Flare – Using File Tag Sets to Track Source of Content

As you have probably realized by now, I am importing and merging a large amount of content from a broad variety of Word  and Framemaker books that we have written.  For reasons of organization, searchability, single-sourcing,  and future maintenance, I wanted to be able to identify WHICH book each of the Flare generated files and graphics originally came from! Unfortunately, at this time, Flare does NOT allow you to automatically attach prefixes to filenames at the time of import. For example, if I wanted to prefix every imported file and graphic with ‘FL_‘ to indicate that this is from a =manual about Flare. Doing this would let me easily identify any file, and its original source manual, just by looking at the filename. File sorting would also be much easier (especially if I start moving files from their original import folder to another folder). But sadly, this remains another feature request that more people have to ask for before they make it happen. Sooooo….what to do!

Well, with a little thought and assistance from the Flare Tech Support, we came up with a workaround so that I would at least be able to tag each file with the name of the source manual. That’s right, “TAG”! Typically, File tags are used to assign authors, or track project milestones. But you can also use it to identify the source of a document. So first you creat a File Tag Set, then you apply the appropriate tag to each file, or group of files.  You can then generate reports, export by tags, etc, etc. Hurrah!

 Add a File Tag Set

1. Navigate to the Project Explorer tab.
2. Right mouse click on Advanced and selecct Add File Tag Set.
3. Set the following to suit our needs. I entered the following for tracking my book sources:
   1. Source ==> New from Template >Factory Templates > MyFileTagSet.
   2. FileName ==> FileSource
   3. Tag Type ==> Book Names
   4. Description ==>Enter any description that will help you to identify the function of this tag
4. Click Add to view a table for File Source (currently blank)
5. Enter each new tag (book name in this case) and a description of each tag.
6. Choose File> Save to save all your tags.

 Apply a File Tag to a File

Now that you have entered your book names, you can apply this tag to each file (either individually, or as a group). Seeing as I did this to save time, I prefer to select a whole bunch of files, and then apply the appropriate file tag to it. Here’s what I did.

1. Navigate to the Content Explorer tab.
2. Open the folder containing the files you want to tag.
3. Select all the files that you want to tag.
4. Click F4 to open the Properties dialog box for these files.
5. Select the File Tags tab.
6. Select the Tag Type from the drop down list. In my case, I choose Book Names.
7. Check or select the File Tag that applies to this collection of files.
8. Click OK to apply that file tag to all the selected files.