Publishing Output

Publishing output is the final piece of your external architecture. The way you publish output depends to a certain extent on the kind of output you are producing. There are lots of output types you can choose in Flare (see Determining the Output Type), but we will focus here on the two most recommended formats—HTML5 and PDF. The same things discussed below might apply to the other types of output formats available in Flare.

Web Server

Many writers publish their output files to a web server so that they can be seen by end users. You might do this by setting up a destination file in your Flare project, which will automatically copy and upload the output files to the location you choose (see Creating Destinations). Alternatively, you might use a third-party tool, such as FileZilla, to upload copies of your files.

Product Application

Some authors need to provide output files to developers in order to integrate a Help system into a software application. You might use a destination file to copy the output files to a location where developers can retrieve them, or you can manually copy and paste the output files. You might even place the output files into a source control repository for your developers. This can be done using a destination file in Flare Desktop, or by using a third-party tool such as Microsoft Visual Studio.

MadCap Flare Online

If you subscribe to MadCap Flare Online, there are certain benefits, including the following:

• You can quickly generate and publish your output with a few clicks. There is no need to move any files around. Any site set as “live” will be published and immediately available to your end users on Flare Online’s servers.
• You can quickly roll back the published output to an older build in an instant.
• You can customize the final URL for the output in various ways, including mapping to your own host domains.
• You can publish output directly from a Flare Desktop project to a Flare Online license.
• You can publish private output so that end users must log in to see the documentation.
• You can select a specific branch for published output on a site (if you are using Git branching).

For detailed information about building and publishing in Flare Online, see documentation.madcapsoftware.com.

The image above illustrates the process if your Flare project is bound (uploaded) to Flare Online. However, you also have the option of publishing output directly to Flare Online from your Flare Desktop project. By “publish,” we mean copying your output files to Flare Online, not making that output “live,” which would make it visible to the general public. You would still need to use Flare Online to make that output live.

SharePoint

If you have a SharePoint connection in your Flare project in order to leverage those external files, you also have the option of publishing output to a SharePoint server. You can do this in Flare Desktop by setting up a destination file and pointing to that SharePoint server. See SharePoint Integration and Creating Destinations.

PDF Inside Help System

There might be times when you want to place one kind of Flare Desktop output inside another. The most common example is a print-based output such as PDF inside a Help system.

You can do this by manually copying and pasting the PDF into your Content subfolder in Windows. Alternatively, you could use the External Resources feature (see External Resources). Once the PDF is in your project, you might want to link to it in your TOC. If you are generating the HTML5 server-based output, the PDF content will be included in online searches for text.

What the MadCap Documentation Team Does

We use multiple methods for publishing our output.