About Hikari Classes

We teach classes through southern California chapters of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). Classes are one day long, held on Saturdays from 9:00 to 4:00 at varying locations in southern California.

Check these STC chapter web sites for the latest information on class locations and schedules:

Los Angeles: http://www.lastc.org/index.html

Orange County: http://www.ocstc.org/trsched.asp

Classes are taught using Adobe software on a Windows PC. Each student has their own computer to use in class. Students take home notebooks with tips, instructions, a CD, and further lessons to complete on their own. Of course, students are always welcome to call or e-mail the instructor for any future help.

Prerequisites for FrameMaker 8 Basics class:

You should feel comfortable using a PC and working in Windows with a mastery of:

navigating the folders in Explorer
opening and saving files
selecting, cutting, and pasting text

Prerequisites for all other FrameMaker 8 Classes:

An introductory FrameMaker class or some hands-on experience in using:

master pages
reference pages
body pages
paragraph tags
the tabs in the Paragraph Designer
graphics

After taking FrameMaker Basics, all other FrameMaker classes can be taken in any order.

Class Descriptions

Introduction to FrameMaker

(Entry level FrameMaker class.) Learn the basic FrameMaker skills. In a realistic work situation we’ll create a new document by importing graphics and text from a Word document into an existing FrameMaker template. We’ll apply existing paragraph tags and convert text into a table.

Building Books In FrameMaker

Learn the automatic book features of FrameMaker. We’ll gather chapter files and incorporate them into a book file that automatically generates a table of contents, index, and lists. The page numbers and cross references update automatically when changes are made. To top it off, we’ll make the book into a PDF document.

Tables, Graphics, and Autonumbering in FrameMaker

Learn FrameMaker’s versatile autonumbering feature while working on a technical book with ordered headings and paragraphs. We’ll also manipulate tables and design new table formats. We’ll learn to produce graphics with FrameMaker tools and explore the different types of anchored frames.

Single-Sourcing Techniques in FrameMaker

Save time and money by learning how to reuse content. Using text insets, variables, and FrameMaker’s powerful conditional text feature, we’ll publish several deliverables from one book. We’ll also take a look at using FrameMaker files with RoboHelp, which now ships with the new Adobe Tech Com suite.

Designing FrameMaker Templates

We’ll learn the skills and strategies of template design by creating an ecology text book. We’ll design an attractive layout with paragraph tags, character tags, and custom master pages. We’ll use some special effects to make a beautiful book. We’ll also design cross-reference formats and look at color choices.

FrameMaker Conversions

Learn how to set up a strategy for converting legacy documents. FrameMaker features many time-saving tricks to shorten the process. We’ll explore the hidden powers of the Find/Change utility, and learn how to map Word styles to FrameMaker tags. We’ll also look at converting FrameMaker to Word using the third party tool, mif2go.

Acrobat 8 class

Learn basic Acrobat skills and many of its bells and whistles. This is a fun class, since Acrobat is easy to learn. We'll make an interactive learn-a-language book. Well add a video tutorial, and a 3-D image. Last of all we'll learn how to use Acrobat for document reviews.