Prepress
Express-Expansion Group to Adopt Quark Publishing System 7
Friday 11. January 2008 - Political Weekly LExpress to Upgrade to Quark Publishing System 7 to Realize New Benefits in its Editorial Workflow System
The Express-Expansion Group has announced that the editorial team at the weekly magazine LExpress is currently testing Quark Publishing System (QPS) 7, the latest version of Quarks editorial workflow system, with the intention of adopting it permanently in the next few months.
Founded in 1953, the magazine started using QuarkXPress layout software in the early days of desktop publishing. To maintain consistency and ensure the publishing process was both well run and secure, in 1998 the Express Group adopted QPS. Since its original implementation of QPS, the Express-Expansion Group has adopted regular updates of the workflow system. LExpress and Styles, its magazine supplement, are created using QPS 3.6.
QPS 7: A Strategic Vision
Given the confidence the Express-Expansion Group had in the original publishing system, they decided to test QPS 7, which has been re-engineered and re-architected to offer its users a new level of freedom in the way they approach their work.
“Its an evolution, not to mention a revolution, because QPS 7 is just what weve been waiting for,” explained Thierry Bérard, IT director for the Express-Expansion Group. “Thanks to the systems open architecture, it is at last possible to have an interface between QPS 7 and other systems.”
As an example, Express-Expansion Group is looking to use Journal Designer, a Dataplan solution, for managing thumbnails with QPS 7 in order to have a global application that can manage production flows that include page layouts, thumbnails, and follow up. The Dataplan tool is due to be used either with QuarkXPress for all the other publications equipped with QuarkXPress 7 or as an automatic interface with QPS 7 for LExpress.
QPS 7: Technological and Operational Benefits
QPS 7 affords its users a host of new benefits. “First, it is a great time saver because of the automation,” said Bérard. “We can incorporate existing systems into its open architecture, in particular integrating it easily with the Dataplan interface.” Bérard also emphasized the stability of this new platform for users who are working with QuarkXPress 7 on Mac Intel machines. He continued, “The combination of Mac Intel, OS X, QPS 7, QuarkXPress 7 and Dataplan is a huge value add for the Express-Expansion Group in terms of technological and operational benefits.”
The magazines numerous contributors also appreciate the flexibility of the new system, citing its enhanced layer and transparency management, the redesigned user interface and the fact that content providers can work on the layout through a simple client or a Web browser.
“Today, LExpress employs about 120 people, and QPS 7 is the solution for the secure management of all our workflows,” concluded Bérard.
“The challenge of LExpress magazine, and of its supplement, Styles, was to keep an editorial workflow as close as possible to the one the customer has used for several years, while providing new opportunities in the publishing process,” explained Gildas Duval, Quark sales manager for Southern Europe. “Opportunities include cross-media publishing, a collaborative workflow and easy integration with page planning, ad booking and other systems. QPS 7 offers all of these benefits, based on an open, flexible architecture and an intuitive Web interface.”