La Jolla, CA, March 16, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
MadCap Software, Inc., the leader in multi-channel content authoring and a showcase company for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Visual Studio, today announced that MadCap Flare 12 is now available. Flare, MadCap’s flagship software, is the industry’s most advanced single-source, multi-channel authoring and publishing solution, supporting the ability to publish to a number of devices and formats including print, Web, desktop and mobile.
MadCap Flare 12 expands MadCap’s commitment to enabling the delivery of modern online and print documentation in the languages of users’ choice. MadCap Software already offers the only professional authoring and publishing solution that allows customers to take advantage of creating and publishing a responsive HTML5 output with top navigation, which more closely resembles a modern, search engine-optimized, and completely customizable informational website.
MadCap Software continues its industry-leading innovation by building on these capabilities in version 12. The new release now includes a Custom Responsive Layout Editor that puts the power of creating responsive content and output in authors’ hands, without requiring in-depth knowledge of cascading style sheets (CSS) or requiring the assistance of Web development expertise. Additionally, Flare 12 offers new multilingual output functionality, enabling a project to be published in multiple languages—all within the same Web or print output. Complementing these features are several new and enhanced capabilities for empowering content authors with greater efficiency and control.
“Users want to access the information they need across the multiple devices they rely on, accelerating the move of multi-channel, responsive publishing into the mainstream,” said Anthony Olivier, MadCap founder and CEO. “With MadCap Flare 12, we continue to drive the next generation of online technical content delivery by empowering authors with fast, easy responsive design via our new editor. At the same time, multilingual Web and print output support for our global customers in Flare 12 advances our industry-leading approach to publishing content in multiple languages and viewable in formats of users’ choice—from print to the Web, mobile devices, and desktops to embedded in software.”
Olivier added, “In version 12, we have placed a great emphasis on enhancing the authoring experience with Flare. While a great deal of product development always focuses on end users, the publishing capabilities and integrations, this latest release of Flare has added a lot of features and functionality the author is going to love.”
Communications Professionals Highlight Flare 12 Benefits
“MadCap Flare 12 is an impressive offering with a renewed dedication to the power of single-sourcing and a focus on the importance of the authoring environment,” said Denise Kadilak, Blackbaud Inc. information architect. “The additional condition options and style sheet management settings offer users a new level of granularity for controlling outputs, and the improvements to the style sheet editor in conjunction with the addition of the Responsive Layout pane invites users of all skill levels to investigate the endless possibilities awaiting them in the CSS.”
“The new features and enhancements to existing features extend Flare to new levels of customizability while making it easier for authors to generate bleeding-edge outputs,” said Neil Perlin, owner, Hyper/Word Services. “Flare 12 represents a new benchmark for authoring tool power.”
“Another MadCap Flare release that delights! Flare 12’s many enhancements are going to make my work processes easier and my projects simultaneously more powerful yet simplified,” said Nita Beck, consultant, Nita Beck Communications. “I’m looking forward to the new responsive layout editor, snippet conditions and snippet variables, hyperlinks and cross-references to more destinations than ever, sortable tables, variables in more places than ever, side-by-side editing of style sheet mediums, style conditions, improved Word output, and more.”
Custom Responsive Layout Editor
The all new Custom Responsive Layout Editor in version 12 builds on MadCap Flare’s capabilities for creating responsive “frameless” HTML5 output with top navigation that more closely resembles a modern website. Using it, authors can place elements in a Web page and tell the CSS where to display images and how content should respond when viewed on different devices. The Custom Responsive Layout Editor provides robust functionality for controlling responsive layouts for Web, tablet and mobile displays. At the same time, the easy-to-use software requires no coding, and enables content authors to complete responsive designs within minutes, not hours. As a result, authors are empowered to take online output design into their own hands rather than relying on Web developers.
New Multilingual Capabilities
New multilingual output functionality in MadCap Flare 12 enables global companies to more easily deliver content to customers in their language of choice by letting authors publish the same project in multiple languages—all from the same print and Web output. Users can choose the order in which languages will appear in the PDF output, for example: English first, French second, Spanish third. Additionally, the multilingual output feature complies with grammar rules for different languages, so for instance, Arabic will read from right to left while English will read from left to right. For the Web-based output, users of the documentation will be able to select the language of their choice using a language drop-down in the upper right portion of the webpage.
In addition to multilingual output, MadCap Flare 12 now provides the appropriate smart quotes for each language. Notably, MadCap Flare can import translated content from MadCap Lingo and any other third-party computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool.
Features For Enhanced Usability, Efficiency and Control
MadCap Flare 12 offers several new features and enhancements for enriching usability and enabling greater authoring efficiency and control. The user interface has been significantly updated to focus on the six targets recommended for modern content: responsive HTML5, Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), and EPUB e-book file format. A completely redesigned Style Sheet Editor offers multiple side-by-side medium views (Web, tablet and mobile), more complex selectors, and support for media queries, among other features. Version 12 also delivers a range of snippet enhancements, including the ability to pin snippets, set up snippet groups, apply snippet conditions to individual snippets, and set up snippet variables.
Additional features in MadCap Flare 12 include:
- The ability to preserve tracked changes in Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF output.
- Support for 64-bit computing to enhance performance.
- Improved support for high dots-per-inch (DPI) monitors and tablets to leverage advancements in display technology.
- The ability to insert page breaks independent of HTML elements.
- Advanced table sorting to provide tables that resemble those in applications, such as Microsoft Excel.
- Enhancements to the glossary, index sorting, source control, XML Editor, drop-down text, expanding text, and master page functionality in MadCap Flare.
MadCap Flare With MadPak Suite for a Seamless Experience
MadCap Flare 12 is accompanied by new releases of MadCap Contributor and MadCap Analyzer, which are part of the fully integrated MadPak Professional Suite. MadPak is the industry’s most comprehensive technical authoring suite and the only one featuring five fully integrated, XML-based products to create a seamless experience for documentation professionals, translators, and other content authors. For example:
- Enable subject matter experts (SMEs) and managers to provide the author with content and feedback on drafts using MadCap Contributor.
- Author and publish technical documentation, knowledge bases, policy and procedures, and more, using MadCap Flare—in print, on the Web, on desktops, or on mobile devices.
- Provide screenshots with callouts using MadCap Capture.
- Create interactive software simulation movies and video tutorials with MadCap Mimic.
- Scan, identify and fix any content issues in advance of publishing with MadCap Analyzer.
Additionally, MadCap Flare is integrated with the MadCap Lingo translation product. MadCap Lingo offers translation memory support and enables a more integrated authoring and translation workflow by eliminating the need for any file transfers—preserving both the content and formatting. It also provides content statistics, such as word count and translation estimates, to facilitate project and budget planning.
Availability and Pricing
MadCap Flare 12 is available today, separately and as part of MadPak. Standalone pricing for Flare is $1,448 per license, which includes Bronze-level maintenance and support. Subscription options start at $67 per month. The MadPak Professional Suite pricing is $1,958 per license, which includes Bronze-level maintenance and support. Subscription options start at $92 per month. For more information on MadCap Software’s enterprise multi-user and floating license models, visit:
- Flare: madcapsoftware.com/products/flare/pricing.aspx
- MadPak: madcapsoftware.com/products/madpak/pricing.aspx
About MadCap Software
MadCap Software, Inc. is a trusted resource for the thousands of companies around the globe that rely on its solutions for multi-channel authoring and publishing, multimedia, and translation management of their professional documentation. Whether delivering technical, medical, marketing, business, or human resources content, MadCap’s products are used to create corporate intranets, Help systems, policy and procedure manuals, knowledge bases, instruction manuals, user guides, and more to any format, including high-end print, online, desktop, mobile or responsive HTML5. MadCap services include product training, consulting services, translation and localization, and an advanced developer certification program. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, MadCap Software is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the content development industry. Learn more about MadCap Software at www.madcapsoftware.com.
MadCap Software, the MadCap Software logo, MadCap Flare, MadCap Analyzer, MadCap Contributor, MadCap Lingo, MadCap Mimic, and MadCap Capture are trademarks or registered trademarks of MadCap Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other marks are the properties of their respective owners.