MadCap Flare: First Impressions

I've started the migration to MadCap Flare. I chose a simple project for my first one, a short story. See? I do use FrameMaker for everything. I wanted to submit a short story to a contest that ended last month. I had these templates for manuscript submission I've been using for years.  MadCap claims Flare can completely replace FrameMaker. We shall see.

First thing I did was read the Flare Transition Guide for FrameMaker Users. From the beginning, I knew MadCap understands technical communication. The manual is well written and the concepts are based on sound principles.

Now keep in mind that I have used RoboHelp and FrameMaker since they were babies. Flare is completely new to me and I have not read much about it until now.

I put my manuscript in a new folder and I had Flare import it. No problems. A nice little CSS was built based on the Frame style sheet from the document.

Flare Project Example

The Page Layout Editor has replaced the concept of master pages from FrameMaker. I played with those and created my start page and my subsequent pages without much fuss.

Like RoboHelp, Flare saves content in topics. So my short story was translated into a single HTML file. I was able to successfully export my short story to a PDF for submission without a lot of trouble.

Now the idea of storing things by topic is really a tech writing concept. Not many other people do it. An adjustment to working with "topics" exclusively is something I won't have an issue with since I think in topics.

An initial criticism I have of Flare is, since there is a lot to it, the interface appears clunky on my laptop, which is maxed out at 1280 x 800 resolution. My desktop is 1900 x 1200 and Flare is much more usable there. So I found myself on the laptop a little frustrated with juggling "windows" and "explorers", but I'm still learning the tool. I will note here that most affordable laptops come at 1280 x 800 these days and running most software in that environment can get frustrating. I have a Pentium III Sony Vaio I still use periodically for remote desktop access because it has 1600 x 1024 resolution. The widescreen laptop really is a step backwards.

As for authoring, Flare is comfortable and fast. Styles are easily accessible via the Style Window and I love that I can switch layout modes on the fly. I found the placement of toolbars to be well thought-out. Flare is most certainly a tool created by tech writers for tech writers.

I already see where Flare can be used as document tool for everything, which is my goal. When I'm done, FrameMaker and Word will be ignored. There's much more to come as I get my hands dirty.

Tagged as: Adobe FrameMaker, RoboHelp, technical_communication, Technology, Writing