BLOGS
How to Boost Localization ROI with Madcap Flare's Single-Source Publishing
August 30, 2023
In the world of global content publishing, Madcap Flare has emerged as a game-changing tool for many international companies. Its powerful approach to single-source, multi-channel publishing and extensive features help enhance consistency and reduce costs.
Single sourcing enables global content creators to create their content only once and reuse it across many different channels and products. This helps improve the scalability of content and streamlines localization.
What do you need to know to get the most from single-source publishing?
How is it better than a conventional approach to desktop publishing?
And how does single sourcing help save your budget?
Let's see how we use single sourcing with our clients at Rubric...
What is single sourcing and multi-channel publishing?
You can use Madcap Flare in many different ways. However, its real power comes when you use its approach of single source, multi-channel publishing. This works well for small to medium content sets, though large scale productions are often better suited to DITA solutions such as through Madcap's DITA CCMS.
Here's what these two terms mean:
Single sourcing
Single sourcing is an approach to publishing that allows you to create multiple outputs from a single Flare source.
Let's say you need to create dynamic online help files in HTML5 for multiple similar product lines. Instead of creating multiple input files, you only create and localize a single piece of source content. You can then set up Flare to publish this to multiple outputs, one for each product.
Working with a single source file makes your content easier to manage. It also saves time and budget when localizing.
Multi-channel publishing
Multi-channel publishing is a related and powerful feature supported by Flare.
After you have created your single source file, you then set up different output formats and condition tags to control the outputs. Each target in your project represents a different output.
For example, maybe you need to create HTML5 help files and PDF outputs for the user manual. With your condition tags, for example, you would control which content appears in your dynamic HTML help file and which in your PDF documentation.
The pitfalls of traditional desktop publishing
The most common alternative to single sourcing is conventional desktop publishing. This is the approach that people have been using for decades. It is tried and tested, but inefficient.
Traditional desktop publishing (DTP) involves a cumbersome, time-consuming process of creating and formatting content separately for each platform and channel.
There are various downsides to using conventional DTP, including:
- Inefficiency – Recreating and reformatting content for each output can be extremely time consuming. Single sourcing is far more efficient and removes many manual steps.
- Inconsistency – Every time content is manually transferred or adapted, there is a potential to lose consistency. With single sourcing, most of the process is automated which means higher consistency.
- High cost – The added work and effort to handle multiple sources inevitably increases the cost of publishing and localization. With single sourcing, you only localize a single version of the content, which saves budget.
Compared to conventional publishing, single-source, multi-channel publishing is more efficient, consistent, and cost-effective.
Company story: How topic-based authoring saved cost and effort
What does it look like when you move to a single source, multi-channel publishing model?
One of our clients at Rubric achieved a staggering 75% content reuse by moving to the topic-based authoring in Flare.
The company had a product range of three distinct models. Each model had six variants with different configurations. They were struggling with their documentation process.
When the company previously used standard DTP software, they had to generate 18 different documents for each product variant. This fragmented approach led to a lot of inconsistencies in the content and increased translation costs.
To help solve the problem, they moved to Madcap Flare and used its single source, multi-channel publishing capabilities. They adopted Flare's "topic-based authoring" approach. With a single shared source, they were able to generate these 18 separate manuals, with conditions and variables to make necessary changes for each variant.
After the switch to Madcap Flare, the company drastically improved the consistency of their documentation and reduced costs.
As an added bonus, they were able to create more than just static PDFs from the same source file. They were also able to easily create dynamic HTML5 help files from the same source.
Unpacking 3 of Flare's useful features
What features of Flare are useful for making the most of single sourcing?
Here are three features:
Conditions and variables: tailoring content to fit
The core functionality of single sourcing in Flare begins with conditions. These determine which parts of the content will be included in which output formats.
You can apply conditions to files or different areas of content. As much of the content you create will be the same for all outputs, this allows to you change only those parts that will vary.
Variables are similar are particularly good for content that will be used in many places but will change frequently, such as product names or numbers.
Versatility in outputs: from static PDFs to dynamic HTML5
Flare also supports a range of output options, depending on the type of content you are creating.
The two most common outputs are static PDFs -- often used for documentation or product catalogs -- and dynamic HTML5 -- which is used for eLearning or online help manuals.
Personalization with CSS skins
Flare's CSS skins are a powerful feature that empowers you to easily customize the look and feel of your content.
CSS skins also allow you to easily create "white label" versions of your content for different customers. You can quickly change the colors, fonts, and styling to match the branding of those clients.
The Bottom Line: How single sourcing affects your ROI
Why would you want to move to a single sourcing model?
As well as improving the ease of creating global content, a primary driver for many users is the cost savings it brings. It helps you to achieve a better return on investment (ROI) for both your content creation and localization.
With our client that we introduced above, they were able to achieve 75% content reuse by using this approach. This means that only 25% of their content needed to be maintained and localized, saving them a lot of budget.