Exciting insights into the latest version 6.3 of the Cross-Media Publishing Platform vjoon K4 as well as users' accounts of version 6 in real-world publishing production figured prominently on the agenda of the 5th International K4 User Conference in Hamburg. Some 150 visitors enjoyed an informative event featuring many presentations, customer projects, and workshops. Roger Risdal from Adobe talked about the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, recently unveiled at Adobe MAX. Thomas Classen of corps and Marc Terstal of TiMe described practical applications of K4 in a multifaceted magazine publishing operation. "Red Bulletin" magazine's Michael Bergmeister and Lukas Huggenberg from Arnold Inhalt und Form described how tablet editions of their global publications are produced. Christian H. Hollstein, product manager at vjoon, presented the new version 6.3 of vjoon K4. Available now, its key innovations include an extended feature set for publishing digital editions in any tablet format, and the K4 Distributed Enterprise System, which affords users with remote production sites tremendous time savings. Attendees were impressed with vjoon K4 version 6.3's persuasive performance. Its ease of use, end-to-end control over the entire workflow, and automated processes exemplify the spirit and standards of the Unified Publishing Process developed by vjoon.

"We chose vjoon K4 version 6 as the central control instrument because it enables taut, process-oriented management of our cross-media publications. All supervisors can quickly and easily ascertain the current production status and pending tasks," notes Thomas Classen, senior officer and head of publishing at corps-Verlag, a subsidiary of Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt. "Transparency is a key factor when the production process involves many contributors and content that varies from location to location," says Marc Terstal, head of production at corps' technical partner TiMe GmbH. "Action can be taken and assistance provided before a problem escalates." TiMe and corps use vjoon K4 to produce some 20 titles ranging from special interest magazine to corporate publication. These include the Deutsche Börse Group's Best of Corporate Publishing award-winning business journal "1585", Buhl Data GmbH's "SPARBUCH", the German Red Cross's "rotkreuzmagazin", Galeria Kaufhof's "galeria Magazin", and a technical journal published by the architectural associations of the 16 German states entitled "Deutsches Architektenblatt" (DAB).

The User Conference also turned the spotlight on tablet publishing, at this time probably the most intriguing facet of the Unified Publishing Process. The integrated Adobe Digital Publishing Suite offers Enterprise Services such as distribution, e-commerce, online analysis that perfectly complement K4 version 6.3's native capabilities enabling universal tablet publishing. Lukas Huggenberg, senior art director and IT manager at Arnold Inhalt and Form, already takes advantage of these possibilities. He presented the latest iPad edition of "bulletin", a multiple international-award-winning customer magazine published by the global financial services provider Credit Suisse. "We have used vjoon K4 for years to produce the printed edition and appreciate its reliability and stability. A great advantage of version 6 is that it supports, directly and expediently, the tablet channel alongside the print channel. We made the most of this capability to produce iPad editions of "bulletin" with great success."

Michael Bergmeister, head of production at "Red Bulletin", presented another elaborate customer project, the iPad edition of Red Bull's lifestyle magazine. K4 has been used for several years now to produce this multilingual periodical, published worldwide with an edition of four million copies per issue. "We have a lean team, which is why we value process-oriented production with vjoon K4. Version 6.3 offers various output options and automations, which is a great advantage." vjoon K4's integration with the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite reduces the number of time-consuming routine tasks. For example, K4 lightens the workload by adapting digital editions' page formats to any tablet format and converting units of measure and styles, automatically and flexibly. This is tremendously beneficial, especially for small teams.

"Our 5th International K4 User Conference was a rousing success. Positive feedback from so many customers and the user reports attest to version 6's efficiency. About 70 of the 380 K4 systems in place around the world are already powered by version 6," notes Andreas Schrader, CEO vjoon GmbH. "The tremendous flexibility of this Cross-Media Publishing Platform is especially evident when it comes to new developments such as tablet publishing. It has enabled us to convince those customers who are still in wait-and-see mode that there has never been a better time than now to change over."