the people who support them.   TC Camp is an Unconference focused on Technical Communications issues, skills, challenges, and the various applications used by technical communicators.TC Camp is a vendor-neutral…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M060

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Version 5.4 M150

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Try PTC eLearning Free

Updated: 2013 – the free trial is no longer available If you don’t already have a license for PTC’s eLearning library, you can try out the service for free for 30-days. We always recommend that our customers get at least one copy. It’s inexpensive, and gives you hundreds of hours…

Released: Arbortext Version 5.4 M140

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M050

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M040

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Version 5.4 M120

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher (APP) V11 M010

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Common Questions: Workflow

This week’s topic: Workflow Here are some highlights of Workflow features supported in Windchill: Arbortext Content Manager supports standard workflows as well as sophisticated capabilities for routing change information to the correct process participants. Arbortext Content Manager provides tools to support the creation of processes that are unique or dictated…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M030

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Version 6.0 M020

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Manage your product content like you manage development

Meet compliance and regulatory challenges Medical device manufacturers are facing some very tough challenges today including demand for innovation, complying with strict environmental and regulatory requirements, and shrinking price premiums, not to mention intense competition which demands faster times-to-market. The world’s most respected medical device manufacturers are attacking these problems…

Released: Arbortext 5.4 M100

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext 6.0 M010

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Common Questions: Automation in Arbortext

This week’s topic: Out of the box automation in Arbortext We’re purposefully scoping this subject down for this post. We’re answering questions about what automation features come OOTB in Arbortext. If we didn’t limit this discussion, we could easily write 1000+ pages. Arbortext ships a mountain of documentation and sample…

Common Questions: Change Markup

This week’s topic: Change Tracking & Change Markup Change markup has historically been something that you had to implement yourself in XML publishing. Arbortext supports typical change markup behavior in the standard document types, and with a small amount of configuration for custom doctypes. All of the standard change markup…

Released: Arbortext Print Publisher Version 10 M090

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Common Questions: Bursting

This week’s topic: Bursting We start talking about something we call “bursting” when we get questions like the following: Can a writer or translator work just on paragraph chunks while an editor can see entire sections? This question is nearly always followed by this question: Can this level of granularity be…

Released: Arbortext 6.0

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Looking to upgrade your Arbortext install?

When you’re looking to upgrade your Arbortext install from one release to another, you want to get all the information you can about the differences between your version and a random other version. And you want to do a test deployment before rolling it out to everyone in your organization….

Common Questions: Arbortext Content Manager (Windchill)

This week’s topic: Arbortext Content Manager Today, we’re answering some of the more common and general questions about Arbortext Content Manager (ACM). When it comes to DITA, the need for component content management comes sooner rather than later. It’s very easy to get hundreds and thousands of topics very quickly….

Common Questions: XML and Standards Support

This week’s topic: XML and Standards support in Arbortext With the most recent release of Arbortext there’s a lot to talk about with respect to standards and XML technology support in Arbortext. Arbortext has been part of the W3C since the early 1990s and still maintains seats on nearly XML-related…

What is the DITA Resource Manager?

by Karie Arbortext Editor has direct, built-in access to Arbortext Content Manager (Windchill) through the Object Browser and the Resource Manager. The Resource Manager makes reusing content objects more efficient for DITA writers. The Resource Manager is a dockable window that acts as a central location for finding data to be…

Common Questions: Language Support in Arbortext

This week’s topic: Language support in Arbortext XML publishing systems makes translation less expensive all-around. The biggest cost of translating content produced in traditional tools is the DTP that must be done on the content once it’s been translated. Some languages switch orientation (R to L rather than L to…

Released: Arbortext 5.3 M220

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

How do I reuse content stored in Windchill?

by Karie One of the many advantages of storing content in XML is the ability to reuse it. The best way to ensure proper reuse is to store XML content in a component content management system like Arbortext Content Manager (aka Windchill).Arbortext Content Manager is completely integrated with Arbortext Editor…

Connecting Experts to Get Products to Market Faster

Updated 2/3/11: SocialLink is only available in the full Arbortext PDMLink (Windchill) For many companies, the product development process now crosses organizational and national boundaries, making it more difficult than ever for team members to interact. Arbortext PDMLink (Windchill) SocialLink meets these challenges by combining social computing with rich product content from…

Licensing changes coming to Arbortext 6.0

Arbortext 6.0 and Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher 10.0 are coming soon. With this release, comes a big change to how licensing is managed in the Arbortext product line. Arbortext licensing will be changing to FlexLM. This is the same licensing model that the other PTC products use. When you upgrade, you’ll need…

Arbortext Content Manager Patch (SUP3) Available

PTC has addressed several newly identified security vulnerabilities for supported versions of Arbortext Content Manger (aka Windchill).  These vulnerabilities affect all current maintenance releases of all Windchill Solution Products including: Arbortext PDMLink Windchill ProjectLink Pro/INTRALINK FlexPLM Arbortext Content Manager Best practices say to always install security patches promptly. For details,…

Arbortext 6.0 release is right around the corner

With the 6.0 release of Arbortext coming up very soon, we’ve been seeing a lot of questions about features, changes, and upgrading best practices. We thought we’d gather up all the prevailing advice and remind everyone about keeping up with releases and how to get through an upgrade with as…

Common Questions: Customization

This week’s topic: Customization Last year we discovered that something we think everyone knows about Arbortext is almost totally unknown. It was a weird thing to discover because, for most of us, this “thing” was a major influencer in our decision to become Arbortext customers in the first place. I’m…

Get Dirty in the Arbortext Monster Garage

Inspired by the popular “Monster Garage” television show on the Discovery Channel, today we’re launching a new webinar series: “Arbortext Monster Garage.” On the TV show, a team of people with mechanical, fabricating, or modifying expertise gathers together to modify a vehicle into a “monster machine.”  In our new webinar series,…

Released: Arbortext 5.4 M080

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher (APP) V10 M080

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Common Questions: BOMs

This week’s topic: BOMs As organizations start to see returns from XML implementations in technical publications, training, and support, they start to see how it can benefit even more departments across the organizations. One of the places that organizations look at first is to BOMs. BOM documents are highly structured….

Common Questions: Reviewing XML Content

This week’s topic: Reviewing XML Content in Arbortext The question of reviewing content is a complex one. Every year, at the annual PTC user conference, this topic gets discussion. No one agrees on how the review process should work or what should be captured or even who’s responsible for what….

What is the best way to learn Arbortext?

This was a question on LinkedIn. When it comes to learning, there are a lot of options. You’ll want to choose the way that you learn best in order for the training to be most effective for you. Get the books The Arbortext Monster Garage book series is for anyone…

How much does Arbortext cost?

by Dave There’s a lot of confusion, bad information, old information about Arbortext floating around out there. There’s an assumption that Arbortext is only for the Fortune 100 and that it’s completely out of reach for small to medium businesses. In reality, the assumption is that Arbortext is too expensive…

Common Questions: Arbortext Editor

This week’s topic: Arbortext Editor Something that a lot of people don’t realize, but that Arbortext customers cherish, is that every part of the Arbortext Editor UIr—everything you can do in the Editor—is reachable through the extensive, well-documented, API. After the huge success of last month’s webinar, we’ve decided that we’re going…

Common Questions: Publishing

This week’s topic: Publishing! When it comes to “publishing content” in Arbortext, you’re talking about a big subject. There’s Arbortext Publishing Engine (PE), which produces multi-channel output.  There’s Arbortext Digital Media Publisher (DMP), a component of Publishing Engine which enables you to distribute content on multiple types of digital media and to web applications. There’s Arbortext Advanced…

Released: Arbortext 5.3 M210 (and more)

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher 9.1 M180

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Common Questions: Data Merge

This week’s topic: Data Merge Data Merge is an interesting way to jump start your documents.  It’s also a great way to keep your content accurate and up-to-date while reducing the amount of work that you need to do to maintain it both short- and long-term. Our sales team loves…

How to solve your data merge challenges

By Dave Have you ever had a need to copy information from a database report, spreadsheet or any other source into a document such as a price list or specification document only to find that once you copied the information the source of your content changed? Or even worse, you…

How can I learn Arbortext Editor?

If you’re new and looking for some tutorials and ways to get better using the tool, try the Tutorial in the Help Center! The Help center is the application containing all the documentation. The Help Center comes standard with Arbortext Editor (starting with 5.4 F000).  You can launch the Help…

Call for Presentations PTC User Conference 2011

It’s that time again! In fact, earlier than last year… The call for presentations is out for PlanetPTC Live. That means it’s time for us to encourage everyone to submit good presentations and to encourage user attendance at the conference. Here’s some words of encouragement from a long-time Arbortext Community…

Released: Arbortext 5.4 M070

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher Version 10 M070

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Windchill Security Vulnerability Identified–Customers encouraged to install patch

An email went out to all Windchill customers alerting them to install a security patch from PTC.  A copy of the email that went out to customers as well as additional details on this issue can be found below. Customer Announcement September 23, 2010 PTC has identified a security issue…

What’s all the DITA buzz about?

You’re in a staff meeting and the documentation manager is giving a report of the advances his team has achieved using a new technology. He mentions that the team has gone through a lot of effort and pain to implement something called the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). He talks…

New System Requirements for Arbortext S1000D 4.4

As a result of new third-party provider requirements, the following versions of the Microsoft product range will no longer be supported after the release of the Arbortext Aerospace & Defense 4.4, scheduled for release in calendar Q4 2010: Client Operating System: Windows 2000 Browser Platform: Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) The…

Podcast Posted: Interview with Bob Thomas, Tagsmiths

This month’s interview on the PubWright podcast is Bob Thomas, from Tagsmiths. Bob started in SGML/XML in the mid-to-early 90s at Lucent. He transformed from a technical writer to data modeler, DTD writer, legacy data conversion specialist, and stylesheet developer. He discusses with us a bit of his history, gives…

DITA is Hard

There’s a trope that says, if you want to do good content delivery, you have to advocate for methodology, not tools. (This is often said in despair by someone dealing with a team of writers determined to find a way to use FrameMaker to make pizza crust.) To that end,…

Common Questions: File Format Support

This week’s topic: File Formats Questions about file formats range from what any particular product supports (editing, illustration, publishing, cms) to what formats can be converted by the Arbortext tools. Today, we’re talking about both of these and where each falls into the bigger picture. Question: Supported formats in CMS…

Common Questions About Arbortext

Arbortext is not simply an XML editor, illustration tool, or component content management system. It’s a big-picture solution that includes all the pieces required for creation, management, and publishing of enterprise content. In fact, Arbortext is the only out-of-the-box, end-to-end solution. We have all heard horror stories from publication groups…

How to find the PTC Product Calendar

Last updated: September 2017 Please Note: The PTC website changes frequently and the specifics of this article may not be completely representative at any given time. That said, the Product Calendar is always on the Support Site and available to customers. You may need to adjust the steps a bit…

Released: Arbortext 5.3 M200

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Want to keep track of the latest release?

Over the years, we’ve had questions from customers asking about the latest release. What’s in it? Should they upgrade? Was my bug fixed? Is the enhancement I requested in there? It can be hard to convince yourself to read the release notes. After all, it’s locked in a PDF. You…

How to find out whether a version of Arbortext is supported on a particular OS version

This is the one of the most-asked questions on the PTC forums. If you want to know whether any particular version of Arbortext is supported on any particular version of Windows, check the Software Compatibility Matrix. How to Find the Software Compatibility Matrix Here’s how to find this document and…

How to turn off Arbortext Processing Instructions

This is the second-most asked question. It’s one of the most common questions we get. It’s so common, there’s a post about it on the Arbortext Code Archive. Problem On save, Arbortext Editor adds processing instructions, like <?Pub  Caret?>. How do I remove processing instructions (PIs) ? Solution Turning off the…

Released: Arbortext 5.4 M060

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher Version 10 M060

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext S1000D version 4.3 M050

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Adepters Code Archive Expands to Include IsoDraw Macro Code Contributions

Today, the Adepters Code Archive expanded to include IsoDraw code for the first time. Thanks to Trevor Hendricks from Kohler, last month’s speaker for the Arbortext PTC/User Group.  Trevor Hendricks is the master of all things IsoDraw at Kohler — and everywhere else. Everyone in the IsoDraw community looks to…

Released: Arbortext 5.3 M190

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher 9.1 M170

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Conference notes from: PTC User 2010 – The Paradigm is Shifting

by Eric From attending the recent PTC User Conference, it appears we are in the midst of a paradigm shift and it will be every bit as significant as the move from desktop publishing to structured content management: From book publishing to dynamic content delivery.  Think about where we have…

Conference notes from: PTC User 2010

by Dave While at the PTC/User World event this year, I had the opportunity to attend a few sessions. There were 4 in particular that I wanted to talk about:  Arbortext Roadmap and Strategy, Product Information Delivery System, Virtual Parts Catalog, and PTC University use of Arbortext. You can see…

Released: Arbortext 5.4 M050

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher Version 10 M050

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Arbortext IsoDraw and Windows 7

As of the M030 release, IsoDraw 7.1 is fully supported on Windows 7. There are no issues revising IsoDraw illustrations created in any of the earlier versions using IsoDraw 7.1. You can also save backward if required; however, we always recommend saving in the current version. If you’ve got active…

PTC Arbortext Educational Webcast: PTC University eLearning Library

When people buy Arbortext, we always recommend getting at least one license to the Arbortext eLearning library. It’s considered a software license, so you can get one at any time. The eLearning library is a huge library of video content and training materials for all of the products in the…

Released: Arbortext 5.3 M180

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Windchill 9.1 M050

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext 5.4 M040

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher Version 10 M040

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Grow your skills: Arbortext and DITA

In a tough market, you need to stay ahead the pack. The best way to do that is to make sure your skills are in demand. One of the highest demanded skills in the publications arena is Arbortext. We are offering this one day session for you to learn what it…

How to Create a Button in Arbortext Digital Media Publisher

Here’s a snippet from the PTC Express newsletter. You never know how well something will get saved and archived, so we’ve reproduced it here. Generally, we post code to the Adepters Code Archive. However, this article went out from the PTC Express news letter and it’s getting some attention in…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher Version 9.1 M160

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

Arbortext bootcamp coming up

In a tough market, you need to stay ahead the pack. The best way to do that is to make sure your skills are in demand. One of the highest demanded skills in the publications industry is Arbortext. No one who has Arbortext skills has been out of work in…

PTC Announces Discontinued Linux/Solaris Support

PTC will discontinue Arbortext Publishing Engine support on the Linux and Solaris operating systems with the release of Arbortext 6.­0. As of the 6.0 release, PTC is planning to support the Windows platform only. Description Having reviewed customer product downloads and technical support submissions over the past four years, PTC…

Released: Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher Version 10 M30

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

PTC forms new Arbortext business unit

Update: November 2017 More changes at PTC. Over the last year, the Arbortext product line got absorbed into Servigistics and then moved again into the Windchill product line and business unit. Despite all the changes the last couple of years, some familiar names remain in charge of the products: Pushpinder…

Collaboration is Key to Success

Last month, BusinessWeek published an article, “Mega Mergers Can’t Cure the Pharmaceutical Industry,” about how the Pharmaceutical Industry has been changing their strategy from a strictly competitive one to a more collaborative one because they can keep costs down by collaborating with each other and producing tangible for themselves and their…

Released: Arbortext 5.4

Here’s a short summary of SPRs and enhancements added to the product release. Many SPRs and enhancements are part of the release. We highly recommend you log in to the support site and read the release notes. If you have an active maintenance contract you can download the new version…

The Single-Sourcing Triangle

Single sourcing is a simple idea that requires a very complex implementation. Single sourcing is a methodology, not a technology. XML is a technology, not a methodology. Bringing the two together is not obvious or well-defined. Traditionally, the literature is full of information about single sourcing from a theoretical perspective. For…

Application-specific XML tools development

Did you know you can auto-generate content in more than one direction? You can auto-generate content… …FOR Documentation Documentation for technical manuals can be generated directly from the product source code or other engineering systems. Technical requirements and product specifications can be found in source control repositories in varying formats….

Revision management for content components

Where Source Development Meets Documentation In traditional publishing environments, source control is minimal if it exists at all, and often follows the lock-modify-unlock model that prevents simultaneous, collaborative, content authoring. Single-sourcing environments require content management (source control) to manage the reusable content stored in topology-specific libraries (including images). Independent Change Tracking…

Full-Gamut Single-Sourcing

You can sit back and relax, we’re here to help. Single sourcing is a simple idea that requires a very complex implementation. By leveraging XML technologies and single-sourcing methodologies, our experts have deep experience developing the systems necessary to support every member of your technical publications team. Source, Architecture, Help,…

Content Reuse Guidelines and Thresholds

A truly excellent post on content reuse guidelines and thresholds was posted today to the stc-single-sourcing mailing list. Julie Kumasaka asked: “Does anyone use a guideline or has anyone come across a guideline recommending what percentage (or some other measure) of text from two sources should be the same to…

Avoiding Vendor Lock-in

The goal of object-oriented tool development is to avoid vendor lock-in. Lock-in is not determined by the cost of the application but by the method of its implementation. The level of integrated customization determines the level of vendor lock-in. One-of-a-kind software (fully custom or “one-off” software) is necessary when no…

Single-Sourcing is a Software Project (not a Documentation Project)

But only if you do it wrong. If you decide to build software, understanding the staffing requirements is essential. It is your responsibility to create a production quality single-sourcing system because you’re putting it into a mission-critical path at your company. Staffing skill requirements depend on two things: understanding the…

Who We Are and What We Do

Our customers want to do it themselves but they don’t want to do it alone. At Single-Sourcing Solutions, Inc., we teach customers to do what we do. We focus on acting as mentors or as part-time resources to assist implementers while they’re getting started. We help in-house teams learn to…