Evangelizing Digital Workflow for Newspapers
Community newspapers and their printers transition to the digital production workflow with the aid of inexpensive software tools
There was a time not long ago when the print world shook a little in its boots. The digital age was upon us, and stressors like the Internet threatened to make print virtually obsolete. Looking back, it was a silly fear, for not only has digital content proved not to be a threat to the printed word, digital content creation and production has proved to be one of the greatest enablers to those distributing print.
A mere decade ago, to print a newspaper required mechanicals and film used to image plates for the printing press. No longer is that the case, as content now remains digital from conception (thanks to desktop publishing and graphic applications) to final imaging of printing press plates. The industry no longer has to accept the added cost and time it took to create film, and all the nasty environmental repercussions of film have been virtually abolished from the publishing process.
While print continues to be one of the most effective and popular forms of communication, that’s not to suggest that print publishers haven’t endured recent hard times — especially publishers of small-circulation newspapers and other publications that rely heavily or solely on advertising support.
The tumultuous economy of recent years has forced many businesses to make huge cuts in advertising and marketing budgets, and publications have suffered along with them. To stay afloat, many newspapers and magazines, for example, have turned inward, looking to their own publishing processes to regain some of the revenues they were losing. Now is the time when the actions of publishing and printing must be streamlined, friction free and cost-controlled. With change comes opportunity, and the good news is that it’s profoundly easy to achieve these goals.
High-Tech at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati
Rick Barr has been an eye witness to the digital revolution and its effect on print. He’s built a loyal career in newspaper design and production, which spans more than 24 years — the past 18 of which he’s spent with The Catholic Telegraph, published by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. The community-based newspaper serves more than 500,000 Roman Catholics throughout the state of Ohio. For over 168 years, this weekly has upheld a simple and precise mission: to evangelize, to educate, to inform and to foster dialog among the region’s Catholic community.
Printed by PM Graphics of Streetsboro, Ohio, The Catholic Telegraph comprises 24 to 28 tabloid sized pages, four of which include color images.
As with most community-based newspapers, the publication relies entirely on the support of advertising dollars, and as Barr attests, it’s essential to serve its ad base by providing consistent, top-quality reproduction of their ads. The newspaper will accept any local or national advertisement, with one caveat — all messages must strictly conform to the teachings and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.
“Three or four years ago,” Barr recalls, “we would set up 80 percent of the ads. That is, we would create them and produce them in-house, and 20 percent were supplied to us as final documents. Today, that ratio has shifted, if not reversed, so that approximately 20 percent are now set in house and the balance is supplied to us.”
Market saturation of personal computers and inexpensive desktop publishing applications are largely to blame — or thank, depending on how you look at it, Barr suggests. While it’s great that advertisers are now able to forego the high costs of design and ad agency services, it seems anyone with access to a computer now fancies himself or herself a graphic artist.
But Barr can attest that creating digital advertisements is not as simple as dragging and dropping images and text into a blank page. Creating good digital files requires guidance and a basic understanding of the print process. These days, the majority of ads arrive at the publisher in the PDF format, and while just a few years ago, these often arrived in some form of disrepair, Barr says that many now arrive in good shape — prepared properly and exactly according to the output requirements (meaning that images are in the proper print resolution, fonts are embedded in the file, etc.).
It didn’t happen overnight, though. While the printer provided Barr with instructions on how the advertisements should be prepared based on the workfow they established, it was up to the publication to evangelize these specifications to its ad base. “I gave the requirements to all of our advertising reps, and they’re responsible for asking the advertiser to follow the instructions when preparing their files. Of course, if they have questions or are having any problems, all they have to do is put in a call to me, and I’ll walk them through it,” Barr remarks.
When a digital ad arrives at the publisher, Barr explains that it is immediately submitted to a preflighting software application that verifies that the document is complete and ready to be integrated into the newspaper page, which is created in QuarkXPress. The resulting file is checked again, using the same quality-control software that’s used to verify the ads — Markzware Software’s FlightCheck.
“We use FLightCheck to check every single document we create, before it is sent to the printer,” Barr explains. It’s been his software of choice for over five years, he reports, to ensure that each page’s content is complete and will print optimally.”
A tool for graphic designers and document Creators, FlightCheck inspects digital content files for potential problems that could flaw the reproduction process — whether a document is destined for print or lower-resolution electronic distribution such as an e-newspaper or a Web site post. The solution can be used in both Mac and PC platform environments, and once a document has been verified as a complete and accurate (according to the output specifications), FlightCheck then collects all of the file’s elements — screen and printer fonts, images, text and extensions — and compresses it.
Finally, Barr takes this file and distills it in Adobe Acrobat to create a final exchange PDF file, which is FTPd (File Transfer Protocol) directly to the printer’s secure web site. A black-and-white laser proof is faxed over simultaneously, so that the printer has a guide to follow on press.
Thanks to relatively inexpensive software tools like FlightCheck and Acrobat, Barr suggests, “We have resolved most font, color and image issues.
“These tools can certainly save money for a publisher,” Barr ads. “For example, when we started using FlightCheck, we resolved many font issues and eliminated re-plating costs from our printer. Less downtime at our printer means lower costs for us. Our advertisers are happier with the appearance of their ads, which , of course, means more insertions and more revenue. And our readers get a more consistent product …. As a non-profit publisher, any dollar we save helps.”
Tags: Acrobat, Adobe, Conversion News, FlightCheck, flightcheck professional, Markzware, Markzware News, PDF, preflight, preflighting, Preflighting News, Prepress News, Workflow