500 MadCap Flare Localization Projects... and Counting

Today(*) I delivered my 500th MadCap Flare localization project — This amount could be either run-of-the-mill or a noteworthy accomplishment, I can't tell, but it certainly seems like a bold figure to me.

Be it as it may, this milestone is by no means an individual achievement, but rather the result of the combined effort of hundreds, if not thousands, of professionals from different fields, including content writing, content development, content strategy, user experience, translation, or project management, aiming to make content available to users around the globe.

I’d like to express my gratitude to all the LSP and content creation companies that keep trusting me their business year after year.

In particular, I’d like to thank Scott Bass and his former Advanced Language Translation company staff, who some 6 years ago threw down the Flare gauntlet to me.

The project sizes ranged from tiny leaflets to full-fledged web help sites with well over one million translatable words, and from a single target language to a score of them.

Believe me, there’s been no shortages of challenges across all these projects. The content designers creative nature to produce engaging source Flare project designs combined with target language idiosyncrasies, result in unique challenges for everyone involved in their localization process.

To tackle some of these challenges, I devised techniques like creating Dynamic HTML Debug Output to reveal underlying single-source elements at a click of a button, or Online Flare HTML Output Directory to quickly and conveniently access any particular topic.

Now, enough with the rambling, I need to focus on my 501st Flare localization project...

* First published on LinkedIn on 19th March 2024