Linopress at drupa 2000: Comprehensive Portfolio for Publishers and Media Service Providers

Focus on system house function - Internet and e-commerce - Internationalization - Heidelberg activities closely intermeshed

Linopress Publishing Systems GmbH will use drupa 2000 to emphasize its role as a system house for the publishing and media industry within the Heidelberg Group. The Eschborn company is therefore placing just as much emphasis on drupa as its own key fair, the Ifra Expo. It intends to show that Linopress not only has the most extensive range of products for newspaper publishers, but in this age of New Media - Internet, WAP and e-commerce - can also provide its customers with distinct advantages geared to bringing success.
On its double-story stand in Hall 5, covering an area of some 400 square meters, Linopress will be exhibiting its entire restructured software portfolio plus its consultancy, integration and support services. Heidelberg's subsidiary will be showing that it not only has the broadest range of products in the industry, but that its highly qualified staff are also at the very forefront in system business.

The Eschborn media specialists will be exhibiting the following products at numerous demo stations:

News Guide
This new product name embraces all the classical editorial activities relating to a newspaper, including sheet planning, layout, article editing and pagination. During sheet planning for digital full-page production, the heads of the various sections and the person in charge can immediately determine the production status of each individual page at any given time, can ascertain whether texts or images are missing, which texts and pages have been released for production and whether pages need to be moved or the number of pages needs to be changed. The sheet planner can edit layouts and texts until shortly before the press stage - and can do so directly in the page layout.

The functionality of News Guide, a proven module which has been marketed under the name of Linopress Editorial for many years, provides users with a stable and yet flexible production environment. Users can choose between text and layout view, can generate customized screen masks, can change the screen display in a number of ways and can generate scripts for recurring jobs, e.g. for drop caps with runaround text, designing sales prices and inserting dates or author codes.

External editorial departments are no longer left on themselves but, through the relational News Guide database, are now integrated into events just as much as their colleagues in the central editorial office. Software modules such as hyphenation programs, dictionaries, layout information or structure stylesheets are assigned centrally and are also located in the database.

News Guide can adopt incoming agency reports directly, ordered according to either desk or deadline. Sports tables too can be generated automatically from the incoming agency reports and can be inserted into articles or page layouts. The sport module is extremely versatile in adapting to media-specific forms.

Given the fact that Linopress Systems originate from probably the world's most famous font and type house, it goes without saying that excellent typography comes as standard. News Guide can also satisfy every need in terms of frame, color or screen settings. And when it comes to table setting or logos, these are also straightforward.

News Guide uses a workflow based on full pages and it is therefore always important to know that the layout specifications and contents coincide. As a result, all editors can edit texts exactly as required thanks to the integrated page count monitor. This avoids the need for subsequent shortening or lengthening of texts, thereby making editorial work more efficient.

News Guide also contains a pagination module. Page layouts can be freely defined and saved as samples for system users. Pagination itself is interactive. Parts of advertisements can also be paginated automatically for mixed pages. "External" files such as EPS formats, QuarkXPress and MultiAd Creator files and applications from the Windows environment can also be integrated. Functions such as auxiliary lines, contour setting, line fitting and image integration are also incorporated into News Guide.

Ad Guide
Ad Guide is a flexible system for ad production, taking, layout and tracking and can be adapted to the individual needs of the newspaper in question. It can be used for all advertisements, whether standard, classified or display. Files can be adopted from MultiAd Creator, InDesign and QuarkXPress. Ad Guide on Windows NT also integrates all applications from the Windows environment, e.g. Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand and MS Excel. With display ads, Ad Guide users simply have to double-click in order to switch to the program used to create the advertisement in the first place, e.g. QuarkXPress, where they can then perform their final changes.

Ad Guide is fully networked to other Linopress modules, e.g. layout, pagination or sheet planning. In addition, it supports standardized interfaces to commercial IT systems for advertisement accounting and marketing.

Sophisticated calendar functions with appearance data, page-count data, price tables and subdivisions into subpublications are just as much part of the functional scope as are the predefineable rules for automatic ad pagination, e.g. for processing class headers, separating lines, spacing and insertion sequences.

Web Guide
"One content - different views" is a common strategy when publishers are dealing with online activities. Linopress goes one step further though. It is not only interested in processing content so that it is media-compatible, but also in modeling completely new workflows. This involves e.g. capturing and designing editorial content or designing and booking advertisements via the Internet. Looking at it in the widest possible sense, it is all about e-commerce in media companies.

In developing XOPS (Extensible Online Publishing System), Linopress has created an object-oriented system based on XML. This was an easy move for Eschborn's developers and programmers, since the Linopress system had always made a distinction between content, structure and layout, in exactly the same way as XML now does. Content can therefore be converted automatically into HTML files in line with the publisher's requirements and can be published online. However, Web Guide also allows users the take the opposite route. Information from the Internet, e.g. in the form of stock exchange tables, sports tables or weather data, can be used directly with XOPS for a newspaper's printed edition.

However, online activities are generally only interesting for publishers and other content providers if they generate new business. At drupa 2000, Linopress will be showing how users can integrate browser-based ad taking - including via kiosk terminals - and commercial (e.g. SAP IS-M/AM) and technical advertising systems. The customer can select the advertisement he requires from an electronic book of samples, can enter his personal text and can then view "his" advertisement immediately in WYSIWIG mode, complete with price if required. Linopress therefore allows users to accept orders anywhere in the world and provides publishing houses with entirely new order possibilities.

Stream Guide
Linopress' Stream Guide system has been designed with workflow automation in mind and consists of four subsystems - Stream Guide DMS (Document Management System) for data management of texts, images and logos in all application programs, Stream Guide Control for automized transfer of ads, agency photos and other image files, Stream Guide Archive for archiving and rapid retrieval of various contents, and Stream Guide Wire for automatic management and integration of agency reports and photos.

Stream Guide provides all media companies - not just publishers - with the means to maintain better control of their production process. Stream Guide is a modular system which channels the flow of data from a wide range of sources and then processes it to ensure efficient production. For the most part, this process is automatic. Stream Guide is a management system, database and archive at one and the same time, but is also an automation instrument for image data, ads and agency content.

Sys Guide
The Linopress database is managed by the Sys Guide on either PC or Mac. The system administrator defines from a central location how the individual members of staff are to communicate with the system, what access and modification rights they are to have and how the individual database objects are to be structured. The server utilization, database fill and network and storage media load can be controlled at the same time.

Linopress now also comes with an easy-to-use software known as "Analyzer" which can be used to perform system management from the browser. With just a few clicks of the mouse, even novices can resolve blockages in databases, move services to other computers, stop and start services or change access rights. Detailed knowledge of UNIX or SQL is no longer required for modifying and managing the Linopress system and the related database. The use of links avoids syntax errors when accessing the system. The command scripts are saved in the correct form. This is a considerable advantage for users, particularly small and medium-size businesses which do not have large IT departments.

In addition to its range of products, Linopress will also be exhibiting its "Media Services" at drupa 2000. These include consultancy, installation, customizing and support for the customer's information technology. What is more, the services are also available for systems which have not been installed by Linopress. Due to its many decades of experience in the publishing business and the exceptional know-how of its staff, the Eschborn company believes it is better placed than any other company to provide media companies with the support they need for investment, process optimization and advanced training. It can also offer its services as general contractor for highly complex investments.

Within the Heidelberg Group, Linopress functions as a system house for publishers and media companies. More and more customers are appreciating such features as sound pre-sales advice, turnkey installation with payment based on success and timely completion, and an after-sales support service with 24-hours availability - valuing all these factors at least as high as well integrated software functions. Now that Linopress has assisted companies in Central Europe in performing highly complicated system changeovers involving complex server architectures and large quantities of data, it is looking to extend its business internationally through the Heidelberg network. It believes that drupa 2000 will provide the springboard for this.