EzGlobe Selects Flare From MadCap Software As Best Authoring Tool For Enabling Translation
Expert Localization Firm’s Evaluation Reveals Significant Benefits with Flare’s Full Unicode Support Versus RoboHelp®
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.com
About 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.
