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Participant
Jun 29, 2021 5:56 AM UTC
Question

Converting Madcap to Frammaker or importing the same

Could pls help me to get the information on whether we can convert or import Madcap files to Framemaker? if yes how?

We have FM2010 and 2015 versions

 

Our existing project's source files are in Madcap flare, wanted to move to Framemaker 

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    6 replies

    Be.eM
    Inspiring
    Feb 17, 2022 10:09 AM UTC

    I've got an older computer on which I'm running Flare 2017 and FrameMaker 2015 (and other versions). I've done a quick test with one of the Flare Template projects (EmployeeManual). For doing so I've added a new FrameMaker Target to the project (everything set to "default") and started an output build. The build starts, Flare launches FrameMaker and creates the output files, a book file, a TOC file, and chapters (not all of them, but this might have to do with a setting in the project). Opening these files in FrameMaker shows usable results.

    However, I've then opened the same project in Flare 2021 (on another computer, with FrameMaker 2015 and 2019), and get this error message, which confirms what those Flare sources say:

     

    So the answer to your question is: It does actually work, but only with older versions of Flare (here: 2017). If you could get hold of such an older version you should be able to migrate your projects.

     

    Bernd

     

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    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Jun 29, 2021 6:01 PM UTC

    I've never used Flare, but a quick search turned up a slide show by an IBM employee that strongly suggests that Flare can export directly to FM (or could, circa 2015).

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    Participant
    Feb 16, 2022 3:18 PM UTC

    Hello Bob,

    Can you please provide that link to me? None of my searches hit that link from IBM.

    Thnaks.

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    Jeff_Coatsworth
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Feb 16, 2022 3:27 PM UTC

    Acording to the Flare forums, that Flare export to FM was deprecated - https://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30998

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    Jeff_Coatsworth
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Jun 29, 2021 11:51 AM UTC

    Or you could look at some of Madcap's output products - like Word docs or PDFs - and use those as your source to suck them into FM...

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    frameexpert
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Jun 29, 2021 11:48 AM UTC

    I believe that Mapcap files are XHTML files so you may just be able to open them with structured FrameMaker. Otherwise, you could use some scripting to convert them to a format that could be opened with FrameMaker. If you have to go the scripting route, I would be willing to look at a few files to see what it would take to get them converted. Do you have a target FrameMaker template that you want to use for the content?

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