| Microsoft Office documents offer a few key features not available in other FlashPaper-generated documents. To take advantage of these features, a little advance work is necessary. In addition to displaying the documents exactly as they are printedincluding the fonts and formatting usedWord, Excel, and PowerPoint files also support the following: Hyperlinks. Text marked as a link opens the page at the designated Web address in a new window. Outlining. FlashPaper automatically displays a document's outline in a separate pane. The outline for Word and PowerPoint documents is based on the headings used; in Excel, the outline depicts the included spreadsheet tabs. Accessibility. Screen readers read the text content of Office documents automatically, and the alternative text for graphics if embedded properly.
Note These additional features of Microsoft documents are not supported when you use the FlashPaper printer driver for the conversion. Unfortunately, this limitation means that these features are Windows-only at the present time.
In the following exercise, you'll prep a Word document to take advantage of advanced integration offered by FlashPaper. After the document is saved, you'll see how Contribute users can convert that document into FlashPaper. Tip If Word is not available on your system, substitute an Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation for the Word document.
1. | In Word, select File > Open and navigate to the folder containing your local site root. Open the report folder and choose the file Financial Report.doc from the Open File dialog box. Select Open to display the file.
The chosen Word document incorporates tables from Excel as well as graphics and text. Although this particular document is not extremely long, FlashPaper is perfectly suited to showing documents of any length.
| 2. | Select the graphic in the first page of the document and choose Format > Picture. When the Format Picture dialog box opens, click the Web tab. Enter the following in the Alternative Text field: Trevor"Chip"Kaufmann, General Administrator of Bounty General . Click OK when you're done.
 Note The Web tab of the Format Picture dialog box is available in Word 2000 and Word 2003 in Windows. Although alternative text is not noticeable at all in a standard Word document, it is used if the file is converted to a Web page. FlashPaper makes the alternative text available to screen readers that read the document out loud. Unlike Web pages in browsers, alternative text in FlashPaper doesn't display when the visitor's mouse moves over the image. It's not a bug; it's just the way Flash works.
Next, you'll set up a link so it can be read and executed by FlashPaper.
| 3. | On the first page of the document, select the text found at the end of the second-to-last paragraph: www.bountygeneral.com. With the text selected, choose Insert > Hyperlink. In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, enter the full URL to the site (http://www.bountygeneral.com) in the Address field and click OK.
The link is styled in the standard underlined blue format. Only the absolute Web address can be used: Document-relative links such as ./index.htm don't work properly in either Word or FlashPaper.
Let's move on to enabling an outline by formatting the headings properly.
| 4. | Select the initial heading, Financial Report Summary, and from the Style drop-down list choose Heading 1. At the top of page, style the lead heading "Financial History" as Heading 1, and make the subheading "Income Statement for: Bounty General" a Heading 2 style. Move to the top of pageand change the subheading "Balance Sheet for: Bounty General" to Heading 2 style. Finally, at the top of page 4, make the heading "Selected Measures of Financial Performance for: Bounty General" into a Heading 1 style. When you're done, choose File > Save to store the revised file. Windows users should then select File > Close; Mac designers should keep the file open.
Note Due to operating system differences, FlashPaper isn't integrated into the Macintosh version of Contribute the way it is in Windows. If you're a Mac user, you need to create the Flash document from within the original program (in this case, Word) and then import it into Contribute as a Flash document. Many Word users don't apply styles correctlyoften, they simply change the font size and add bold or italic to make it look like a style. For FlashPaper to re-create the outline, the Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and Heading 4 styles must be applied.
Tip If you don't like the way headings look, you can add different formatting to the text after the desired heading style is applied. For accessibility, it's best to keep the Word document's structure relatively simple. Reliance on text boxes and other objects that disrupt the document flow are likely to result in out-of-order rendering, both in Contribute and when read by a screen reader.
| 5. | In Contribute, select Choose and open the report folder from the site root. Select the financial_report.htm file and click OK to open it. When the file opens, choose Edit Page.
Although both Windows and Macintosh Contribute users can convert Office documents to FlashPaper, the procedures are somewhat different.
| 6. | Windows users: Delete the placeholder text and choose Insert > Document as FlashPaper.In the Open dialog box, navigate to the local site root and select the report folder. Choose the Word document Financial Report.doc and click OK. When the FlashPaper Options dialog box appears, make sure that the Page orientation option is set to Portrait; the Page size option is set to Standard: Letter; and the "Display document outline, if present" option is selected. Click OK. After the conversion is complete and the Flash document is visible in Contribute, choose "Save for later."
Note This draft will be used later in this lesson. At that time, the file will be published, and the Flash document will be transferred to the location earlier identified to hold .swf files. FlashPaper begins processing the document. When it's done, it inserts the completed .swf into the open Contribute file. All the functions of the FlashPaper toolbar are functional except the Open in Browser option (available only when the page is published or previewed).
| 7. | Macintosh users: In Word, make sure that the modified document is still current, and choose File > Print. In the Print dialog box, choose FlashPaper from the Printer list, keep all the other options the same, and click Print. When the Save As dialog box appears, enter financial_report.swf as the name for the file and store it in a convenient folder. Switch to Contribute and, while in Edit mode, delete the placeholder text. Choose Insert > Flash > From My Computer; locate the just saved FlashPaper file in the Open dialog box and select Choose.
With both versions, you might find that you need to resize the inserted Flash document. If so, select it and then drag any of the sizing handles. The Flash document retains its original proportions regardless of which handle is moved.
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