The main feature of this release is the work PTC has done on PDF standards. In the PDF print options dialogue you’ll see a few changes:
* The ‘General’ tab now has a ‘Color Profiles’ area where you can specify the default color profiles to apply to the PDF for different color models.
* The ‘Linked images’ selector now has a ‘Passthrough’ option which tells APP to pass any linked images directly through to the PDF creation library, effectively maintaining any color profiles applied to that image.
* There is a new ‘Standards’ tab which features selectors for PDF/X and PDF/A standards. You can select the level of compliance you want to aim for there. You must make sure that all your other settings comply with that standard.
* Also on the ‘Standards’ tab are options to apply an output intent.
* You will also notice a ‘Security’ tab in the PDF options. This allows you to set passwords and permissions for your PDF

SPR Fixes Summary

* Fixed issue when restarting a nested table mid way through a row span and with a header too (SPR 2066886)
* Prevented ‘column too narrow’ error messages when ‘overlap’ option is enabled and they have no content (SPR 2066886)
* Modified ‘column too narrow’ error messages to reflect behaviour when ‘overlap’ option is enabled (SPR 2066886)
* PDF driver now passes JPEG image compression option to EPS processor, when selected. (SPR 2069166)
* Avoid JavaScript errors when working with anchored frames. (SPR 2073184)
* Fixed overflow of a table when using <!–?tbrkeept –>, when there are cells spanning from previous rows which aren’t in the first column. (SPR 2074162)
* Fixed crash when loading some TIFF images. (SPR 2066784)
* Fixed issue with nested tables or blocks that span and then break to a new frame or page (SPR 2075732)
* Fixed random crash when accessing attributes with no name through DOM (SPR 2076303)
* Fixed missing image problem in PDF driver when too many EPS files are included. (SPR 2077998)
* Fixed occasional crashes when using defaultRow.fTableCell and defaultRow.fTableStyle. (SPR 2081988)
* Fixed occasional crashes when using “trf:wdr” while iterating native JavaScript arrays. (SPR 2085084)
* Updated Unicode support to version 5.1.0 (SPR 2086780)
* Fixed problem with Unicode BIDI support in Arabic text. (SPR 2084017)
* The top_break argument of formatting.tableEnd() was being ignored. (SPR 2093699)
* Implemented better support for vertical justification with multiple levels of blocks. (SPR 2053634)
* Avoid rounding JavaScript lengths. (SPR 2095646)
* Fixed problem with slow file writing in 64 bit version.
* Fixed possible crash in Dieckmann Hyphenation system. (SPR 2093148)
* Preserve Symbol font mapping to Private Use Area when specified. (SPR 2093503)
* Fixed problem with missing Arabic glyphs. (SPR 2093538)
* Setting special break flags in <!–?h –> PI now overrides Unicode line breaking rules. (SPR 2093726)
* Improved memory usage with the XML printer driver. (SPR 2053117)
* Fixed XML Printer driver to stop filtering characters in the Unicode Private Use Area range. (SPR 2084043)
* Fixed XSLT format-number function. (SPR 2092921)
* Fixed pointer error when printing to a Postscript printer in the 64 bit version. (SPR 2092565)
* Fixed problem when hyphenating a word containing a JavaScript PI. (SPR 2073385)
* Fixed problem with PDF page bookmarks when top gap or left gap is specified in document preferences. (SPR 2095879)
* Fixed problem with XML parsing using a significant amount of memory. (SPR 2074116)
* Fixed problem with XML default namespaces not working with context matching. (SPR 2072521)
* Fixed problem with APP 64 bit crashing during XSLT transformation. (SPR 2079327)
* Fixed timing issue with XSLT taking too long to transform a XML file to a Perl script. (SPR 2061281)

For more information..

Documentation supporting Arbortext is delivered in the Arbortext Editor Help Center. Documentation for this and all recent releases can also be downloaded from the Reference Documentation area of the PTC web site at support.ptc.com.

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 by industry-specific standards.

Because document components share common security properties, permissions and workflows vary based on the version and lifecycle of the document. Content changes are tracked and traceable to the individual user who initiated them

Powerful configuration and workflow management capabilities enable users to choose whether to manage each component individually or manage entire documents with a single workflow.

The ability to “burst” Arbortext-authored documents into document components within Windchill, which enables configuration and lifecycle management, including check in, check out, revise, promote, and workflow capabilities, at both the component and document “assembly” level.

The ability to implement workflow-driven process automation to speed document review and approval, optimize change management, and deliver audience-specific publications in the appropriate format

Today, we’re answering some of the more common and general questions about Workflow support in Arbortext Content Manager. As always, if you have a question that we haven’t answered or if you want more details, remember to send us your questions or add them to the comments!

Question: GUI for Workflow

Does ACM have a graphical representation of the workflow?

Answer:

Yes

Question: Automating output production

Can you automate the generation of deliverables by using a workflow?

Answer:

Yes

Question: Translated content workflows

Can translated content be integrated into the workflow process?

Answer:

Yes

Question: Creating outputs

Can a writer produce his or her own deliverables, including language-specific deliverables?

Answer:

Yes

Question: Updating workflows

Can you update workflows on the fly?

Answer:

There is an “Instance of a Workflow” and a “Template of a Workflow”. Changing the Template does not change any Instances currently running.

Question: Changing completed workflows

If content is being processed through a workflow that has changed and the change affects a process that has already been completed, does the process remain unchanged?

Answer:

It depends on what you’ve specified should happen in this case

Question: Changing in-process workflows

On the other hand, if the content has not yet reached that point in the process, does the contents then get processed using the new workflow automatically?

Answer:

It depends on what you’ve specified should happen at any point in the workflow (each case)

When you think about content management and content strategy, you start thinking about content components that can be assembled, disassembled, and reassembled into the many output formats and output channels your customers require. It stops being a question of simply “Content Management” but management at the component level. Those who adopt a strategy at the component level tend to experience a higher ROI. Why? Because they are maximizing efficiencies for reuse and they are able to meet the new consumer demand for customized on demand content composition. They are in front of the curve rather than falling behind.

Managing content is everywhere! You are surrounded by it every day.

It is even in your very own home. You cannot escape it. It is almost as if it happens instinctively, without a thought. Socks go in the sock drawer and spices go in the kitchen cupboard (or maybe a spice rack…. or even a spice rack in the kitchen cupboard – the ultimate in component management). You keep your toilet paper in the bathroom and your paper towels in the kitchen. Why? Because it makes good sense. When I set out to make a frittata, I go to the spice cupboard to get out the ingredients I need. I do not look for them in the bedroom or the bathroom.  I source the flour from the pantry where it is conveniently near the shortening – not in the garage next to the oil can wrench.

The same basic form of organization happens in the business world. While at home or in a professional kitchen, we have pantry’s or cupboards, in business we have files and folders stored in a file cabinet. You have product x and you keep all the information for product x in its folder.  When you need to get information on Product X, you go look for the folder then you search inside it.

But what happens as Product X evolves? What happens when Product X goes international? Global? What about other departments with their own information on Product X? Which folder in which cabinet? You may have a file cabinet, but who else has their own file cabinet? Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, …. How about countries? Does each country also manage their own Marketing, Sales, Customer Service…? What about translation? How many file cabinets do you need? How many separate content management situations can you manage?

Before you know it, you have file pandemonium! Born from this obvious demand to put some kind of control in place, Content Management Systems came along.

Many of you have at least CMS system in place, if not more. And, after you put that system in, I bet you breathed a sigh of relief. Finally we have order and control!

But do you?

Not really.

What you do have is a group of siloed solutions all designed for a special purpose. They operate in isolation from each other, with no clear bridge between them. While they do meet a need to control and centralize content, they are effective only for the limited access group. Can you imagine trying to stock a professional kitchen this way? How about your own kitchen? Do you have separate cupboards dedicated to each of the meals you prepare?

In the end, you are still left with inefficient systems unable to take advantage of reuse. You are still left with the obvious question; What is the Truest, Latest, Most accurate source of content? And, how do I get that out to all the right people in all the areas that use it?

Component Content Management is a method of breaking down content to its lowest common denominator. By taking this approach, just like math, it is easier to manage the equation or solve the problem. With CCM we view content a bit differently. It’s not the whole package, it’s all the parts that make up the package.
* True Content Asset Management – all content assets can be stored in one place
* One single source of truth – one repository so no need to replicate content in separate systems.
* Transforming value perception of content – to the parts instead of the finished output

Did you have a meal today? Did you have bread? Muffin? Pasta? Gravy? Cake? Chips? Creamed Soup? Pancakes? Quiche?

All of these share at least one common ingredient (or for our purposes – shared content): flour. In this case, Flour is the lowest common denominator that we can manage at the component level. The professional kitchen would manage one flour for many uses, not the end product. They would not have a separate pantry for Pasta and a separate one for gravy and a separate one for muffins and yet another pantry for bread and another for Quiche and another for desert pies. Chances are there is one big pantry that has flour. It is shared to create the products for all of the customer demands. Aside from the obvious cost and space savings for one centralized repository, you can also manage to deliver the most up to date component for the many outputs. Or the freshest flour.

Flour, first “discovered” around 9000 BC, is used a basic ingredient in many things around the world in just about every culture. Have you have ever tried to get away from flour? A while back, I switched to a diet that forbade any flour of any kind (as well as other carb intensive items) so I had to read labels. It’s everywhere! The reuse potential for flour is phenomenal.

It is like the company information. If it’s done right, you cannot get away from the company contact information. It’s everywhere! Every group uses it. In the old world – they all had it in their own special silo. So what happens in the case of M&A or how about if your company changes their name or any critical contact information? You would have to go into every single instance in all the vast array of silo’d repositories and change the information. If you have a Component Content Strategy in place and a control system that is a true central repository, you only change it in one place and allow the tools to manage the change automatically.

Before you can deliver composed content on demand, you need to get your pantry in order.

Back to the meal you had: The restaurant produced a meal for you based on your request. What did you order? Your order may have been very different than the other people you ate with and those may have been different than other diners at other tables. To produce that final composition – they pulled together ingredients (components) from the pantry (CCMS). You could say a pantry is allot like a CCM. It is one central source of content that can be used to produce many types of outputs in many ways, on demand. It is a shared repository. A single source to provide components for a variety of departments to meet the requests of a variety of consumers. The Pastry chef can use the same pantry as the Saucier, the Sous Chef, the Executive Chef, the Line Cooks, and the Garde Manager,
So how do you get your kitchen in order? A professional pantry, just like any good CCMS, requires careful thought and preparation.

Start by creating one or more process flow diagrams of where content goes and where it comes from.

Your first step in designing your strategy is to analyze your existing content. Who creates it and who consumes it. How many chefs do you have (what departments create or contribute to content? Marketing, Sales, Product development, engineering, HR, tech pubs, Support services ….)? How many different types of customers (internal, external; end users, resellers, field service,)? How many different ways do you serve it up (print, pdf, HTML, On-line help, Social media)? What’s your menu of dishes (products or services you provide)?

Start looking at content to identify things that are common structural elements.

Once you have this foundation. Next you need to look for the common ingredients (shared content). Do you use the same product information? All or part? What parts? These become the flour, butter, eggs, salt of your pantry (the lowest common denominator, the components). The Saucier and the Pastry chef can pull the basic ingredients from the same pantry, combine them with some of their own and deliver very different compositions. While not all of their components are the same, they still share parts. You’re looking for commonalities and differences and starting to see where things have diverged while, at the same time, defining how you want it to be.

Then, start identifying content groupings. Does the content have a specific group that requires it or a specific type of consumer.

Are there legal requirements? Warnings, Cautions, Notes, Disclaimers, Company name, address… the list goes on. Product x vs Product y. Penne pasta vs linguini vs crème brûlée vs pizza vs tomato bisque. Troubleshooting tasks or installation instructions. Serving instructions verses cooking or prepping instructions. Greek flaming Saganki, anyone?

But be careful. Don’t spend all your time preparing and analyzing how to put your pantry together. Most restaurants go out of business their first year and you don’t want to be one of them! Draw your line in the sand and step bravely into the future. Technology, resourcing, and requirements change. All the analysis in the world won’t make you bulletproof against tomorrow’s challenges. Who expected we’d have an iPad and exactly what its format requirements were going to be 10 years ago? Who knows what’s coming next?

Don’t let your restaurant go out of business. Make sure that you learn how to analyze content, how to maintain it, how to expand it when there’s a new product, a new acquisition, a new customer output requirement, so you have the best chance for success.

Here’s a short summary, but all Arbortext products have been affected in the 6.0 M030 release. Platform support, browser support, languages and localization are all addressed in the release notes.

SPR Fixes Summary

• Arbortext Editor Changes — Support for Creo View, Updates for Arbortext IsoView
• PTC Server connection changes — DITA Resource Manager support
• Repository Adapter changes — Support for Documentum Webtop 6.7
• Documentation changes — AOM DocumentUnload documentation in Arbortext Programmer’s Reference corrected, HelpCenter updated for all products

Detials for specific SPR Fixes

Arbortext Editor

• 2077088: An installation of Arbortext Editor and Styler on Windows 7 can make a file type association to “Arbortext Editor with Styler” instead of “Arbortext Editor”.
• 2087748: EPS images with Japanese characters in their location path / filename are displayed in Edit view as expected.
• 2088518: 32-bit per pixel BMP graphics display as expected in Edit view.
• 2089266: The AOM DocumentUnload event will be fired when a window is closed even if there are other edit windows open.
• 2089563: An ACL script will be able to copy to the clipboard after an external paste.
• 2089728: The doc_flatten() function will flatten XIncludes that do not end with a tag.
• 2091516: Arbortext Editor no longer unexpectedly terminates when updating an entity or marked section definition when a document contains an element with an attribute value where the attribute is of type “ENTITIES”.
• 2091723: Arbortext Editor no longer unexpectedly terminates when pasting HTML from certain content in Microsoft products.
• 2094502: ACL variable substitution will now work correctly for commands that span multiple lines.
• 2096403: Arbortext Editor will no longer produce invalid table markup on inserting a row or column when the table model is declared in a certain way in a schema.
• 2096901: Audience package information is identified during a Print operation
• 2096926: Arbortext Editor no longer unexpectedly terminates with a capacity error when opening a document using certain .style files.
• 2097446: Arbortext Editor will no longer ignore a root element’s namespace declaration in some situations where the root tag and its attributes are longer than 1024 characters.
• 2097933: Arbortext Editor no longer unexpectedly terminates in some cases when a table containing a cell with vertical alignment is re-recognized due to an external markup change.
• 2099319: Arbortext Editor will now allow more than 20 menus to be added to a menubar or toolbar.
• 2099762: Arbortext Editor no longer unexpectedly terminates when an XPath function is called on an empty document.
• 2100374: The With descendents dialog box is disabled when checking in a DITA map
• 2101193: Arbortext Editor no longer unexpectedly terminates in some cases when a table containing a cell with vertical alignment is re-recognized due to an external markup change

DITA Application

• 2092915: Saving changes to a Resolved Document for Editing (RDE) no longer copies stylesheet associations from the parent map to its child objects.
• 2093983: A burst in operation no longer fails with missing dependencies caused by filenames being truncated to 256 characters

Arbortext Styler

• 2074849: All characters referencing a combined font that maps to an undefined font will use the same default fallback font instead.
• 2088741: A drag and drop action of content in a generated text setting moves the content as expected.
• 2091291: The Start At numbering dialog now prevents entry of an invalid XML element/attribute name.
• 2092684: Stylesheets can now reference stylesheet modules in doctypes without absolute paths.
• 2092968: An XSL-HTML stylesheet exported from a .style file will not rely on _acl:eval for graphic handling during HTML publishing when it is not available.
• 2095621: Publishing to RTF will no longer remove whitespace only nodes from link elements.
• 2097120: Whitespace-only inline text nodes are no longer deleted when a stylesheet is exported to XSL-FO RTF.
• 2098562: Values that evaluate to 0 are now correctly treated as a non-blank string when matching condition tests.
• 2104775: Footnotes from elements with an ID no longer display multiple callout numbers.

Arbortext Import

• 2098799: Schemas referencing map modules via and statements can be loaded into a Map template without generating errors.

PE Adapter

• 2099017: When toxml twoway metadata rules are present, a user can check out a read-only document loaded in Arbortext Editor, that has been modified by another user since it was loaded, without generating a Can’t open object error

XUI

• 2090868: A text field in a XUI dialog box will display scroll bars when the text content exceeds the size of the field

Publishing

• 2061637: CGM images are converted correctly when publishing a PDF with set isoviewfileformats=cgm applied.
• 2063544: Highly vectorized SVG graphics no longer cause an unexpected termination when generating PDF output.
• 2077543: The Unicode Zero Width Space character is expanded using word space extra when justifying text.
• 2081513: Publishing a PDF document to disk under bigjobthreshold limits will use the selected stylesheet as expected.
• 2084017: APP now correctly handles the difference between Arabic and Hebrew layout of numbers.
• 2085362: The condition leading to a formatter failure formerly reported in the pubtex log file as layout error – pre-hyphen character count is negative will no longer be treated as a fatal error, allowing publishing to continue.
• 2085372: Reference marks for footnotes in XSL output (PDF and HTML) now include an active link to the footnote.
• 2085652: Reference marks for footnotes in XSL-FO PDF output now include an active link to the footnote.
• 2086254: Mid-document indexes appear in PDF output generated by the APP engine.
• 2086780: APP’s Unicode support has been updated to Unicode 5.1.0.
• 2086982: Publishing a document to RTF will now proceed if the RTF template associated with the stylesheet contains \falt constructs.
• 2089548: The option to select a PDF configuration file is no longer available when publishing PDF via Adobe Distiller with the FOSI or XSL-FO print engines.
• 2091934: A repeating table title no longer causes a failure in a PDF publishing operation.
• 2094247: Spans and keeps from multi-column content are obeyed as expected.
• 2094248: A generated text rule before a graphic is positioned as expected when publishing through APP.
• 2096636: Documents with cross references to IDs longer than 72 characters can
  now be formatted successfully using the FOSI print engine without triggering a message that the ID value is not valid for savetext: textid.
• 2096922: TeX memory has been increased to allow certain large documents to format.
• 2097225: Speed optimizations have been implemented in the 64-bit build to improve time taken to publish PDF with the APP engine.
• 2097339: PSRaster and PStill libraries have been updated to handle EPS images correctly in PDF output generated by APP.
• 2101191: Publishing no longer terminates with a pure function called error.
• 2101782: spanspec settings for CALS tables are honored in PDF output generated by the APP print engine.
• 2103540: Spaces between adjacent inline elements are no longer removed from output generated by the APP engine.
• 2104123: Arbortext Styler no longer terminates unexpectedly when previewing APP output of a document.

Arbortext Publishing Engine

• 2097139: Information regarding font substitution carried out during a PE-Tie or PE-Interactive PDF publishing process is now written to the compose log.
• 2097476: The PE Rendition Request Processor no longer causes Document Manager’s Rendition Services to fail when processing rendition requests for documents that have no content.

For more information..

Documentation supporting Arbortext is delivered in the Arbortext Editor Help Center. Documentation for this and all recent releases can also be downloaded from the Reference Documentation area of the PTC web site at support.ptc.com.

First of all, I know that there are many of you out there who have been waiting the release of the next podcast. I think we underestimated how hard it was going to be to release a video every other week (Arbortext Monster Garage) and still maintain our podcasting schedule.  Well, get ready to listen: We’ve got several stacked up in the queue ready to go and we’re starting the release schedule again with a flourish!

The first release in the new podcast series is with a legend in the industry: Barry Schaeffer. I met Barry very early on. I always looked forward to seeing him at industry events and reading the articles he published.  Barry was always a frequent speaker and contributor on subjects related to information and content management.

Barry is a legend.

He was Founder and President of X.Systems.Inc., a system development and consulting firm specializing in the conception and design of text-based information systems, with industrial, legal/judicial and publishing clients among the Fortune 500, non-profit organizations and government agencies, until it’s acquisition by XyEnterprise in 2008. His work with structured information began in 1979 with SGML, and with XML at its initial publication as a standard in 1996. X.Systems was the first company to partner with Arbortext.

Today, Barry is a Senior Analyst with the Gilbane Group and a Principal consultant with Content Life-cycle Consulting, Inc.

Over the course of his career, Barry has held management and technical positions with The Bell System, Xerox, Planning Research Corporation, U. S. News and World Report, Grumman Data Systems and XyEnterprise. As an experienced consultant and systems architect, he has supported a client list that includes major industrial organizations, Federal civilian and defense agencies and state governments.  He was even the new media columnist at Newspapers and Technology magazine for a couple of years.

And we are beyond delighted that he could help us restart the PubWright Podcast.

The advice he gives is invaluable when it comes to thinking about how to roll out XML publishing systems, how to think about organizational content strategy, and full of lessons learned about both. In fact, there’s a bit of important history here: Barry was there at BNA when IBM was learning the lessons that lead IBM to invent DITA. Interesting stuff!

Head on over to the podcast. It’s available on our podcast feed and on iTunes iTunes. Hear from a long time part of the the XML/technical publications family: Barry Schaeffer.