Products

• Flare 7
• What's New in v7

Authoring and Publishing Solutions MadPak ML — Authoring and Translation Involved in translation or localisation? The MadPak Multilingual (ML) product suite includes everything you love about MadPak, and combines it with MadCap Lingo, the industry's first fully-integrated translation memory and authoring solution.   MadPak Develop Robust, Professional Documentation Using MadPak For All Your Web, Desktop, Print and Mobile Needs A must have for technical writers and documentation specialists - MadPak includes Flare, X-Edit, Mimic, Capture, Echo, and Analyzer. Tight integration between products makes your authoring and review process, screen captures and edits, and software simulation functions easy and seamless to incorporate into any project. With MadPak, technical writers and documentation specialists can: Create, manage and publish content to the Web, desktop, print and now mobile [New] Save time utilising true single-sourcing across multiple products Integrate media elements into your documentation directly from within the Flare interface by launching Mimic, Capture, and Echo Analyse and improve authoring efficiency with Analyzer Incorporate content from casual contributors and full content review and commenting using X-Edit   Madcap Flare — Desktop, Web, Mobile and Print The most complete technical authoring and publishing solution for the web, desktop, mobile and printed documentation. « more » MadCap Blaze — Long Document Authoring for Print Publishing A new paradigm for enterprise print publishing, Blaze fosters reusability and eliminates redundancy errors common in more traditional book authoring structures through highly flexible, topic-based authoring: Create, manage and publish: Print-based user manuals, employee handbooks and illustrated guides Hardware and maintenance manuals Reference books MadCap X-Edit Family — Short Document Contribution and Review Now casual content contributors can seamlessly provide content to the technical authors using defined guidelines. Casual Contribution — Streamline your workflow by allowing non-technical writers and subject matter experts to contribute content Review — Send documents to managers to review, comment and edit technical documents

Translation and Localisation MadCap Lingo — A Fully Integrated Translation Memory and Authoring Solution Eliminate the risk of losing valuable content and formatting between authoring and translation using the industry's first truly integrated authoring and Translation Memory eXchange tool. Manage content and multiple project files for translation with Project Packager Utilise full Translation Memory eXchange (TMX) support Run statistical reports showing detailed file translation information Import and translate content created in DITA, Microsoft Word, RTF, TXT, XML, HTML and more Integrates with MadCap Flare, Blaze, X-Edit, Capture, and Mimic Multimedia MadCap Mimic — Create Professional Video Tutorials More than a video recorder, Mimic allows for the creation of fully interactive software simulations and tutorials. Create Help, eLearning, technical support, and sales & marketing video simulations Integrates with MadCap Lingo, Flare, Blaze, Mimic and Capture Output to Microsoft Silverlight, XPS, Adobe Flash, AIR, PDF and Mimic Movie Format PowerPoint (.ppt and .pptx) file import MadCap Capture — Screen Captures Made Easy Capture, edit and enhance images from your computer screen. Create, manage and publish: Capture, edit, add text, and add other special effects to any image or screen capture Integrates with MadCap Lingo, Flare, Blaze, and Mimic MadCap Echo — Incorporate Dynamic Audio Add a new dimension to your projects with our easy-to-use audio application. Create, manage and publish: Include voice over, sound effects, music or any type of sound element to projects Integrates with MadCap Flare Analysis and Reporting MadCap Analyzer — Scan, Analyse, Report and Fix Your Projects Increase project efficiency and consistency with powerful analytic tools. Issues — Find broken links, duplicate styles, duplicate TOC and outline items, topics not in selected TOC or outline, and more Used and Unused Items — Snippets, topics, styles, variables, map IDs, and images Suggestions — Snippets, variables, index keywords, new styles, and writing structure  MadCap Feedback — User Feedback and Reporting Improve your content with live user feedback, monitoring and reporting for both web-based and desktop documentation. Create, manage and publish: Content — Monitor, analyse, and improve your content User Behaviour — Understand what users are looking for, finding, and not finding in your content Web 2.0 Functionality — Allow users to add comments, suggestions and rate content Feedback — Create actionable charts from user statistics

Flare 7

Authoring and Publishing for Print, Online, Desktop and Mobile Documentation

MadCap Flare is the professional content authoring tool used by technical writers and documentation specialists to create, manage, and publish content for both print and online documentation. Whether used to create content for complex digital print publishing (PDF) or online Help systems (WebHelp and WebHelp Mobile), MadCap Flare provides a robust authoring and publishing solution for your professional technical communication needs.
 

How It Works

Single-sourcing

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 output 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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:
  • Complex auto-numbering for volumes, sections, paragraphs, and pages
  • Complex page layouts including graphics, headers, footers, and multiple columns
  • Full CSS support
  • Multiple page layouts
  • Multiple document outlines in one project provide as many outputs as you need
  • Variables and snippets
  • Dynamically adjust page numbers to next or previous, above or below, using smart crossreferences
  • Enhanced JPEG compression and PDF Support
  • Support for import and export of FrameMaker, Microsoft Word, DITA, Plain HTML, XHTML and more
  • Global Project Linking — share and update common elements across multiple projects
  • 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 rouondtripping capabilities for those authors that want to use Flare as there 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:
    * .BOOK This is FrameMaker's native book (or "document collection") file.
    * .FM This is FrameMaker's native single document file.
    * .PDF In addition to sending output directly to PDF (as described above), you can generate a PDF file automatically when building FrameMaker output.
  • Microsoft Word: Flare output can be exported to Microsoft Word in one of the following file formats.
    * XML, DOC, DOCX
    * XPS: In addition to sending output directly to XPS (as described above), you can generate an XPS file automatically when building Word output. (You can do this by installing a free add-in download from Microsoft.)
    * PDF: In addition to sending output directly to PDF (as described above), you can generate a PDF file automatically when building Word output. Because Flare supports Microsoft Word 2003, 2007 and 2010, you can send Word output to PDF format, even if you do not have the Adobe Distiller installed.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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, Favourites.
    

For more information please contact the MicroWay sales team:
Head Office MicroWay Pty Ltd PO Box 84, Braeside, Victoria, 3195, Australia Ph: 1300 553 313 Fax: 1300 132 709 email: sales@microway.com.au ABN: 56 129 024 825	Sydney Sales Office MicroWay Pty Ltd PO Box 1733, Crows Nest, NSW 1585, Australia Tel: 1300 553 313 Fax: 1300 132 709 email: sales@microway.com.au ABN: 56 129 024 825	New Zealand Sales Office MicroWay Pty Ltd (NZ) PO Box 912026 Victoria Street West Auckland 1142, New Zealand Tel: 0800 450 168 email: sales@microway.co.nz
International: call +61 3 9580 1333, fax +61 3 9580 8995