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Inserting Screen Capture Images into Topics

You can insert a picture or screen capture into a topic to help explain something. Flare supports the following types of raster and vector image files: BMP, EMF, EXPS, GIF, HDP, JPG, JPEG, PNG, SWF, TIF, TIFF, WDP, WMF, XAML, XPS.

Capture is MadCap's screen capture and editing tool, which is tightly integrated with Flare. If you have MadCap Capture installed on your computer, you can use it to do any of the following from within Flare:

Insert screen capture images into topics You can capture an image on your screen and insert it into a topic at the same time.
Add screen capture files to projects You can capture an image on your screen and add the image file to the project (without inserting the picture into a topic). See Adding Screen Capture Files to Projects.
Edit pictures You can open any image in your project. The image opens in Capture, where you can make changes to it. See Editing Pictures.
Simply launch MadCap Capture You can simply open the MadCap Capture application from Flare. See Launching MadCap Capture.

Some advantages of using Capture include the following:

Layers You can add special effects or objects such as callouts, shapes, or lines. Because layers are used (rather than merging the objects into the image), you can easily return to the image later after you have saved it and modify just a single object (rather than re-creating the entire image).

Changes reflected automatically As soon as you save the image in Capture, the changes are automatically reflected anywhere the image was inserted in your project.
Single-sourcing images This feature reflects Capture's tight integration with MadCap Flare. For a single image, you can provide one group of settings for online output, and another group of settings for printed output. For example, you might want to use a resolution of 72 DPI for online output, and a resolution of 300 DPI for printed output. Rather than creating two separate images, you can single-source the image outputs. For more information, see Creating Single-Source Images.

Note: You can also insert an image file that already exists it into a topic.

How to insert a screen capture into a topic

Open the topic.
In the XML Editor, place your cursor where you want to insert the picture.
Select Insert>Screen Capture.

The Screen Capture dialog opens.
Complete the appropriate setup fields in the dialog:
- File name Enter a name for the image that you are capturing, or you can use the default name provided.
- Folder Select the folder where you want the captured image to be stored in the Content Explorer.
- Profile or Format Select the profile or file format that you would like to use when capturing the image. A profile (created in MadCap Capture) lets you capture the image with many additional settings applied to the image in advance.
- Launch MadCap Capture Editor Select this check box if you want MadCap Capture to be launched when you capture an image. The image will be displayed in MadCap Capture. This is a useful option if you want to edit the image (e.g., add callouts, lines, borders) after you capture it. When you edit and save the image in Capture, the changes will automatically be reflected in Flare.
Select the capture option that you want to use, and complete the steps for each one as necessary:
- Capture UI Element Captures a fixed area of a window (e.g., menu bar, toolbar, editor, individual button, entire window), depending on where you move your mouse and click. As you move the mouse in an application, a red border surrounds each separate region.
- Capture Application Captures an open application. When you click this button, the Select window opens, displaying a list of all open applications. You can select the application that you want to capture.
- Capture Region Captures a rectangular region of your computer screen. When you click this button, a rectangle with a red border displays over your screen. You can move and resize this rectangle by clicking and dragging the small squares around the red border. Click the OK button near the rectangle to capture the region. This option is useful, for example, if you want to capture only a portion of a toolbar or a specific area of a window, but not the entire window.
Press CTRL+S or click to save your work.

Note: You can also make any picture in your online Help interactive by linking it to another topic, bookmark within a topic, or an external file such as a website.

Note: When you insert a screen capture into a topic, the image file is added to your project. The image file is stored in the Resources\Images folder of the Content Explorer. If the screen capture image has a .props file (used for storing layer information for the image), that file is included in the project as well, although it is hidden.

Note: For more information about screen captures and editing images, see Capture's online Help.