In the Madcap world of Flare (yes, I promise never to say that again), you can use stylesheets to give your tech docs a real edge. For me, styles are one of the hidden secrets in Flare. So, if you plan to publish your tech docs to PDF, Web, or HTML5, a crash course in CSS […]
Conditional text is one of those writing tactics technical writers love to talk about… but never seem to use. It’s a shame as conditional tagging can save you a lot of time, especially if you have technical documents which share 90% of the content but the other 10% needs to be tweaked for each release. […]
Ever want to close all the open documents in Madcap Flare except the one you’re working on? Yes? If so, here’s how you do it: In Flare, click the Window tab. In the Open Windows section (far left), click the Close All Documents button. This opens a drop-down list. Click Close All Documents Except This […]
Snippets? Sounds familiar but what are they? In the Madcap world of Flare, snippets are content ‘fragments’ you can re-use in different parts of your Madcap Flare projects. Use snippets to insert: Text Tables Images Video Why Use Snippets If you find yourself typing the same text over and over, create a snippet instead. Create […]
Want to replace the default MadCap Flare logo for your online help? Before you do, a few things to consider: For IE 6 or older uses — save the logo as GIF with a transparent background. If you use PNG, the transparent portion of your image appears as black. For IE 7 or newer — […]
Using Madcap Flare to create your WebHelp? Did you know you can add SEO information to the page headers? This improves their results in search engines queries and helps customers find information faster. Want to know how? Follow these steps, grasshopper. Madcap Flare: how to improve Search Engine Optimization In Project Organizer, click Targets, then […]
Are you using variables in your technical documents? If not, you might be missing out. They save a lot of time and help keep the documents accurate, for example, if you need to change a product name across the entire doc set. If those puppies were hard-coded, you’re in trouble. We use Madcap Flare. The […]
When creating WebHelp with Madcap Flare, you can add your own logo instead of the default Madcap logo. Here’s how to do it. To remove the MadCap logo and replace it with your own logo: Open the skin want to remove the logo from. Click the Styles On the Tool Item category, click Logo. Click […]
Tired of all those pesky broken links in your WebHelp projects? Wish they’d go away? Well now you can! If you use MadCap Flare to create your web help, you can run a broken link checker. It’s not perfect. But it will catch most dead links, which is a start. Finding broken links in Madcap […]
Using Madcap Flare for WebHelp? If you have problems getting Internet Explorer to run web help pages, added ‘Mark of the Web’ to your WebHelp files. Madcap Flare: How to add Mark of the Web You can add the Mark of the Web to HTML files so they run locally in Internet Explorer. In Project […]
Maybe you don’t hear your accent, but others do. When you read their documents, does the accent come through?
“Don’t worry” she said. “No one reads this stuff anyway. Just get it done.” Sounds familiar?
Creating a training plan? Before you do this, you need to step a step back and work out what your colleagues need to learn.
I’ve used the same technical writing tools for the last 5 years. A few products have come across my desk but nothing that really blown me away. Here’s a run-down of what I use to write my technical documents. No order of preference. Which should I keep? Which should I replace?
Robohelp or Doc-to-Help? My client has given me permission to use whatever tool I want to do the next batch of tech docs — and they’ll buy the software. No cost to me. Which one should I choose? Robohelp or Doc-to-Help Doc-to-Help was the first help authoring tool (HAT) I used in my technical writing […]