MadCap Software Forums

Hey all,

I'm trying to brainstorm of a way easily to track changes for reviewers. Here's our current process:

Topic is written in Flare > Topic is output to Word for business analyst review (BAs do not have Flare) > BAs add comments using Word and return document to writer > Writer applies edits in Flare and outputs new/updated Word version and sends to BA to verify/add more edits

A BA was asking if there would be a way to track changes so that he could see where the edit was applied/what was changed. The issue is that we don't actually make the changes in Word. I was toying around with ideas like divs or highlighting, but I'm trying to avoid manual adding/removal of change markers.

Any ideas? What works best for you all?

Thanks!

Recent versions of Flare (can't recall when this change came in, maybe Flare 12?) allow one to preserve tracked changed in Flare in Word and PDF output.

So, first thing is to turn on Flare's Tracked Changes feature, covered here: http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... hanges.htm. Then, as you edit topics, you'll see insertions and deletions, very similar to Word's Tracked Changes.

Then, enable "Preserve Tracked Changes" in your Word or PDF target, covered here:
http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... hanges.htm

I hope this is enough to get you going.

Thanks, Nita! Somehow I had never realized that was a feature. I guess because I'd never needed it before. Thanks.

kgmarie wrote:Somehow I had never realized that was a feature. I guess because I'd never needed it before.

It's relatively new, as of (I think) Flare 12, which was released in March 2016.

On another note, do you know how/when tracked changes become "normal"? Such that an old tracked change is not repeated in the output for the next major revision?

dle wrote:On another note, do you know how/when tracked changes become "normal"? Such that an old tracked change is not repeated in the output for the next major revision?

It's marked as a change until you accept the change.

See the help: http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare201 ... hanges.htm

Is there a way to show tracked changes in HTML output? New content I've added to a topic does not appear in the output.

There's no 'Preserve tracked changes' option in the Advanced tab for HTML targets like for PDF targets.

Hi,

Try this:

Create a generic class that only adds your favourite change bar style. Then select the changed text and apply the class to that span.

In html it should work on any element. But that probably won't transfer to pdf. I've only gotten divs to abide by positioning properties. No colors and no borders, so probably no bars, either. It's a limitation of the Apose library that Flare uses to generate pdfs.

Hi,

Try this:

Create a generic class that only adds your favourite change bar style. Then select the changed text and apply the class to that span.

In html it should work on any element. But that probably won't transfer to pdf. I've only gotten divs to abide by positioning properties. No colors and no borders, so probably no bars, either. It's a limitation of the Apose library that Flare uses to generate pdfs.

Is it possible to have the change bars export after you have accepted changes? We'd like to produce a PDF that shows where changes have been made (using change bars), but don't want the redlines and old text included. Currently when I accept changes the change bars disappear with the tracked changes.

If you apply the class on the modified text as a span it'll carry over.