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MADCAP FLARE: QR Codes

by Neil Perlin

QR (Quick Response) codes are an expanded form of a bar code. Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave created them in 1994 for parts tracking during manufacturing.

What makes QR codes interesting for technical communicators is the spread of smartphones with QR readers.

 

If you look in Flare’s Multimedia section of the Insert ribbon, you’ll see the QR Code option. You may not be familiar with QR codes by name, but you’ve seen them if you’ve ever seen something that looks like the image below.

 

What can you do with QR codes? You can use them to help potential customers get to your web site. If you've got a QR code on your mobile device, scan the code above and you'll end up on my web site at www.hyperword.com.

 

Here are some other ways to use a QR code, first for traditional technical communications:

 

• Let field service techs open a complete online service manual without having to carry it, just by scanning a QR code on the product casing.
• Let any users jump to your web site from a PDF or print manual by scanning a QR code that you add to a manual.
• Created “extended” quick reference cards with QR codes that link to the full online help system on a server or to web pages with videos showing how to perform tasks described in the card.

 

And depending on how you define “content marketing” and tech comm’s role in it, you can also use QR codes:

 

• As a sales tool for times when prospective customers can’t write down your contact information because they’re driving or hanging onto a strap on a subway. (I saw a QR code on the back of a delivery truck. If I was interested in the service, I could have simply scanned the code to get the company’s URL.)
• As a brand differentiator that says that you’re much cooler than your competitors.
• For any case where it’s inconvenient to type a URL. (I have large hands and find it difficult to type on a smartphone keyboard, virtual or real. I’d find a QR code a helpful substitute.)

How do you create and use QR codes in Flare? It’s like inserting a graphic, the difference being that you can actually see Flare’s QR code generator create the code.

 

Click in a topic where you want to add the code and choose Insert > QR Code. In the Insert QR Code dialog box, select the content type—text, URL, Email…, Contact Information, or SMS. The dialog box settings change accordingly. For example, if you select Text, Flare waits for you to start typing. But if you select Contact Information, fields appear for Name, Company, etc. Fill them out and you’ll see the code take shape in the Preview pane.

 

 

You can control the code size, useful if you create one with lots of content or one to be read in shaky environments. You can also set display elements like position, borders, margins, and background.

 

Is there a limit to how much you can put into a QR code? Yes, depending on the nature of the content—4296 alphabetic characters or 7089 numeric characters with some variations—according to this article. But this should still be enough for many uses. 

 

How to read QR codes on a phone? Easy! Get a reader app from your app store. I use one called QR Reader for my iPhone and Android phone. It works nicely and was free. Start the app, point the camera at the code, and wait a few seconds. The app reads the QR code and pops up the information on the screen or jumps to the URL. 

QR codes are a specialized but interesting feature with a range of possible uses, probably more than I mentioned above. But I can see many possibilities and they’re easy to try.

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Neil Perlin is MadCap-Certified for Flare and is a long-time consultant, troubleshooter, and trainer for the tool, going back to MadCap’s founding in 2004. He also has years of experience with older tools like RoboHelp and Doc-To-Help and now defunct tools like ForeHelp. He is also a certified app developer, trainer, and consultant for the ViziApps app development platform. You can reach him at [email protected] and at NeilEric on Twitter.

 

MadCap Flare: Plenty of Style

by Neil Perlin

MadCap Flare has some of the most powerful style features in the online authoring world. However, working with styles can seem confusing due to some seemingly odd behavior.  For instance, the available styles in the Styles pane seem to change without warning.  Check out the two images below. The Styles pane is shown at the right of the Flare interface in both images. In the first image, notice that, among other things, nothing is selected and there is a list of heading styles (h1, h2, etc) in the Styles pane.  In the second image, I've simply selected some text but the Styles pane looks very different (no heading styles are shown).

What’s going on? Flare is trying to help by only showing styles that are relevant at the cursor’s position. For example, if you click in a paragraph but don’t select any text, or select an entire paragraph (including the hard return at the end), Flare shows the paragraph styles.  Select anything less than a full paragraph, like a word, and Flare shows the character styles. The result? You don’t have to wade through a bunch of styles that are irrelevant to your position in the document. This also has two side effects. Many new Flare users use the head styles for topic titles and sub-titles but still do local formatting – using the formatting options in the Font section of the Home ribbon – to boldface or italicize text. This works but it’s inefficient. Instead, to boldface or italicize text, highlight the desired text and select the desired style on the Styles pane. Flare’s handling of list styles is confusing at first. For example, the screen below shows a list to-be, the three highlighted items, but no list styles on the Styles pane. Why?

Although this is a list to-be, it’s still just three paragraphs as far as Flare is concerned so Flare isn’t showing any list styles. To see list styles, you have to first “tell” Flare that these three items are an actual list.  To create a list, select the text, then select a list option in the Paragraph group on the Home ribbon. (Yes, this is local formatting, just once to tell Flare that the text is a list.)  In the example below, I selected the bulleted list option. The three items are now a bulleted list and, because Flare knows that, it can display the List styles in the Styles pane.

Note that the Styles pane is showing one list style, li (for List Item). That’s because li is the only predefined list style.  You can create your own list styles – bullets and numbers at different levels or with different bullet or number types, for example – and they’ll all display on the Styles pane once Flare knows that you are in a programmatically “true” list. There’s a lot more to Flare’s styles and the stylesheet editor. We’ll look at some of those features in later articles. For now, it’s important to know that the Styles pane isn't as confusing as it seems... and is, in fact, actively making you work more efficiently.

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Neil Perlin is MadCap-Certified for Flare and Mimic, and is a long-time consultant, troubleshooter, and trainer for the tool, going back to MadCap’s founding in 2004. He also has years of experience with other authoring tools like RoboHelp and Doc-To-Help and some now defunct tools like ForeHelp. He is also a certified app developer, trainer, and consultant for the ViziApps app development platform. You can reach him at [email protected] and at NeilEric on Twitter.

Help Authoring: Adding Flare to Your Work

by Neil Perlin MadCap Flare is a tool used to create online Help, software and API documentation, policy and procedure manuals, knowledge bases, and user guides. It's loaded with powerful features that may be unfamiliar if you’re new to the tool or haven’t taken a class. This column introduces those features to show you how to use Flare to its full potential. Generating Project Reports Ever notice that Reports folder on Flare’s Project Organizer pane? Flare has a powerful report generator that can create over 100 reports to help you manage your projects. The screen below shows just a few of those reports.

Reports are easy to create. Choose File > New > Report or right-click the Reports folder and select Add Report File. The Add File dialog box, shown below, displays the template options (under Source in the upper left).

If you select one of the predefined templates, such as Conditions report, the Report Editor automatically selects all relevant reports (shown as checked in the image below).

You can uncheck any of the preselected reports that aren’t applicable and manually select others. Or you can select the Empty Report template on the Add File dialog box and manually select the reports you want. After selecting the reports, click the Generate button at the lower right. The report opens in the window at the bottom of the Report Editor screen. This works for short, limited reports but takes a lot of scrolling for longer reports. The solution to that problem is to click the Open in Browser button to open the report in your browser window.  You can also click the Styles tab on the Report Editor if you want to format the report for printing. Your generated reports appear in the Reports folder on the Project Organizer, where you can re-run them at any time. You can also extend the functionality of the report feature by creating and adding file tags to create custom reports that MadCap might not have thought of. (We’ll look at file tags in an upcoming article.) All in all, the Report Editor is an easy-to-use feature that can quickly provide valuable information to help you manage your projects. Give it a try.

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Neil Perlin is MadCap-Certified for Flare and Mimic, and is a long-time consultant, troubleshooter, and trainer for the tool, going back to MadCap’s founding in 2004. He also has years of experience with other authoring tools like RoboHelp and Doc-To-Help and some now defunct tools like ForeHelp. He is also a certified app developer, trainer, and consultant for the ViziApps app development platform. You can reach him at [email protected] and at NeilEric on Twitter.