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Loading ...MadCap Software Sponsors the Tech Writer Voices Podcast
November 5th, 2007 | Posted in Technical Writing |
I’m proud to welcome another sponsor to the Tech Writer Voices podcast: MadCap Flare.
You may be wondering exactly what sponsorship involves. Basically, it’s different for each company, but I’m offering promotion on my podcasts in exchange for a free copy of the company’s product. This is actually something that Heidi Hansen, my co-host, encouraged me to do long ago.
So for the past week, I’ve been exploring MadCap Flare Version 3.1 with a lot more depth than I explored the trial version of the 2.0 release last year. I’m thoroughly impressed with Flare. It provides a robust, functional online help tool that simply works. When I say robust, I mean it. The granularity of the style editor is powerful — allowing you to create stylesheets for both online and print formats.
Some other things that stand out:
- The generated output to print actually conforms to the styles you configure in the style editor.
- The conditional tagging is intuitive and easy to apply.
- The net DotNet format allows you to deliver context-sensitive help that is embedded and dynamic.
- The Webhelp skin is easy to customize.
- Flare’s built-in help is excellent — no need for a third-party book to guide you through the product.
Although some aspects aren’t as obvious as I hoped, Flare is a tool that I won’t easily grow out of. And their expansion into other areas — screen capture, audio, translation, screen demo, and more — makes their product suite compelling. In some ways Flare is similar to RoboHelp, and in many other ways it’s completely unique.
I know I sound like a marketing brochure, so I will admit one thing I don’t understand about Flare. A new feature of Flare is Easy-Sync, explained as follows:
A first in the industry. Flare supports two different work flows when importing Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker documents. With the standard import you can leverage existing content and then continue your editing and maintenance using Flares built in editor. However, with the new Easy Sync capability you can have Flare treat the original Word or FrameMaker document as the source file. This allows you to do all of your edits and maintenance in the original Word or FrameMaker document and still get all of the powerful publishing capabilities of Flare. The first tool in the industry to support two different work flows within the same product.
What I don’t understand is why anyone would want to maintain a source file in Microsoft Word and then publish to an online help format. Flare’s online help editor is so much easier to format and manipulate content than Word. Working in Microsoft Word and publishing to online help seems backwards.
The only logic I see is that some authors may prefer Word due to their familiarity with it.
MadCap’s pace is impressive, and the sophistication and functionality of Flare is astounding considering that the product is less than 2 years old.
Look to some upcoming podcasts dedicated specifically to Flare and other Madcap products.
By the way, are you a Flare user? I’d be interested to hear your experiences with it or any other Madcap product.
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Tags: Flare, MadCap Software, online help, RoboHelp, Word
November 6th, 2007 at 12:27 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today on [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Thanks, Tom, for the pointer to Easy Sync of which I wasn’t aware yet - and your really cool TechWriter blog which is one of my favorites!
We’ve just bought a Flare license after evaluating various single sourcing solutions: We opted for Flare since online is our primary output with Word/PDF as occasional second output. We liked Flare’s clear editing and the open X(HT)ML source format. Its single sourcing capabilities seem to meet most/all of our requirements (pesky details pending…?).
Checking out forum activities, it seems to be a smallish, but dedicated community with a healthy mix of users and developers. And most of the unsolved issues aren’t deal-breakers for us. Still, we would wish for a clear commitment to DITA by the producers…
November 6th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
[...] read more here [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFlare I’m proud to welcome another sponsor to the Tech Writer Voices podcast: MadCap Flare. You may be wondering exactly what sponsorship involves. Basically, it’s different for each company, but I’m offering promotion on my podcasts in … [...]
November 8th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Hey Tom. MadCap couldn’t have picked a better podcast to sponsor.
I’m (obviously) a Flare user, (Disclaimer: and an MVP in the MadCap forums) and I love Flare as a Help Authoring Tool. It is a powerful, fully-featured product that in my opinion is a major driving force in the help authoring community right now.
I’m a big fan of Flare’s X(HT)ML source files. I know that if someday I need to transition to a different tool, my content files can be re-used. I can also check the files into source control and compare line-by-line revisions (not available on binary files).
I love the content reuse capabilities in Flare (and the other products in the MadCap MadPak). With variables, snippets, and conditional text, I can highly customize my Flare outputs all from a single source.
I really like the integration between Flare and Capture. I love using my Flare variables on images in Capture, which get re-built every time I create my output. Since the text is appended to the image in a separate XML file, I can even do a find-replace on the images directory to change settings or sections of text on my images.
I LOVE Flare’s CSS editor. I love that my outputs are all CSS-based. I love that when I set a printed style, (because I’m using a PDF-type target), those settings carry over into my WebHelp version (so if a user prints a page from the online helps, it is formatted almost identically to the way it appears in the PDF file in the guide).
I really like Flare’s XML editor. It is a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to see the applied styles in any medium you have set in your style sheet (so if you have a separate medium for printed docs and online docs, you can use the editor to view the content using either medium).
I could go on. Flare is a great tool. If you are considering a HAT, I suggest you download a trial of Flare and see how it compares to the competition. I’m really glad we chose Flare.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Hi, Tom. I’m also a Flare MVP. You were questioning the reason for the Easy Sync feature… I have a feeling that feature was geared more toward the Flare user who needs to import information from subject matter experts (SMEs). The SMEs can write/update content in a Word file stored in a central location so all the different SMEs can access it and modify it, if necessary, and then the Flare author can import that file every time he/she rebuilds the help project.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Lisa pointed out one reason for easy sync, but another one is that in many cases others want or need to review documentation before it gets published. Unless these parties have Flare installed as well, a Flare project will be of no use to them. Especially Word is a common format and comes with the ‘track changes’ feature. The final version can then be easily imported into Flare using a project setup that was created using an earlier document version. I am sure that the tech writers don’t use Word as a source because they think its editor is superior to Flare, but that they have no other choice if they need to collaborate with others who do not have Flare installed.
And just to clarify, I am also a Flare MVP.
November 13th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Thanks for the positive feedback on Flare. I think it is a solid product too.
Congratulations on your MVP status. Besides boosting your professional credentials, what do you get for being a Flare MVP?
November 13th, 2007 at 12:58 am
You mean besides the adulation of our adoring fan base on the MadCap forums? Isn’t that enough? It keeps me posting in the forums
November 13th, 2007 at 1:10 am
Thanks for your comment. Mike Hamilton says that DITA support is scheduled for an upcoming version of Flare. If the industry buzz continues with DITA, it will surely make it into Flare. However, I’m curious what you hope to gain from DITA that you can’t already get with Flare. Usually the argument for DITA is to publish to multiple formats and reuse content. You can do this with Flare.
November 13th, 2007 at 1:20 am
I think that the argument for DITA is two-fold: users want to be able to import DITA files into Flare. Currently there is no way to import XML files into Flare. DITA support would presumably provide the ability to import DITA as well as export DITA.
Also, providing a DITA-target would allow users who have already invested in DITA tools the ability to output to formats they already have created. If you already have customized/stylized DITA outputs you’ve created and invested in, the ability to output to those pre-determined outputs would be quite handy.
Plus, since there are tools out there that take DITA content and format it into various outputs, you could conceivably have a much shorter implementation cycle for Flare. (Currently you have to spend quite a bit of time getting your style sheet customized in a way that makes your content look good. If Flare supported DITA, there would be options for out-of-the box output options that look good as well.)
So, I think those are some of the arguments in favor of DITA support from Flare. For some people it is a buzzword only; for others, it could shorten implementation cycles, and allow formatting reuse that has already been invested in.
December 5th, 2007 at 7:05 am
[...] A first in the industry. Flare supports two different work flows… [...]
June 9th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
[...] Studio). http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2008/02/16/technical-wri... • Found on Ask.com MadCap Software Sponsors the Tech Writer Voices Podcast | I’d Rather Be … SharePoint Wikis: Both Liberating and Frustrating. WordPress Shopping Carts … Flare 2.0 and [...]