Thanks for writing. I agree with you… there are several problems that continue in Flare. I guess I do what you do, submit a bug report or contact support, and then figure out how to work around it. I’ve changed the way I lay out my Word doc, or I’ve made a list of steps I do post-processing, or whatever. There are some stability problems I experience that I’d love to see addressed; Flare tends to crash a lot for me when I’m using it.

That said, I have to say that I’m impressed with how MadCap as a company responds to the suggestions I’ve made. I’m one of their smaller customers. I have a single Flare license, and I only have Bronze support. However, when I posted a blog entry on persistent Flare problems, MadCap called me on the phone to discuss the problems I was experiencing. As you go back to that post, you can see how several of those problems have been resolved in subsequent releases. So, I find that very impressive. I have never been a customer of a software company that is so responsive to my needs.

Have all of my concerns been addressed? Not yet. But I’m willing to work through the problems because (1) I truly believe in the power of the software to improve my workflow and output, and (2) I believe that my voice has been heard, and that my issues have been looked at, and will be addressed in some form at some future point.

I don’t know if this is entirely helpful to you, or not. I understand your troubles. I know how hard it is to work through the problems you encounter in your main authoring tool. I don’t think this is a MadCap-specific problem, speaking of the industry as a whole. While I recognize that the problems you are experiencing are MadCap-specific, I am trying to point out that regardless of the tool you chose, you’re going to have problems and you are going to need to find work arounds. I’m glad to be doing it with a product I believe in and with a company that I believe cares.

Try getting that kind of response from Adobe. I’ve never been successful with it.

Cool site. I stumbled across it searching for technical writing positions where Flare is used.

After reading some of your blogs and information about using Flare, I am curious about something. I’m sure you’re familiar with most of Flare’s bugs and defects. Having used the application as much as it appears you have, how are you dealing with those issues?

The reason I inquire is that we, my company, are no doubt one of Flare’s larger clients. We’re constantly finding defects and bugs that we’ve either logged on their site or called them about. In most cases, we receive no solution. We’ve become adept at work-arounds, and yet, it’s getting so we’re tired of it. We’ve been dealing with some of the same bugs since version 1.0. I would have thought by now, they’d be fixed.

Maybe I’m looking for a sympathetic ear, but have you found this to be the case as well?

Thanks for your time and for this site. It’s quite handy!

Kristin