Cutting-edge technical authoring and publishing for today’s technical writers and content developers.
Designed for advanced topic-based authoring, single-source publishing and content management (CMS), MadCap Flare is more than a help authoring tool. Create self-service support and online Help sites, documentation portals, learning centers, training guides, knowledge bases, policy & procedure manuals, and more – all while maximizing content reuse and leveraging multi-channel publishing capabilities.
Manage Your Entire Content Development Workflow with MadCap Flare
From importing and content creation, to subject matter expert contribution and review, to multi-channel publishing, translation and integrated cloud-based workflows, MadCap Flare is unmatched in its power, versatility, and ability to scale for any size team or organization.
Importing
Import Your Legacy Content with Ease Using a Simplified Drag and Drop Workflow
Flare offers the easiest and most advanced import of legacy content in the industry including support for a wide range of file types using an easy drag and drop workflow. Migrate your legacy content – such as Microsoft® Word and Excel, Atlassian Confluence®, Adobe® RoboHelp® and FrameMaker®, DITA, Author-It®, and more – using our patented WYSIWYG XML Editor to author content in a familiar visual user interface.
Plus, step-by-step import wizards offer advanced options to customize your import for added control to re-use your legacy content.
Import content from other applications directly into Flare.
Microsoft® Word:
Flare allows you to import any number of Word files simultaneously using the drag and drop functionality. For added control, you can import files using the import wizard. The import wizard allows you to break content into smaller topics for maximum content re-use and to get your Flare project organized quickly and easily. You can also choose to maintain a continuous connection using Easy Sync to automatically re-import Word files once a change has been made to the source file. This ensures any changes made to your Word documents will always be updated in Flare.
View the Import Guide
Microsoft® Excel:
Easily import Excel files including XLS, XLSX, or CSV files. No need to recreate your spreadsheets as these will be added and converted to tables in Flare. As with Microsoft® Word, you can link Excel files to Flare so that it recognizes when changes have been made to the source documents.
View the Import Guide
RoboHelp®:
As the original creators of RoboHelp®, nobody imports projects better than MadCap Software. Create a new project or topics by importing your legacy Adobe® RoboHelp® projects.
View the Import Guide
FrameMaker®:
Create a new project or topics by importing Adobe® FrameMaker® files. Import support for BOOK, FM and MIF files.
View the Transition From FrameMaker Guide
Confluence®:
Import Atlassian Confluence® content, including HTM and Resource files, from the cloud and self-managed servers.
View the Import Guide
Author-it®:
Convert published XML output from Author-it® to a MadCap Flare project while maintaining all project and source files.
For detailed instructions and to download the Author-it® Converter Utility, visit our Redistributable Downloads.
DITA:
Create a new project or import into an existing project by importing DITA files.
Authoring
A Modern UI Complete with a Patented XML Editor for Advanced Content Authoring
Flare’s modern user interface comes packed with features, including a patented XML Editor. A completely customizable interface makes authoring personalized and efficient.
Ribbon Toolbar
Easy to customize, access and view common tasks
Content Explorer
Contains all content-related items in your project
Project Organizer
Contains all project-related items in your project
Visual Editor with Structure Bars
Visual WYSIWYG XML Editor with patented Structure Bars
Split View Editor with XML Code View
Synced split view of both the XML Editor and Text Editor
Dock Any Window Pane for Quick Access
Window panes can be docked, floated or hidden
Topic-based Authoring to Manage and Assemble Content
Topic-based authoring is a modular content creation approach that supports XML content reuse, content management, and makes the dynamic assembly of personalized information possible.
Save time and money by creating intelligent, topic-based content that can be customized and used to create different variations of outputs for different audiences and users, such as:
- Beginner and Advanced Guides
- Policy and Procedure Manuals (based on city, region or country)
- Employee Handbooks (Exempt and Non-Exempt, Full-Time and
Part-Time) - Administrative and Programmer Guides
- Getting Started and Quick Start Guides
Micro Content Authoring to Improve Search, Feed Chatbots
Micro content is what it sounds like—short, concise information that stands alone, maximizes and expands re-use of content beyond topic-based authoring, and is easily consumable by machine learning and AI applications.
All micro content in Flare (new or existing) is tagged with unique XML extensions, making the content easy identifiable and ingested by machine ready and AI applications appropriately. Leverage micro content for use in your output and applications.
Built-in Project Templates to Create Professional Print, Online and Mobile Content in Minutes
With 20 pre-installed project templates – and a growing library of new modern responsive top navigation templates – you can publish gorgeous web and print-based outputs in minutes. Create stunning, professionally designed print brochures and books, online Help systems, knowledge bases, support sites, eBooks, and more without the need for any additional CSS development or creative resources.
Multiple Authoring Layout Modes for Different Output Mediums
Unlike other authoring solutions in the industry, MadCap Flare allows you to author content in different layout modes within the WYSIWYG XML Editor. This unique authoring capability not only makes it easy to see how your content will look in different output formats, but also allows you to dynamically switch between views. Authoring modes include: Web, Tablet, Mobile, and Print (WYSIWYG PDF).
Responsive Layout Editor for True Responsive Content
The responsive layout editor allows you to control the layout of your content for any device, without the assistance of a web developer or requiring any coding knowledge.
Style Inspector to View and Edit Your CSS Properties
A Style Inspector in the Formatting window pane lets you view and edit the style details for your content (topics, snippets, etc.) in real time, rather than having to edit styles in the stylesheet.
Advanced Stylesheet Editor with Multiple Medium Views
The advanced stylesheet editor includes multiple medium views (such as web, print, mobile, tablet – or any number of custom views), and offers complex selectors, media queries and more.
Find and Fix Issues with Powerful Project Analysis and Reporting
MadCap Flare offers powerful project analysis and reporting that can help find and fix issues with your projects. Run tests before you publish to find critical issues, such as broken links, duplicate stylesheets, missing images and more.
Scan your project to find and fix critical issues, including:
- Broken Links
- Duplicate Styles in Stylesheets
- Duplicate TOC Items
- Broken Image Links
- Broken Bookmarks
- Undefined Variables, Condition Tags,
File Tags and Conditions - Non-XML Topics and More
As well as used and unused items including:
- Snippets
- Topics
- Styles
- Variables
- Map IDs
- Images and More
Plus, improve
content quality and reuse by
identifying suggestions, including:
- Markup (XHTML)
- Index Keywords
- Cross-references
- Local Styles
- Snippets
- Variables
- Accessibility
The Power of MadCap Analyzer Is Now Built Into MadCap Flare
MadCap Analyzer’s features and functionality are now included in Flare. Find and fix critical issues quickly, get content suggestions for snippets and variables, meet accessibility guidelines, generate custom reports, and much more.
Find Elements
Quickly and easily find files containing particular elements such as custom tags, MadCap-specific features (drop-down text, concepts, equations), markup, inline styles, style classes, and more.
Text Analysis for Readability, Average Sentence Length and More
A text analysis tool built into Flare allows you to run reports on your project content. Scores are based on the “Flesch Reading Ease” and “Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level” tests, and reports can be run on topics, documents, entire projects or compared side-by-side to other documents.
Reports include Readability scores, average sentence length, punctuation density per sentence, and number of unique words.
Single-source Images and Videos with Capture and Mimic
Maximize content reuse by applying the same rules used for text to movies, callouts and images to your projects. By adding variables to callouts and images, there's no need to recapture or reinsert images into your documentation when text or version changes are required.
MadCap Capture
Screen Capture and Image Editing
MadCap Capture offers advanced screen capturing and image editing features to make it easy to incorporate images into your content. Easily re-crop and re-capture images, add captions, single source images using custom mediums from your Flare projects, batch replace image libraries, store common image settings in profiles and much more.
MadCap Mimic
Interactive Demos, Videos, Tutorials and Software Simulations
MadCap Mimic is an easy-to-use software simulation and multimedia tool that lets you create fully interactive movies, eLearning videos, simulations, presentations and tutorials of software or systems.
Scalable for Any Size Organization
Unlike many expensive Content Management Systems (CMS), or resource-heavy platforms such as DITA-based solutions, Flare was built for scale with a focus on keeping costs reasonable. Whether used by a single user or team of hundreds of writers and subject matter experts, Flare provides a cost-effective solution to meet the needs of any size organization.
Flare offers advanced publishing features, including batch target builds for automated publishing:
- Schedule any number of builds for a particular date or time
- Use the command line publishing for multiple targets
Floating/Enterprise licenses include:
- Unlimited installations and activations across your company
- Bundled maintenance (1, 2 and 3 year contract available) for Floating licenses
- Flexibility – add any number of users at any time using the same license key
- Remote access with installation on a network server
Accessibility Support for Documentation
Create documentation that is accessible to users with visual and hearing impairments, using assistive technologies such as Microsoft Windows Narrator, Connect Outloud, and Job Access With Speech (JAWS). HTML5 output is Section 508 and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliant.
Accessibility guidance features in Flare include:
- Insert alt and title attributes to links, images, QR codes, equations and more
- Receive the following compiler warnings when alt and title text is
missing:
- Image elements are missing alternate text
- Equation elements are missing alternate text
- QR code elements are missing alternate text
- Tables are missing captions and summaries
- Tables are missing header elements
- Form elements are missing labels
- Frame elements are missing titles and names
