My recent article on moving from RoboHelp to Madcap Flare seems to have generated interest in the technical writing community. Rick Stone made some excellent points that I’d like to share here. As the points raised are so detailed, I have created a new post to address each one. Again, thanks to Rick and here goes.

My recent article on moving from RoboHelp to Madcap Flare seems to have generated interest in the technical writing community.

Rick Stone made some excellent points that I’d like to share here. As the points raised are so detailed, I have created a new post to address each one.

Again, thanks to Rick and here goes. Hello Rick, many thanks for clearing up the differences between RoboHelp and Flare. The points you make are very helpful and have given me an insight into RoboHelp that maybe I had over looked.

<I do realize this is a very “Pro Flare” review and intended to place RoboHelp in as negative a light as possible.

The Flare article certainly wasn’t meant to be RoboHelp bashing or anything like that. Here’s some background info that might place it in more context.

I am going through all the major technical writing software applications at the moment and writing up reviews, tips, tutorials and such. This month I’ve been living and breathing Flare. So, lots of words have been written up and published about, well, Madcap Flare.

On reflection, what I should have done was staggered the publication dates of the articles and spread out the material over several months. But I also have to write/publish new material every day, so it’s a balancing act. I hope that makes some sense.

The other point is that the tech writing community are very interested / enthusiastic in Madcap Flare. There’s quite a lot of buzz about what it can do and I think credit must go to Madcap for building up such a following.

Whenever I have contacted them, they came back with answers and were very helpful. I regret to say that my experience with Adobe has left me less than enamoured. I rarely get any response and when I do it’s rather curt.

To be honest, I don’t contact Adobe any more. I guess I’ve lost a certain respect for them.

For example, I also use FrameMaker and PageMaker (showing my age!) and have flicked a few emails to them asking for direction, advice and what not.

Their response?

Sometimes none; other times just generic cut and paste replies.

I’ve used PageMaker when it was owned by Aldus. That’s quite a while back. Adobe doesn’t (to me) show much loyalty to its customer base and seems more concerned with migrating users to its new apps. That’s fine. I can understand that. But if you have used their applications for almost 20 years, I think you deserve more that bland cut and paste replies.

So, with that in mind, I started to look at alternative solutions for tech writing software, which lead me to Madcap and a few others. I hope this doesn’t sound like a rant – it’s not meant to be – I just wanted to put things in context.

<As a long time RoboHelp user (nearly from the beginning) I can attest that Flare is *NOT* as easy of a transfer as this verbiage would seem to suggest. Be prepared to struggle with what seems to be an odd interface layout.

The way I see it is that if you have grown up with Adobe, then yes, the user interface is different and you will need some time to find your bearings. But, I don’t think it’s that difficult to master.

For example, I switched to Word 2007 last year and am having a very hard time finding where things are. Sometimes, I go back to Word 2003 to write the docs as I know all the shortcuts inside out. To me, Word 2007 is an odd user interface. My wife uses Vista and struggles to find files she saved. What were they thinking?

<Just because the Madcap folks had a hand in RoboHelp development, don’t expect Flare to be sort of like RoboHelp on steroids and just seamlessly pick up and off you go and are productive. I’ve seen reports from other Flare converts that suggested they struggled with the interface for a period of time before accepting it was different. That alone hinders productivity and needs to be factored into any plans on switching tools.

Agreed. If you are moving from RoboHelp to Flare, there will be a period of transition. But isn’t this true for most all applications?

PageMaker users are been migrated to InDesign in line with Adobe’s strategic plan. Millions must have been spend defining this transition plan.

But if you are a PageMaker user it’s not a smooth ride from one to the other – and these are two products from the same company.

<As for the many unprecedented features, I’d like to see a list instead of speaking in nebulous vageries.

Will do. I’ll prepare a matrix showing the features of each product. This should help clarify the relative strengths and weakness of each product. It also keeps things a bit more objective.

<I’m not intending to slam Flare. It’s a great product if that’s what you want. But long time RoboHelp users won’t find it nearly as simple as the post seems to imply.

Of course, there will also be teething problems.

Maybe what we really need here is the flip side. In other words, an article that shows how MadCap Flare users can migrate to RoboHelp?

What we need is a list of the benefits RoboHelp offers and identify some of the limitations of Flare. This would balance the argument and provide more balanced information for those considering that switch to RoboHelp or Madcap Flare.

<MadCap Flare is designed to generate pure, clean, compliant XML. XML? Has Flare suddenly shifted gears on us? Last I saw it was producing XHTML which is substantially different.

According to MadCap: Flare stores all content and project files as XML files, making Flare projects completely open, transparent, and accessible.

Page 3 – http://www.madcapsoftware.com/assets/Flare%20v4…

Rick points out that RoboHelp 8 (the latest version) also produces clean and compliant code with no proprietary tags. (KADOV tagging) RoboHelp also now produces XHTML code.

<Keep in mind the “proprietary tags and editor tricks” you cite were part of the older versions of RoboHelp.
These tags and tricks were developed and implemented by the same folks that are now producing Flare.

I don’t know that. I’ll send them an email and see if they can shed some light on this.

<Of course they did what they had to do at the time they were developed, but these tags and tricks are now just a memory and are no longer part of RoboHelp. So your statement is misleading.

I would say it’s misleading but we now know that RoboHelp version 8 produces clean and compliant code with no proprietary tags and XHTML code. Previous versions may not.

<MadCap Flare allows you to import your existing RoboHelp projects, so you won’t lose legacy content.
“Legacy” content? This would seem to infer RoboHelp is long dead. Quite the opposite!

Maybe we’re at cross purposes here. To me, legacy is synonymous with data repositories that have been built up over time and need to be published into new formats/channels etc.

<If Flare is what you want, by all means go for it. But there is no need to try and slant things so RoboHelp looks bad in a lame attempt to try and sway the viewpoint. RoboHelp is quite a nice product as I’m sure Flare is.

I think the intro to this piece pointed out some concerns I have with Adobe and also why I’m exploring alternative solutions. Compared to other articles I’ve seen, I think the tone of this article is fairly balanced.

<If someone is in the market for a help authoring tool, I would advise them to download both products and test for themselves. Then base the decision on what works best for you.

Absolutely.

You can download Adobe RoboHelp here: http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/

You can download MadCap Flare here: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/downloads/

I would add that before you start

1. Define your goals
2. Prepare sample material
3. Establish criteria for determining the most appropriate solution.

<It is worth noting and curious that a Flare to RoboHelp conversion tool exists. No tool is created without a demand for it.

http://www.showmethedemo.com/flare-to-robohelp/…

I’ll add this to my to-do list and prepare a review.

<I’ll part with a final question. Why is a Pro Flare/Anti RoboHelp post appearing in a blog that is supposedly dedicated to Word tips and tricks? Seems odd.

Mea cupla!

I use Windows Live Writer to publish material to my blogs. I run 11 blogs.

Windows Live Writer lets you switch between blogs quite easily, i.e. you can publish to Blog #1 and then, if you want, switch to Blog #2 and publish the article there.

It’s very handy if you want to publish the same article (or extracts) across multiple blogs.

And here’s what happened.

When you open Windows Live Writer, the last blog you work on is displayed.

So www.wordtipsandtricks.com was displayed when I opened Windows Live Writer that day. FWIW I use the same Wordpress theme for several blogs so it is easy to lose your bearings if you are not paying attention.

That’s how an article meant for this site ended up on www.wordtipsandtricks.com – not the end of the world but as reminder to slow down when doing multiple posts.

What next?

What I would love is someone from Adobe to come forward and address some of the concerns technical writers have about their applications.

1. Why are technical writers moving from RoboHelp to Flare?

2. What are the benefits of RoboHelp v Flare?

3. What’s the strategic plan for RoboHelp over the next 5 years?

I’m not going to waste time contacting them as explained above but this is what the technical writing community want to hear. I don’t think Adobe does itself any favors in the way it presents itself, which I think accounts for the rise in popularity of alternative technical writing solutions.

If you have any opinions about this, please let us know. The more we talk about this, the more informed a decision we can make,

And if you do know someone at Adobe who’d like to talk with us, please send them our way.

Once again, I’d like to thank Rick for clarifying some of the point I made. Likewise, I hope my response showed where I’m coming from.

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