HTML to MadCap Flare: A guide to automating content migration and maintenance

One of the biggest challenges in moving to a new content development environment is migrating existing content to new tools. Moving content, especially unstructured content, can be expensive and time-consuming. HTML to MadCap Flare shows you how to import content, including dynamic content, into MadCap Flare effectively and efficiently.

This book combines clear explanations with detailed examples and complete scripts. It helps writers understand how Flare works and gives tools developers and maintainers what they need to automate the migration and maintenance of content.

HTML to MadCap Flare covers Flare 11 through Flare 2017.

Inside the Book

• Flare and HTML: introduces the way Flare handles HTML.
• What you need to know about Flare: describes the Flare project structure.
• The Toolkit: introduces a set of mostly open-source tools you can use to automate your procedures.
• CSS and Flare: describes how Flare uses CSS and how you can set up your CSS files to work nicely with Flare. Also covers print-specific processing.
• Preparing for Import: describes techniques for preparing your content for import, including tables of contents, glossaries, links, bookmarks, CSS, and titles.
• Importing: describes how to import content, including how to effectively import dynamic content using auto-sync.
• Scripting: goes into more depth on managing dynamic content. Also includes scripts to clean up HTML, change comments into Flare annotations, and perform other useful tasks.
• Template Projects: outlines a detailed strategy for creating template projects to support a single-sourcing environment.
• Appendices: includes appendices on using Apache Ant with Flare, importing DocBook, along with a file-type and task reference, glossary scripts for Flare 11, a glossary, and an index.

Peter Lavin is a technical writer who lives in Toronto. He is familiar with a variety of different authoring tools and technologies. He enjoys writing and finding ways to improve accuracy and speed through automation.