OpenCourseWare:
Visual Tutorials for Selected Desktop Applications
(PDFCreator)

Wayne Smith   [ wayne.smith@cgu.edu ]

Creative Commons License
The text on this web page is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

[updated: Wednesday, September 1, 2010]

Foreword

The purpose of this web site is to assist motivated learners in learning selected a specific computer application (PDFCreator). The delivery pedagogy is visual; that is, direct screen recording combined with narrative audio.

The default format for these video tutorials is Flash, a file format that can be played by nearly all web browsers automatically [ download Flash plug-in ]. These tutorials are available in alternate formats as well [ Windows Media | Real Media | Animated GIF | AVI | QuickTime ]. Plug-ins for these alternate formats can be obtained at [ download Windows Media plug-in ], [ download AVI plug-in ], and [ download QuickTime plug-in ] respectively.

In Flash, a 1 minute audio/video presentation is about 0.5 MB. Compared to the file size for the Flash format, the file sizes for these alternate formats are larger by approximately 26%, 26%, 54%, 547%, and 1519% respectively. In general, most contemporary desktop players will pseudo-stream all of the formats, including Flash--that is, a user won't have to wait for an entire file to download before playback can begin.

Although these tutorials were designed to be visual, the narration audio tracks from these tutorials are available in MP3 format [ MP3 ] as well (a file format that can be played by nearly all devices automatically). Players for this audio-only format are numerous; see, for example [ download MP3 player ]. Compared to the file size for the Flash format, the file size for an MP3 file (22.050 kHz, 16 bit, mono -- 43 kb/sec) is smaller by approximately 75%. In addition to the direct download of the audio versions of these tutorials, users who wish to be automatically notified of subsequent MP3 additions (and automatically sent the links of those additions as well) can subscribe to the RSS 2.0 feed below with their RSS reader [e.g.,  Mozilla Thunderbird | Apple Safari ] or podcast software [e.g.,  download Doppler (MS-Windows) | download iPodderX (MacOSX) | download iPodder (Linux) ].

Related Work:

I am interested in feedback from individuals who have found this tutorial to be of some benefit in their personal or professional learning activities.

Enjoy.

Wayne Smith
http://wfs.cgu.edu/smithw/
wayne.smith@cgu.edu

Contents (Flash)



Contents in an Alternative Format (Windows Media)



Contents in an Alternative Format (Real Media)



Contents in an Alternative Format (Animated GIF)



Contents in an Alternative Format (AVI)



Contents in an Alternative Format (Quicktime)



Contents in an Alternative Format (MP3) [ RSS 2.0 ]



Contents in an Alternative Format (OGG)



Contents in an Alternative Format (WMA)



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