Confluence to MadCap Flare

[Manleen]

Is anyone using Confluence for authoring and MadCap Flare for publishing the final output? If so, what output format is being generated from Confluence and what process is being followed to import the files to MadCap Flare?

[jmcmullen]

I have been considering this sort of conversion because there are no good review options for something written in Flare but in a Mac shop. I have been considering using Confluence as the original authoring tool but want to maintain some continuity of text.

Because I'm just thinking of this as an original authoring and commenting tool, I'm considering something small-scale that won't scale up to do bulk imports:

1. Write in Confluence, collect reviews, get it so the SMEs agree.

2. Use content tools to export the page as XML.

3. A script uses XSL to extract the current body text and pictures, wraps the whole thing in corporate-approved xhtml for Flare.

4. Cleanup of links.

No idea how long cleanup will take, but I can use the script to filter out a lot of the confluence tags and bad references.

My other alternative is to write the original in Flare, export to a Confluence-friendly format for review, put in Confluence for review, make the changes to the original Flare content. That will work better for maintaining topics, but I know something about XSL and the necessary scripts, and I'd have to learn how to produce Confluence-friendly output.

[Susan Bedenham]

Hi - I'm looking to import technical tables from Confluence to Flare. Ideally, there would be an automatic way to do this, since the developers update the tables every now and again and the Confluence pages and Flare need to remain in sync - any suggestions or advice? did you get any further with your plan? Thanks

[Rugma Ramesh]

I recently migrated source files from Confluence to Madcap Flare.

Sharing the steps I followed:

1) Export Confluence files in HTML format using Content tool.

2) Import these HTML files using Madcap Flare import option.

3) Open and clean-up every HTML file for unwanted tags and incorrect formatting.

Note: Based on my experience, import took just a couple of minutes but the clean-up part took most of the time. Many Confluence tags had to be removed, cross-references were broken and formatting had to be updated as per the new template. Almost the same effort as writing a new manual :)Please check other online forums as well.

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_]

Yes, it would be better to forget exports and just stick with Confluence.

[Stephanie Comtois]

@Rugma Ramesh

Were you able to export multiple confluence spaces at once, or did you have to export individually?

[Rugma Ramesh]

I exported individually.

[Sandra Paradis]

@Rugma Ramesh What MadCap version did you use?  Did you have Central?