Princeton, NJ – 29th May, 2008: The Saint Paul Pioneer Press (circ. 191,768 daily and 252,055 Sunday) has successfully implemented ProImage NewsWay workflow automation.

Before recently installing Kodak CTP equipment Saint Paul Pioneer Press decided they needed a single workflow automation solution that would integrate their editorial and advertising prepress systems, hard and soft proofing devices, RIPs and CTPs, plate punch benders - and send ink presets to the GOSS press control system.

Finally selected was ProImage NewsWay that now provides the newspaper with the perfect solution; an easy-to-use, browser-based integration, automation and workflow system.

“ProImage delivered a workflow solution that met all our expectations,” said Saint Paul Pioneer Press production director Kevin Garris. “Besides being able to manage our pages and plate output, ProImage was one of the few vendors that offered an interface to our Goss MPCS press control system for ink presets. It has also provided us with a significant improvement in throughput speed.”

The Saint Paul Pioneer Press is a MediaNews Group newspaper based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, primarily serving the Twin Cities metropolitan area, and enjoys use of some of the best technology available in order to enhance production efficiency and print quality.

Workflow overview: combining PostScript and PDF pages:
At the Saint Paul Pioneer Press NewsWay imports page plans from the newspaper’s Mactive advertising system. It then creates the edition plans for the various daily products. The process is completely automated with the minor exception of any plate counts modified by plateroom staff.

An OpenPages Editorial system releases Postscript pages while a Mactive advertising system releases PDF pages to NewsWay. Once received pages are load-balanced between two Harlequin RIPs. These can be monitored and status messages displayed through NewsWay’s browser interface.

The bitmap pages are then analyzed for page type and any pages that are of a slightly different size go through an additional off-set device to correct page placement on the plate. Pages are then all imposed and text and furniture (graybars and two types of vision dots to handle old and new Nela benders) burned on to the final plate image. Special marks are also put on the outside of the image area so that Nela equipment can sort the odd and even plates into different bins.

Pages are then routed to an Approval queue to be viewed by plateroom staff for correct status before they are moved on in the workflow. The final pages are then routed to recently installed Kodak CTP devices where pages are color locked so all sets of a separation are always sent to the same device, maximizing color quality.

Additionally NewsWay routes TIFF pages to NewsColor for calibrated hard proofing. It also calculates ink values and transmits them to an older Goss Press Control system for ink presetting.