MadCap Software is an American

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

firm headquartered in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

that creates help authoring tools and solutions for technical writers and documentations teams. Several principal managers, software engineers, and support personnel were recruited from rival firms, such as

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...

and

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe System ...

, to found MadCap Software. MadCap's authoring tools are all based on

xHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, prior ...

Origins

Some of MadCap Software's founders were associated with eHelp and its core product,

RoboHelp Adobe RoboHelp is a help authoring tool (HAT) developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows. RoboHelp was created by Gen Kiyooka, and Blue Sky Software released version 1.0 in January 1992. Blue Sky Software was founded in 1990 and changed i ...

, a help authoring tool. After it was bought by Macromedia in 2003, the eHelp developers were laid off. MadCap co-founder Bjorn Backlund had headed the RoboHelp development team. He saw an opportunity to compete with RoboHelp by rewriting the program using XML and expanding the software. MadCap's founding CEO, Anthony Olivier, had been eHelp's CEO.

Products

MadCap Flare
a content authoring tool that generates output in various formats, including

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

, Eclipse Help,

Microsoft Compiled HTML Help Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a Microsoft proprietary online help format, consisting of a collection of HTML pages, an index and other navigation tools. The files are compressed and deployed in a binary format with the extension .CHM, for Com ...

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other pla ...

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

EPUB EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes styled ''ePub''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartpho ...

, and WebHelp
MadCap Central
a cloud-based solution for hosting, project management, build automation, and task management * MadCap Doc-To-Help, an authoring and publishing tool for users who want to create and manage content in a familiar Microsoft® Word environment
MadCap Capture
a screen capture tool
MadCap Contributor
content review for subject matter experts, managers
MadCap Lingo
a CAT tool used with Flare, Word, PowerPoint
MadCap Mimic
a tool for recording tutorials and software simulations
MadCap Pulse
analytic and social

collaboration tool A collaboration tool helps people to collaborate. The purpose of a collaboration tool is to support a group of two or more individuals to accomplish a common goal or objective. Collaboration tools can be either of a non-technological nature suc ...

MadCap Flare

The key concept behind MadCap Flare is

single-source publishing Single-source publishing, also known as single-sourcing publishing, is a content management method which allows the same source content to be used across different forms of media and more than one time.topic-based authoring In technical communication, topic-based authoring is a modular approach to content creation where content is structured around topics that can be mixed and reused in different contexts. It is defined in contrast with ''book-oriented'' or ''narrati ...

and content management. Topic-based authoring means content is written in modular topics that can stand alone and be mixed or reused as needed. Content creators can produce online help systems, eLearning modules, knowledge bases, document portals, and various guides and manuals, for use online or in print. Flare has streamlined content production. There are many ways in Flare to reuse content, which saves time maintaining or updating topics. Create content from scratch or import existing legacy documentation from a variety of sources. Add or edit content in the XML Editor, or edit the source code manually in the Text Editor. Share projects for team collaboration and feedback. Author content in other languages and perform translations with ease. Publish content to one of several different output types. Use built-in analytics to monitor user interaction and improve overall user satisfaction.

MadCap Flare Plugins

* Th
Kaizen Plugin
is a free productivity plugin for MadCap Flare, developed b
Sander Improvement Software AB
based in Sweden. * The Mad Quality plugin is a quality assurance plugin for MadCap Flare, developed b
Sander Improvement Software AB
* The Markdown plugin is a Markdown conversion plugin for MadCap Flare, developed b
Sander Improvement Software AB
* The Automator plugin is a plugin for MadCap Flare that lets you integrate 3rd party apps with Flare, developed b
Sander Improvement Software AB
*Th
MadCap Connect for Salesforce®
plugin for MadCap Flare, developed by MadCap Software. *Th
MadCap Connect for Zendesk
plugin for MadCap Flare, developed by MadCap Software. *Th
Author-it® Converter
for MadCap Flare, developed by MadCap Software.

References

External links

*
The Official MadCap Software Forum
at

PCWorld ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...