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About File Tagging

You can assign "tags" to files in Flare, even folders. File tags can be assigned to new files when you create them (i.e., in the Add File dialog) or to existing files. You can use file tags for many different purposes, such as assigning authors or milestones to topics. Flare lets you generate reports based on the tags that are assigned. This makes project development easier to track, manage, and schedule.

Closedexample

example

Let's say you want to keep track of which authors are writing which topics, as well as the status of each topic (e.g., started, in review, completed). As shown below, you can create one file tag set to list all of your authors and another set to list various topic statuses.

Next, you open the Properties dialog for each necessary file (in this case, topics) to associate certain author or status tags with each.

After you have associated tags to topics and a few weeks have passed, you might decide to create a report to see how each author is progressing on each topic.

When you generate the report, it might look something like this:

Closedexporting projects using file tags

You can export project files based on file tags that you create. One reason you might want to use this feature is to quickly and easily archive projects, especially if you have an extremely large Flare project and need to archive only parts of it. Another use for this feature is translation. If you only need a portion of a master project to be translated, you don't want to send the translator all of the files, but rather a smaller version of the project containing only the files requiring translation. See Exporting Projects.

Closedsteps for using file tagging

Following are the basic steps involved with using the file tagging feature in Flare:

  1. Add File Tag Set The first step in using topic tagging is to add a file tag set. Each tag set stores possible tag values and their comments for one tag type (e.g., an "Author" tag set only contains author names, and a "Status" tag set only contains status names). A factory tag set template is available with pre-designed tag types ("Author" and "Status"). However, you can create custom tag types for any purpose you can think of. See Adding File Tag Sets.

    A file tag set has an .flfts extension and is stored in the Project Organizer under the Advanced folder.

  2. Create File Tags After you add a file tag set, you can create multiple tags within it. See Creating File Tags.
  3. Associate Tags with Files Once you have created file tags, you can associate them with the appropriate files. If you associate certain tags with a folder, all of the files in that folder will be associated with those tags. You can assign file tags to new files when you create them (i.e., in the Add File dialog) or to existing files. See Associating Tags with Files.
  4. (Optional) Edit File Tag Sets You might need to edit a file tag set from time to time. For example, if you have a file tag set designed to hold author names and you hire a new writer, you need to open the file tag set and add that author's name. You also might decide to change the tag type (e.g., change "Author" to "Contributor"). See Editing File Tag Sets.
  5. Create and Generate Reports At any time you can create and generate a report to see the data for topics associated with any file tag set. To do this, select the appropriate tag set option(s) in the Report Editor. These options are always named "Files With Tag: [Tag Type Name]" (e.g., Files With Tag: Author). See Reports.

Note: These tags are intended to be assigned to entire files, not to paragraphs or other content within a topic.