GPRO Cuts Authoring and Translation Time Up to Six-Fold Using MadCap Lingo and Flare

GPRO^® Technologies Berhad is a leading Malaysian-based technology company that delivers state-of-the-art radio frequency ID (RFID) based IT solutions and technologies for the textile and apparel industry worldwide.

Now GPRO is using MadCap Lingo and Flare to modernize the authoring and translation of its documentation and cut project time by up to six-fold in the process.

With a strong Asian customer base, GPRO makes its technology solutions–along with the supporting documentation–available in English, simplified Chinese, and traditional Chinese versions. Since April 2008, GPRO has used the MadCap Lingo integrated content authoring and translation memory system together with MadCap Flare for content authoring and multi-channel delivery. Where it once took up to six months to deliver a documentation project, GPRO now uses MadCap Lingo and Flare to complete the project in just one month.

MadCap's native-XML software products are tightly integrated and fully support Unicode for single- and double-byte languages. They replace Adobe^® RoboHelp^® for English-language content and Quadralay^™ WebWorks^™ for Chinese-language documentation.

"The lack of integrated products in the past meant that any time there was a change or correction to the documentation, we would have to retranslate large portions of the content to ensure that we caught all the updates," explained Daniel Ng, manager of knowledge management at GPRO Technologies Berhad. "It was very frustrating for everyone."

"Using the integrated functionality of MadCap Lingo and Flare, we can preserve our links, formatting, and other data," Mr. Ng says. "Now our translator can focus on localization and not recreating the document. The efficiencies we've gained have been as dramatic as moving from a typewriter to using Microsoft^® Word."

GPRO documentation team members who once relied on different products, all use MadCap Flare for content authoring, making it easier to collaborate. Once the documentation is created, MadCap Lingo allows GPRO's translator to go into the Flare project to localize the content. Because the content never actually leaves the structure of the original Flare project, all the content and formatting is preserved in the translated version. If there are any subsequent changes to the documentation, MadCap Lingo will identify them, so that the translator can immediately focus on just those revisions. From a single Flare project, GPRO can choose to publish documentation online or in print–in any of the three language versions.

More recently, GPRO has begun using MadCap Analyzer to optimize the structure of content within Flare prior to its translation and publishing.

"MadCap's software is so tightly integrated. Everything we learned in Flare, we have been able to apply to MadCap Lingo and Analyzer. It's saved us a lot of time," said Mr. Ng. "We like the reusable snippets, cross references and links in Flare, and we love MadCap Lingo's integration with the Google^® translation service. All of these features make it so much easier to create and translate our documentation than we ever imagined."

Mr. Ng also credits MadCap's service and support for enabling GPRO to get up and running so quickly, saying, "MadCap's award-winning technical support; knowledge bases; and lively, responsive community are a model for the best-in-class experience we want to deliver to our own customers."

With the time saved using MadCap's authoring and translation software, GPRO has been able to address a range of customer requests. One is providing print versions of its HTML-based documentation, which was difficult to produce prior to implementing MadCap Lingo and Flare. Additionally with Flare, GPRO now has the single-sourcing functionality to easily publish the subsets of projects that some businesses request."

"We have some factory managers that just want a short reference guide, not the entire document. In other cases, the seamstresses want to have printed instructions next to their sewing machines," explains Mr. Ng. "With MadCap Lingo and Flare, we can support these requests in as little as a day, and that has translated into happy customers."

The extra time also is enabling GPRO to create a new revenue-generating product. It has begun developing consulting documentation that will be sold as part of the training and consulting services GPRO provides on how to use its solutions. Because of Flare's modular design, the consulting materials can be easily customized for different customer engagements.

"We are at the forefront of our industry, which is highly competitive, especially in India and China," said Mr. Ng. "Documentation is a significant way we can differentiate ourselves, and MadCap Lingo and Flare are enabling us to provide a consistent, high quality experience, regardless of language or format."