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I/we have been using Flare here for years (currently 9.1), having switched over from RoboHelp not long after Flare came out.
The decision, at the time, was not so much that Flare seemed THAT much better - we'd been using RoboHelp for a while and had mostly figured out how to do what we wanted... or had abandoned doing stuff that was too much trouble and was non-critical. Rather, RoboHelp was languishing at the time and it looked like it didn't have a future. According to a lot of mail that went by (on Techwr-l and other venues), over the years, that's how Flare picked up a LOT of new customers in the early years. Some Robo users switched out of annoyance or because Flare offered a new/improved feature they needed, but many switched because they didn't want to be stuck with an orphan.
My impression was, and remains, that Flare is ... er.... um.... "intuitive" if you are starting from scratch on a project, and get into the Flare way of looking at things with few pre-conceptions. It's a lot less "intuitive" if you already have an ongoing oeuvre, created and maintained in other tools up to now, and need to duplicate specific functionality. Almost always, your best first hope is the MadCap forums, and then Tech Support if no-one in the forums has figured out how to do what you need to do.
My "new" co-writer (it's three years now - happy belated anniversary, Joe :-) ) continues to complain that he can't do stuff in Flare that he was doing easily with FrameMaker plus Webworks(?) in 2001.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+kevin -dot- mclauchlan=safenet-inc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+kevin -dot- mclauchlan=safenet-inc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Catherine Girczyc
Sent: June-04-13 12:39 PM
To: Heider, Heidi; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Robo vs Flare
Hi Heidi,
I love Flare - am using 9.1 - I can't really speak knowledgeably about RoboHelp. Flare has a lot of functionality but it can work very well even if you don't know a lot about CSS.
Catherine
-----Original Message-----
From:
techwr-l-bounces+catherine -dot- girczyc=westernunion -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+catherine -dot- girczyc=westernunion -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr
-l.com] On Behalf Of Heider, Heidi
Sent: June-04-13 8:36 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Robo vs Flare
HAT lovers, pls forgive me if this has been hashed & rehashed to the ground.
I DID search the archives first, and found out that some believed that Flare 7 was better for content management and Robo 8 performed better for Interactive content.
But now Flare 9 and Robo 10 are here. I'm going to see demos from both companies this week, so I want to hear what yooz guyz-the peeps who use these tools-think.
Personally, I like user-friendly super-intuitive products. The more I can just figure it out and guess as I go, the happier I am. (Do all tech writers hate reading user manuals, or is it just all humans? ;-)
Which do you prefer, and/or for what purposes? And if you can't stand talking about these tools any more, no offense taken-pls point me in the right direction.
Thanks comrades! ;-)
Heidi Heider
Content Manager | Portals Marketing
Time Warner Cable Business Class
2551 Dulles View Drive | Herndon, VA 20171
(703) 713-9204 (o) | (202) 277-7687 (m)
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New! Doc-to-Help 2013 features the industry's first HTML5 editor for authoring.
