MadCap Flare

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Advanced Authoring

Single-sourcing

Single-sourcing—to produce multiple results from one source—allows you to enjoy greater consistency, accuracy and delivery of your documentation by managing content from a single source. In Flare, you can make use of single-sourcing in many different ways:

Global Project Linking:

You can import content and project files contained in another Flare project, thus allowing you to maintain the information in one location but reuse it in any other project.

Multiple outputs from one project:

Flare allows you to generate outputs in a variety of online and print-based formats, creating as many different targets as you want from the same project.

Single-source images:

MadCap Capture, the screen capture and graphics editing application, contains many unique features that are especially useful for online documentation authors, including the ability to single-source images in Flare projects. For a single image, you can provide one group of settings for online output, and another group of settings for printed output.

Table print styles:

A table style sheet allows you to single-source your formatting by setting the properties in one place and reusing them wherever you insert tables in your project. But what if you want the tables in online output to look one way and the tables in your printed output to look another way? One solution is to insert two different tables (one for online output and another for print) throughout your project and then use condition tags on them. A better solution is to insert a single table at each location, using a special version of the table style for print-based output.

Mediums for topic styles:

Let's say you want one style setting (e.g., underline font) to be used for online output and another setting (e.g., do not underline font) to be used for printed output. You can use a medium in your style sheet to create different settings for the same style. When you apply a particular medium to a target, it will be used for that output.

Variables:

Variables are pre-set terms that you can use in your project over and over. They are stored in "variable sets," which can hold multiple variables. Flare provides you with an initial variable set, but you can add as many additional variable sets as you like. Variables are used for brief, non-formatted pieces of content (such as the name of your company's product or your company's phone number).

Style sheets:

Cascading style sheets (CSS files) can be used to control the look of your output. Style sheets can be applied to individual topics, or you can use a "master" style sheet, applying it to all files at the target level or project level.

Snippets:

Snippets are pre-set chunks of content that you can use in your project over and over. Snippets are used for longer pieces of content that you can format just as you would any other content in a topic. Insert tables, pictures, and whatever else can be included in a normal topic.

Snippet conditions:

Snippet conditions are condition tags that you can apply to content within snippets. Separate certain snippet content so that it displays in some topics or master pages but not in others. Whereas regular conditions are included or excluded at the target level, snippet conditions are included or excluded at the topic or master page level.

Condition Tags:

You can apply condition tags at all levels in Flare—character, paragraph, file, and more.

Multi-channel Publishing

Flare allows for one-click publishing to multiple outputs by simply selecting your desired output or target. Publish content to a variety of formats including cross-browser, cross-platform online Help, printed documents such as PDF and Word™, and online Help optimized for mobile devices.

You can use batch targets to generate and/or publish one or multiple targets in a batch from the user interface, perhaps scheduled to run at a specific time.

Print

Flare offers all of the advanced features you expect in a high-end, XML-based print publishing application such as:

PDF:

Native PDF support and built-in PDF Engine allows for direct to PDF publishing from Flare. Short for "Portable Document Format," PDF is an open file format created by Adobe®. PDF files represent two-dimensional documents in a device-independent and resolution-independent fixed-layout document format.

XPS:

Microsoft's XML Paper Specification (XPS) is a document format with a markup language that is a subset of XAML for Windows Presentation Foundation. XPS is an alternative to Adobe®'s Portable Document Format (PDF).

Adobe® FrameMaker™:

Madcap Flare is the only authoring tool that allows for direct output to Adobe FrameMaker. This allows for full round-tripping capabilities for those authors that want to use Flare as their authoring environment while still using FrameMaker as a publishing engine.

For example, import FrameMaker documents into Flare, edit the content in Flare and then output back to FrameMaker for publishing. Flare can output content to FrameMaker in any of the following formats:

Microsoft® Word ™:

Flare output can be exported to Microsoft Word in one of the following file formats.

XHTML book:

XHTML is a browser-based output type that consolidates project content in an XML file. It can be viewed online or printed. The output appears as one long book, even if the project consists of hundreds of topics. You can view and print the XHTML output.

Online

HTML5 WebHelp:

HTML5 output is an online format that is the next generation of WebHelp. It is similar to the regular WebHelp format. however, whereas the original WebHelp format works with HTML4, HTML5 has a much more modern look and feel, supports CSS3 and can run on practically any device or browser. HTML5 format results in better markup and offers additional features not found in the other WebHelp outputs.

The online Help for Flare was created with HTML5. Use HTML5 WebHelp to create Help for the Internet or an intranet, as well as for desktop applications.

WebHelp:

This is a Web-based Help format that can run on almost any browser or platform. Use WebHelp to create Help for the Internet or an intranet, as well as for desktop applications.

WebHelp Plus:

Identical to the regular WebHelp output, however, WebHelp Plus is designed to work on a Web server running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, as well as Microsoft® Internet Information Services (IIS), ASP.NET, and Microsoft® Indexing Service. The benefit of publishing WebHelp Plus output is that you and your users can take advantage of some advanced features, including searching of non-XHTML content, faster server-side search, and automatic runtime merging. With WebHelp Plus content from legacy documents such as Microsoft and PDF in your search results.

Desktop

HTML Help:

This is an HTML-based Help format that runs on Windows 32-bit platforms and requires Internet Explorer on the end users' systems. Use HTML Help to create Help for Windows desktop applications.

DotNet Help:

Developed by MadCap Software, DotNet Help was designed to include the best attributes of Microsoft® HTML Help and WebHelp, while filling the holes left behind by those formats. DotNet Help is designed specifically to support Visual Studio 2005 developers. It includes a freely redistributable viewer (MadCap Help Viewer), as well as components for the Visual Studio 2005 developer. These components can be dropped into your Flare project to facilitate context-sensitive Help, embedded Help, and features such as automated search string communication between the application and the DotNet Help documentation.

DITA:

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) file content is supported in Flare. DITA is an XML-based markup language with its own schema for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. It is a standard of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), and it consists of a set of design principles for creating "information-typed" modules at a topic level and for using that content in various delivery modes. In Flare, you can generate output that produces DITA files.

WebHelp AIR:

WebHelp AIR uses direct integration with Adobe® AIR, which is designed to bring Web-related content to a desktop environment by taking Web files and incorporating them into a single file to be opened locally, rather than from a server.

Mobile

Flare’s mobile output supports multiple platforms, including the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android, Palm Web OS, and BlackBerry. The new mobile output has been created to optimize both the use of a small screen and potential performance issues as a result of low bandwidth connections. Also included is a generic mobile simulator so authors can test on PCs if a physical mobile test device is not present.

ePub:

This is a format for creating reflowable digital books (ebooks). It is developed and maintained by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). EPUB is sort of a hybrid format. The output is designed to be viewed electronically; in that way, it is like an online format. On the other hand, its structure is like a book or manual; in that way, it is like a print-based format. In fact, you can follow many of the same steps for creating EPUB output that you would follow for producing a PDF.

WebHelp Mobile:

This is an output type that lets you deploy Web-based, XHTML output to mobile devices. WebHelp Mobile maintains an easy and intuitive interface that fits on a very small screen. The Home page in WebHelp Mobile output contains navigation links to access the various panes that you can include: TOC, Index, Glossary, Search, Favorites.

Use your mobile device to scan this QR code and visit our Mobile WebHelp for Flare.

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Additional Software Licensing Options

In addition to our standard single named-user perpetual license, we are pleased to offer:

Subscription Licenses

  • Currently only available for MadCap Contributor
  • 6 months and 12 months subscription available (includes maintenance and support)
  • Subscriptions ranging from $8 to $16 per month per user (depending on user total)

Multi-user Perpetual Licenses

  • Available for Flare, MadCap Contributor, Analyzer and Capture
  • Install software on multiple computers using a single license key
  • No registration required for each user
  • Completely flexible – add any number of users at any time using the same license key
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  • Unlimited installations/activations across company
  • Floating license includes bundled maintenance (1-3 year contract – Platinum maintenance)
  • Completely flexible – add any number of users at any time using the same license key
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Subscription, Multi-user and Floating license cannot be purchased online at this time. Please contact a MadCap Sales Representative.

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