MadCap Flare

[Jared Crawford]

Callie,

As a FrameMaker user, I evaluated Flare, FrameMaker +ePublisher, and Adobe's Technical Communicator Suite last April. Each approach has its limitations, advantages, and frustrations. 

Flare is the most forward-looking product, but there is a learning curve and no real point in authoring in FrameMaker if you choose that solution. Flare is great for help systems, but has some challenges regarding PDF creation that are being addressed.

If your authors are bent on using FrameMaker, that would be a deal breaker for Flare. If you must author in FrameMaker, your choices should be ePublisher or Technical Communicator Suite. If purchasing new software, I'd go with the Suite because it's a great value if you're interested in all its tools. 

If you already own ePublisher and FrameMaker, I recommend pressing on and solving your problems with it. It will pay off. The other applications are equally annoying in what you have to do to make them work and look good.

Mif2Go is useful if you want to occassionally filter to other formats, but as a production tool, I've never had much success with it. I found it to be more of a time suck than the other applications. I know that some people love it, so it's just my opinion.

All these applications have free trials that are worth spending a couple of days playing with.

I hope that helps.

--Jared

Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:42:37 -0700
From: "Callie Bertsche" <c.bertsche at tecplot.com>
Subject: MadCap Flare
To: <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Message-ID:
    <E1571DB16CBC0946A1D36FA15112E70602964A5A at tecsvr40.amtec.org>
Content-Type: text/plain;    charset="us-ascii"

Hi Framers, 
Due to frustration using ePublisher Pro and the coding learning curve of
Mif2Go, we are seriously considering switching help generation software
to MadCap Flare. I know I've generated chatter about this before, so I'm
sorry if this feels repetitive; but can I get any more input from anyone
who uses Flare with FrameMaker (7.2) to generate extensive
single-sourced material? More words of caution or advice? I've evaluated
the software to a fair extent and it seems capable; I'm really excited
that it can generate help from the command line. But because it's a
younger product, I would really value any more input from others who
have taken the plunge.

I generate thousands of pages into about 22 manuals and 3 online help
bundles. Currently ePP 9.1, Frame 7.2, WebWorks help output. My primary
concern in upgrading to the newer ePP was the glitch where it randomly
skips filename markers in the output, leaving me without random pages
that I need (I've heard that they've fixed it, but I've also heard that
it didn't work for at least one user), as well as the glee that
producing help from the command line would give me.

Cheers,
Callie