Gannett’s Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Gets Integrated
with NewsWay from ProImage
- driving three Agfa Advantage CTP machines
- eliminating the need for a set of final page proofs
- made a big difference in communication and saved time
Princeton, NJ –8th February, 2007: The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, New York (circulation 167,851 mornings, 225,092 Sundays) has implemented NewsWay from ProImage as its end-to-end digital workflow solution.
NewsWay is automating the creation of edition plans, driving three Agfa Advantage CTP machines, and providing ink presetting to a MAN Roland PECOM system.
It also provides seamless integration with the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle’s CCI Editorial system, Layout 8000 ad planning system, CTP systems, and drives three HP inkjet color proofers and several black and white proofers. In addition NewsWay improves productivity by load balancing the RIPs and CTP devices, and automating imposition and ink presetting.
The NewsWay servers are all located at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle’s, downtown editorial building where all the above workflow functions take place, while at the remote print plant operators can browse into NewsWay at the downtown editorial office to track pages and approve plates.
Once plates are approved they are sent over the newspaper’s wide area network to the remote plant for output via three Agfa Advantage CTPs. No NewsWay servers are located at remote site.
Bernie Szachara, Vice President Production, at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, commented, “The browser-based interface, making the product accessible from virtually any workstation at either facility, has made a big difference in communication between our downtown and remote printing facility. We are able to spot errors sooner, and react accordingly.”
“We heard good things about NewsWay from others Gannett sites,” added Eric Gustavson, Imaging / Quality Manager at the newspaper. “We liked its flexibility. For us the NewsWay system is especially useful for commercial tabloids because it handles page-pairing automatically. We can take one multiple page PDF, drop it into the input folder, and NewsWay pairs it all up for proofing and plating. It saves us a lot of time, and the throughput is excellent.
“Another nice feature is the Communication Center,” he states. “It’s a small chat window that allows the various users of the system to send messages to each other about pages, edition changes, and so on.
“We are using the page and plate approval process to work toward eliminating the need for a set of final page proofs. This will save time and materials as the NewsWay solution allows for on-screen approvals anywhere in the workflow. We have found it very easy to learn and operate. The interface is intuitive and the workflow easy to understand. Production managers can monitor the status of the edition from the office, from home, or while on the road,” concludes Mr. Gustavson.
Workflow Summary:
At the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle PostScript is released from CCI to NewsWay that then automatically routes pages to the correct set-up on One Vision’s Asura pre-flight software, based on the edition plan imported from Layout 8000. Color pages go to color set-up on Asura, mono pages go to the black and white set-up. Asura preflights and creates PDF’s that are then sent to GMG for ink optimization. NewsWay then receives the optimized PDF’s and load balances them across the embedded Harlequin RIPs. NewsWay creates a soft proof of every page and holds them in an editorial approval queue. Once approved, imposed plates are made with furniture and text automatically burnt onto the plate. The plates are then sent to a plate approval queue where the page pairs can be viewed before being sent to the CTPs for output. When NewsWay sends pages for production, its workflow management capability also seamlessly sends pages to the newspaper’s e-tearsheet solution.
About Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:
The Democrat and Chronicle, founded in 1833 as the The Balance, the paper eventually became known as the Daily Democrat. The Daily Democrat merged with another local paper in 1870, the Chronicle, thus becoming the current name of the paper. The newspaper is owned by Gannett Company, Inc..