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I know someone who did one of Madcap's "Madcamps" and she spoke highly of
it. But I personally have used many service contracts over the years, and
found the expense well worth it. Madcap support folks are the best in the
business - over the years, I have never been able to stump them, and they
are fast - they have saved me an enormous amount of time.
The Madcap forums are also a fantastic resource. When I have a problem I
also check there first - there are some very advanced users in the forums,
and lots of very detailed and sophisticated solutions.
The reason I switched to Flare was that I was having trouble getting Word
outputs from RoboHelp X5, and could not find any support. I've done a lot of
Word docs from Flare, but PDF is a lot easier - just because of the more
complex nature of Word. There's a lot you can do to get exactly what you
want from Word output, but it takes a lot of fiddling - for example, you can
edit the Word styles so that the print docs always generate in the same
format. But it does take time, and since it's been so many years since I
used RoboHelp X5, I can't make a direct comparison to the current version 8.
HTH.
Bee
On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 11:35 AM, Melissa Nelson <melmis36 -at- hotmail -dot- com>wrote:
>
> HI All,
>
> First of all, thanks to everyone who answered my earlier questions about
> Flare and I am excited to report that my company is purchasing Flare, to
> build our new Knowledge Base. I have a couple more questions for any
> experienced Flare users.
>
> 1- If I have never used Flare, but have used Robohelp and Help and Manual
> and feel pretty comfortable with my expertise in both of those tools, how
> long do you think I will need to get the hang of Flare? I am trying to
> budget training time into my project plan. I know there is a learning curve
> to Flare, but if I was able to quickly pick up H&M and RoboHelp..should I
> also be able to quickly pick up Flare?
>
> 2- What types of training did you use to learn Flare? Any experience with
> the training that MadCap offers?
>
> 2- Does anyone have experience with the MadCap support and their
> maintenance plans? Is it worth paying the extra money for the unlimited
> inquiries feature? It is an extra $449 to get the unlimited inquiries? Both
> plans have unlimited email support..how are they at answering emails?
>
> 3- How would you rate Flare's ability to convert Word Docs into Online Help
> as compared to RoboHelp and H&M?
>
>
>
> Any help, would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
> Thanks again for all the earlier suggestions!
>
> Melissa
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Gain access to everything you need to create and publish information
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> formats with virtually any output. Try Doc-To-Help free for 30-days.
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gain access to everything you need to create and publish information
through multiple channels. Your choice of authoring (and import)
formats with virtually any output. Try Doc-To-Help free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com/
LavaCon 2010 in San Diego Sept 29 - Oct 2 is now open for registration.
Use referral code TECHWR-L for $50 off conference tuition!
See program at: http://lavacon.org/
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