Alternatives to Contributor?

[dmarino]

A client wants to be able to edit help files outside of MadCap Flare and return them to me to incorporate into their help system (which was created with Flare). Their version of Flare is too old to use Contributor and they don't want to upgrade. Has anyone come up with an alternative method for making edits to Flare's help without using Contributor?

Thanks, Donna

[Andrew]

You can certainly use something like Notepad++. It means you don't get any "support" from Flare itself (so if you are trying to insert xrefs, variables, snippets, etc., that's an annoyingly manual process), but it works.

You may be able to use something like Dreamweaver, too, but I'm not sure if its markup would work with Flare.

[NorthEast]

A client wants to be able to edit help files outside of MadCap Flare and return them to me to incorporate into their help system (which was created with Flare). Their version of Flare is too old to use Contributor and they don't want to upgrade. Has anyone come up with an alternative method for making edits to Flare's help without using Contributor?

Thanks, Donna

The easiest solution is for you to install the same version of Flare that your client has - if you have a licence for that version. You can have multiple versions of Flare installed on your PC and they don't affect each other.

If you can't do that, what versions of Flare are you and your client using?

I just ask because it's usually possible to edit the same project in two different versions of Flare, provided that you don't use features from the newer version. For example, you could edit a project in v6 and v7, provided you're careful in v7 to not use features that aren't present in v6. I would not suggest this if the two versions of Flare are very different (say more than 2 versions), e.g. it'll probably still work for v5 and v7, but probably not v3 and v7.

[LTinker68]

I would not suggest this if the two versions of Flare are very different (say more than 2 versions), e.g. it'll probably still work for v5 and v7, but probably not v3 and v7.

Definitely don't straddle v4 -- they made major changes to the stylesheet file and a few others that cause significant problems going back and forth. So either use two versions below but not including v4, or use two versions above (and including) v4.

[NorthEast]

I would not suggest this if the two versions of Flare are very different (say more than 2 versions), e.g. it'll probably still work for v5 and v7, but probably not v3 and v7.

Definitely don't straddle v4 -- they made major changes to the stylesheet file and a few others that cause significant problems going back and forth. So either use two versions below but not including v4, or use two versions above (and including) v4.

Yep, they made a few structural changes in v3 and v4; including changing the names of the built-in MadCap styles, which will be updated if you edit the stylesheet (and therefore no longer work in the earlier version).

Ideally though, use the same version of Flare as your client if you can.

[Anzac]

They could use the trial version of flare for 30 days, and then you generate the output.....