Category Archives: Windows

Adobe Acrobat Professional

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Adobe Acrobat Professional consists of the Adobe PDF Reader and Editor. You can use this tool to create, edit, and export Portable Document Type (PDF) Files. This is a paid software and students can get only free trail if they download it directly from the website. To know about student license information check http://software.ncsu.edu/vendor/adobe/package/adobe-products-student-version.

What you need to know about Adobe Acrobat Professional:

Technical Communication managers expect you to know the basics of opening and editing a PDF in Acrobat Pro. Some companies also use it for preparing Release Notes. You should also know how to convert Word Documents into PDF and vice-versa. Apart from this, if you know how to add comments to a word document you should be able to learn about comments section in Acrobat Pro too.

How it is used in the industry:

As mentioned earlier, corporations use Acrobat Pro for editing and adding comments to a document. Technical Writers who prepare Product Documentation often use Acrobat Pro for preparing Release Notes to go with it. When preparing Release Notes, functionality ranging from writing, editing, and converting gets covered.   

How it is used in the MSTC Program:

This tool is not taught to students in the graduate level. But, students opting for electives specializing in Technical Writing in the undergraduate level will learn how to use this tool in the editing and document design course.

Where can you get more information and learn about Acrobat Pro:

You can learn about Acrobat Pro in the Adobe Acrobat Professional website at https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/tutorials.html. There are separate tutorials for beginners explaining each functionality.

Acrobat Pro is available in all NCSU Libraries, CHASS Lab, Tompkins Computer Based Classrooms for students access.

Alternative free open source software to edit PDFs:

If you want to learn to edit PDFs and work on them, there is a free PDF Editor called PDFescape. It is a cloud-based software that needs no mandatory registration or installation. It also works on multiple browsers.

You can access PDFescape at http://www.pdfescape.com/.

PDFescape will let you edit a PDF document up to 100 pages long. There is a restriction on file size and hence, your file cannot be more than 10 MB. You can also save your file online for up to 7 days. After that it gets deleted automatically. Most of the functions that you can do in Acrobat Pro is covered in PDFescape.   

Adobe Captivate

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Adobe Captivate is a screen capture tool developed by Adobe Corporation. It is the most commonly used screen capture tool in the technical communication industry.

What you need to know about Adobe Captivate:

  • Concepts of Screen Capture techniques: Before learning the tool, you should be aware of how a screen capture tool works and the purpose for which it is used. Knowing how to write scripts for e-Learning videos will help you in producing a good quality video.
  • Editing a video: Before using Captivate, it will be useful to know how to crop and trim videos. Knowing the basics of video editing will help you work better in understanding the interface of Captivate.

How it is used in the industry:

It is used in the industry to create e-Learning videos.  Documentation team is usually responsible for creating management and training materials for the employees of the organization. Technical Writers often coordinate with the Human Resources team of the organization to develop training materials.

Hence, technical writers usually use Adobe Captivate to only capture instructions and add voiceover to it and convert it into a training or instructional video.

How it is used in the MSTC Program:

Adobe Captivate is taught to students in the MSTC Program who wish to specialize in Technical Writing. Although it is not taught extensively to undergraduate students, it is taught as a part of the Technical Writing and Editing course for graduate students.

Courses in which this tool is used:

This tool is not used in courses in the MSTC Program. But, a similar video editor is taught to students in the ENG 517 course. If students are interested in using the tool, it is available in the CHASS Lab.  

Where can you learn more about Captivate:

If you would like to get a preview on how the tool is used and know about the basics before learning it in the program, you can visit the Adobe Captivate official website here.

If you want to try working on the program and create projects, this software is available to you at all CHASS computer-based classrooms and the CHASS Lab located at Tompkins 113.