Re: web to print workflow

Hello Marc,

 

If you try to make print pages from a browser based issues you will face
considerable challenge in fitting the content to the page. Preview and size
of an item is critical for Print. The WCMS don't do a good job of that. The
size depends on Hyphenation and justification settings, font face size and
leading  (Line spacing) etc.  So you will not be able to get a good idea of
how much size the story will take on a browser based system. Also
implementing a workflow could become a challenge.

 

Having said that, many print resources which can afford some white-space,
and/or donot care about page numbers, and do-not require changing styles,
could be handled directly from WCMS.  Examples of such systems are 

-          brochure-ware ( lets say for a mutual fund) - as they will have
pre-defined space for tables, pie charts and a small space for text. Usually
the text written is so small that a character count gives a good idea whether
it will fit or not.

-          Travel Itineraries, The content is usually one below the other
(not side by side) and all the white space could be kept towards the end. So
the number of pages is not fixed.

 

There are also many "developer" tools in the market which can take a PDF
template and fill in the space from the text you provide them. Using that, it
is very easy for a developer to add a capability to publish content onto PDF.
The problem you could run into here is that if the text is bigger than the
placeholder for it, it might just get truncated.

 

We had written a Quark extension in the past for something similar, however
the approach we tool was to make WCMS content Available from within Quark
page and not the other way round.  

The steps required were as below- I am not sure if that fits your criteria of
what you are looking for.

1)      We would have pre-define categories in WCMS for the print editions
and the pages.

2)      The WCMS authors could launch Microsoft Word to preview (or to edit)
the story with defined font and lead sizes, so that if they know the column
inches beforehand, they could produce a story which fits the place. There
were some style names which the user could use. These styles were kept to be
the same in word templates and Quark pages.

3)      We had a custom Quark Xtension. When quark is launched, users could
give their WCMS ID/Password to work in conjunction with WCMS

4)      The Extensions let you chose the edition and page number of any page
created. Once you select this, the extension displays you the list of stories
assigned to the page, along with their preview.

5)      The extension had a set of customisable frames, which had
placeholders assigned to pull in the headline, date, author name, body and
associated image(s) with caption at correct places.

6)      Once the page was saved, the Quark Extension will mark the story as
published in WCMS.

7)      On saving the page, the extension will also take the content from all
frames content for which didnot come from WCMS and add the stories back to
WCMS.

 

If this is what you are looking for, I am afraid, I did not find any WCMS
system providing this when we undertook this development and developed it
ground up for a client.

 

Most of the print workflow products I have seen require a rich client,
providing rich editing capabilities as well. And these rich client systems
claim to handle web workflow as well, though they do not do a very good job
of managing web content. Also such products tend to have a very high per seat
licensing.

 

 

Regards

Pranshu Jain

MindTree Consulting

 

 

 

From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sirkin, Marc (Home
Office)
Sent: 18 September 2006 14:30
To: [email protected]
Subject: [CMS] web to print workflow

 

I may be looking for something that doesn't exist commercially, but am hoping
that someone can point me in the right direction.

 

Does anyone know of a system that integrates web to print workflow from
WITHIN a web based CMS? This would have to include some sort of
Quark/InDesign layout into the web CMS template system and have the ability
to produce high resolution PDF files for print.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

Marc Sirkin

VP eMarketing, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

914.821.8265 | www.lls.org <http://www.lls.org/>  | [email protected]

 

RELENTLESS FOR A CURE.

 


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