Ezglobe Selects Flare From Madcap Software As Best Authoring Tool For Enabling Translation Of Help Content Into Multiple Languages
San Diego, CA, USA – May 23, 2007 — MadCap Software, the leader in
multi-channel content authoring and a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Visual Studio 2005 showcase
company, today announced that EzGlobe has selected MadCap Flare as the best authoring
software for Help content that requires translation into multiple languages. EzGlobe, a full-service
localization company, has completed a comparative analysis of MadCap Flare and Adobe
RoboHelp® in which only Flare provided direct translation into Asian languages, while RoboHelp®
required workarounds using other tools. EzGlobe has since recommended Flare over RoboHelp®
and is seeing a number of its customers switch to MadCap’s software as well.
“Our customers have come to rely on us for timely, superior translation and localization
services, capitalizing on proven methodologies and state-of-the-art technology,” said
Jean-Baptiste Daian, co-founder and president of EzGlobe. “MadCap Flare is based on
XML, the emerging standard for content, and provides full Unicode for translation into both single-
and double-byte languages. When our evaluation showed how much more effectively Flare would
let us support the demands of our many clients whose businesses extend across Europe, North
America and Asia, switching from RoboHelp® to Flare was the obvious choice.”
Mr. Daian, who draws on more than 17 years experience in the localization industry, will present a
case study on EzGlobe’s comparative analysis of Flare and RoboHelp® to the Boston
Chapter International Special Interest Group of the Society for Technical Communications (STC),
on June 4, 2007.
A technology company requiring European and Asian localization served as the catalyst for
EzGlobe’s evaluation. Two years ago, in 2005, EzGlobe was tasked with localizing online
Help into six Western European languages and Japanese. The client had developed the system
using RoboHelp, then the standard choice for most technical writers. However, RoboHelp® did not
support Asian languages. As a result, EzGlobe had to find a workaround, translating the files
generated by RoboHelp® directly and then using the standard WinHelp compiler to build the
Japanese WinHelp.
Not only did the workaround for RoboHelp® require more engineering time and therefore cost to the
client, the quality of the Japanese-language Help was compromised. It lost the user-friendly
side-by-side layout of the other versions, some characters were corrupted, and it was impossible to
maintain the customer’s watermarked background. When generating the documentation in
PDF, EzGlobe required a third-party tool to create a PDF from the Japanese-language Help.
In early 2007, the same technology customer approached EzGlobe for a new product that was to
feature both Microsoft Compressed HTML Help (CHM) and WebHelp. RoboHelp® 6, though
available, still lacked support for Asian languages, so RoboHelpHTML was rapidly eliminated.
EzGlobe instead turned to MadCap Flare and conducted a trial localization project on a sample
Help system that was developed using Flare. The goal was to verify that Flare would handle
double-byte characters as advertised. EzGlobe tested the translation capabilities of Flare using
source documents that were embedded with Japanese Kanji characters. The resulting output
featured the user-friendly side-by-side layout that was previously unavailable to them,
corruption-free files, and fully functional index and search options.
“The managing of the indexing came as a pleasant surprise,” noted Mr. Daian.
“The keywords simply appear as an attribute of an XML tag, making translation work simple
and the resulting translation consistent.”
In addition to Flare’s language-agnostic Unicode-based environment, EzGlobe has also
found that Flare’s XML-based projects and source files are compatible with most of the
popular computer-aided translation tools. Finally, Flare’s library of
Snippets—reusable content—ensure consistency. They also decrease the overall
localization cost, since content needs to be translated only once even if it is used in multiple
locations.
“In the wake of accelerating globalization, EzGlobe is at the forefront in providing
localization services to companies that understand the importance of delivering a consistent, high
quality experience around the world,” said Anthony Olivier, CEO of MadCap Software.
“We are excited by Flare’s growing role in enabling EzGlobe and its customers to
deliver timely, state-of-the-art Help systems tailored to the language, process and cultural needs of
each region.”
Olivier, who was formerly CEO of eHelp Corporation, creator of RoboHelp, added, “In
building Flare, we recognized that an HTML-based architecture, such as that of RoboHelp, could
not provide the efficiencies for localization and translation services that are now available with
XML. Today, having an XML-based approach to translation and localization is the only option for
meeting the time and cost demands of companies with an international presence. The need for
faster, more effective translation is also why Flare features fully localized interfaces for English,
French, German, and Japanese, all in the same package, to help facilitate our global
customers’ needs.”
About EzGlobe
EzGlobe acts as a strategic partner for companies that believe in the importance of addressing their clients, partners, or employees in their own language. A full-service localization company, EzGlobe helps its clients go global by providing professional translation, localization, and internationalization services. EzGlobe is headquartered in Sophia Antipolis, France and bases its US operations in Massachusetts. www.ezglobe.comAbout MadCap Software
MadCap Software is a trusted resource for more than 20,000 companies around the globe for single-source, multi-channel authoring and publishing solutions designed to streamline the process of developing and delivering training content, learning and development programs, technical documentation, online Help, knowledge bases, and more. From authoring, publishing and translation, to cloud-based project and content management, to contribution and review in the cloud, you can streamline content delivery and manage the entire content development lifecycle with MadCap Software. MadCap Software’s services include product training, consulting services, translation and localization, and an advanced developer certification program. Headquartered in San Diego, California, with offices in Austin, TX, MadCap Software is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the content development industry.
