ZAANDAM, The Netherlands – WoodWing, a leading supplier of innovative cross-media publishing solutions, announced today that it is teaming up with Enfocus, a leading vendor of modular tools safeguarding job quality and enabling automation throughout the complete media production chain. As part of the partnership, Enfocus will become a WoodWing Authorized Technology Partner, while WoodWing joins the growing Enfocus Crossroads community as an Application Partner. Together, the companies will offer enhanced integration between WoodWing Enterprise 7 and Enfocus Switch, enabling publishers to further automate and streamline their media production processes.

Founded in 1993, Enfocus is based in Ghent, Belgium. Switch, one of its flagship products, is available in three versions with different levels of functionality. All offer an easy-to-use visual interface enabling users to set up and control their automated processes. Among other features, the application automates the receiving, sorting and delivery of files. Depending on the Switch version, extensive integration with other applications can be provided to automatically create PDF files, preflight PDF and image files, apply color corrections, impose and proof jobs, and more. Established in 2007, the Enfocus Crossroads community – connecting users, Application Partners and Integrator Partners – provides a pool of expertise and resources to make automation with Enfocus Switch more accessible to users in the printing and publishing industries.

“WoodWing is a leading software supplier to the publishing industry,” said Fabian Prudhomme, Vice President of Enfocus. “With WoodWing joining the Crossroads community, publishers will now be able to make a big step toward full automation. Switch automates the delivery of assets to WoodWing Enterprise and supports the processing of the final content from Enterprise to a multitude of output channels. This allows publishers to focus on more value-added tasks. During the WoodWing Xperience event from May 24-25 in Amsterdam, attendees will be the first to see our enhanced integration between the upcoming Switch 10 and WoodWing Enterprise 7.”

Anyone interested can follow the WoodWing Xperience on Twitter at #WWXP.

“An open architecture, the use of open standards and the resulting high flexibility are essential characteristics of WoodWing Enterprise, our cross-media publishing system,” said Hans Janssen, CEO of WoodWing Software. “This openness enables our customers to integrate specialized applications from our Technology Partners and to build a best-of-breed solution that’s the most cost-effective and efficient for their business. The close integration of Enterprise and Enfocus Switch is a good example of the success of this strategy and its value for WoodWing customers.”

The backbone of any publishing process
WoodWing's Enterprise is a versatile cross-media publishing system for the creation and production of print, online and mobile publications. At the heart of the system is the Enterprise server, the backbone of multi-channel publishing processes. On top sits Content Station, the content management application, which enables content producers, editors, photographers and managers to perform their daily tasks, from content planning to final publication to multiple channels – all from within one user-friendly interface.

Full integration delivers even more automation
With the enhanced integration of WoodWing Enterprise and Enfocus Switch, publishers are now able to automate even more of their media production processes. Reception, sorting, processing and routing of assets can now be fully automated by Switch. The processed assets – including metadata such as brand, category, issue and status – can also be uploaded automatically into Enterprise.

Enfocus Switch can also be used to adapt assets. For example, Switch can download a high-resolution CMYK image from Enterprise, resize it to the appropriate resolution, and convert it to an RGB image. The modified image is then simply uploaded back into Enterprise as a new asset. Switch also integrates with numerous other Crossroads partner applications, providing publishers a complete, feature-rich, streamlined workflow. A print-ready PDF file, for example, can be downloaded from Enterprise using Switch and then routed to an appropriate application for automated preflighting, ink optimization, proofing, imposition and final delivery to the RIP for plate output.

For publishers, Switch offers a visual way of connecting and building the workflow – as well as controlling it. Users save both time and money on building, debugging, and on the daily monitoring of the workflow. Workflows can be further enhanced through scripting, changes to metadata or any kind of advanced manipulation of files.