Skip to main content

MadCap Flare ZIP Package

Extension

.zip, .flprjzip

Smartling Identifier

flare

Example File

Resources

Smartling supports the translation of Madcap Flare zip packages.

A MadCap Flare package is a ZIP-archive with HTML, JavaScript, and image files, optionally organized in directories. A MadCap Flare ZIP archive is treated as a single file. Translated strings in the archive will be associated with the .zip file, not the individual HTML files.

Non-HTML files in the archive are excluded from processing.

Directory structure and non-HTML files are preserved when downloading the translated archive.

XML Characters

The following XML character are always escaped. You can control this by using the entity_escaping directive.

Character (character name)

Escape sequence

< (less-than)

&lt;

> (greater-than)

&gt;

& (ampersand)

&amp;

' (apostrophe or single quote)

&apos;

" (double-quote)

&quot;

Directives

File directives are supported, both inline and via our API. Consult your Customer Success Manager about configuring directive templates for your Smartling projects. Ensure to use the correct format when implementing directives.

Inline File Format

<!-- smartling.[directive_name] = [value] -->

API Parameter

smartling.[directive_name] = [value]

Here are examples of supported directives for MadCap Flare:

Escape Base Characters

Directive

entity_escaping

Values

  • auto (default)

  • true

  • yes

  • false

  • no

(case-insensitive)

Yes

Description

Controls whether base characters ( > < & " ) are "escaped" into entities when delivering translations. This can be set universally for the whole file via API, or by setting the directive at the top/start of the file. The directive can also be placed inline to control the behavior of specific strings.

Examples

For example, your translation might look like this:
​This is an <hr> & " example string4

By default, using the "auto" setting, we will assume this is HTML from the <hr> tag.

When the translated file is downloaded, the translated string will be escaped as:
​This is an <hr> &amp; &quot; example string4

Using <!-- smartling.entity_escaping = false --> will allow is above string to appear unescaped.

Escape Characters the Same as Source

Directive

entity_escaping_strategy

Values

propagate | none

Yes

Description

Used to retain entity escaping for all non-base entities. For example, normally we turn &copy; into © but if we use this new directive the translation will automatically update to use escaping from the source. For each entity character, we'll check to see if it was escaped in the source and try to match (propagate) it in the target.

The default is none which is the current behavior, which recognizes HTML4 entities only - if HTML5 entities are required as well, you must use the entity_escaping_type=propagate directive.


​propagate will only affect non-base entities - all named entities except &amp; , &quot;, &lt;, &gt; . Base entities continue to be controlled by HTML detection and the entity_escaping directive.


If the same character is both escaped and unescaped in the same string, propagate will return the characters in the translation escaped in the same order as they were in the source. However, if there are a different number of characters in the translation where the translation process removed or added some and the escaping is inconsistent among them, propagate will escape all entities for that character.

This does not affect source content at all - so using it will not result in new strings.

Numerical entities are not considered at all with this directive, and are treated normally.

Examples

<!-- smartling.entity_escaping_strategy=propagate -->

Force Inline Tags

Directive

flare_madcap_tags_as_inline

Values

  • on

  • yes

  • true

  • off (default)

  • no

  • false

Yes

Description

This parameter forces the HTML parser to treat the listed tags as inline. The difference between block and inline tags is that block tags are used to split HTML into strings, whereas inline tags are included in strings.

Examples

<!-- smartling.flare_madcap_tags_as_inline = on -->
​
Any <external_link> or <reference> tags will be parsed as inline tags. Smartling will not create separate strings for content in these tags.

Trim Whitespace

Directive

whitespace_trim

Values

on|yes|true or off|no|false or leading|trailing

The default value is on.

Yes

Description

A whitespace is any character or series of characters that represent horizontal or vertical space in typography. When rendered, a whitespace character is not a visible mark, but does occupy an area or space on a page.

Although whitespaces are necessary within a string (typically to separate words), unnecessary whitespaces can be found at the start of a string (leading) and at the end of a string (trailing).

With this directive, you can trim whitespaces, as it enables or disables whitespace trim management for the ingested strings.

Whitespace is optionally trimmed from content then re-inserted on download for convenience so that translators do not have to manage the extra spaces. However, content owners may want to retain surrounding whitespace so that translators can
manipulate it during translation.

By default, the leading and trailing whitespaces are trimmed.

You can choose to disable trimming or specify trimming for leading or trailing whitespaces.

The directive can only be used as the API request parameter.

Examples

<!-- smartling.whitespace_trim=on -->

Smartling will trim leading and trailing whitespaces (default)

<!-- smartling.whitespace_trim=off -->

Smartling will not trim leading or trailing whitespaces

<!-- smartling.whitespace_trim=leading -->

Smartling will trim only leading whitespaces

<!-- smartling.whitespace_trim=trailing -->

Smartling will trim only trailing whitespaces

Did this answer your question?