Circ2000 keeps circulation account data at the fingertips of every level of service, from the billing, to the mailroom, to the carriers on delivery routes. Carriers keep detailed delivery records through a personal digital assistant known as SoftBook.

Central Newspapers is on the Web at http://www.centralnews.com/, while the Wilmington, Mass.-based ATS is on the Web at http://www.atsusa.com/.

The company said the ability of ECRM to incorporate Optronics' thermal platemaking technologies into the company's vision and the addition of the Optronics development and support teams were two major components of the deal.

In addition, the company said that Tony Fong, chairman and CEO of Optronics International, will become vice chairman of the ECRM board of directors. Fong is also chairman and CEO of Fong Brothers Printing in Brisbane, Calif. After being a long-time Optronics customer, who was impressed with the performance and reliability of the company's imaging devices in his printing operations, Fong purchased Optronics from Intergraph Corp. in 1997.

ECRM is on the Web at http://www.ecrm.com/.

Version 2.0 enhancements include color graphic imaging, greater vocabulary recognition, HTML/XML tagging and robust ad parsing. The new AutoZone feature allocates defined zones of graphics and text which are broken out of the ad for further editing by newspaper personnel.

Edgil is on the Web at http://www.edgil.com/.

With the addition of NorthJersey.com, the Real Cities network now includes 32 regional destination hubs, serving 10 of the top 25 markets in the United States. NorthJersey.com serves a portion of the No. One New York market, which includes northern New Jersey.

The expanded site of NorthJersey.com will feature the content and services of several of Macromedia's newspapers, including THE RECORD, its flagship award-winning daily newspaper, the HERALD NEWS (77k, serving Passaic County) and 20 weekly newspapers tailored to specific localities.

The company has also announced an agreement where BuyerWeb will integrate its patent-pending private-label buyer referral technology into Real Cities regional destination sites. A potential buyer specifies the item or service he or she wants by filling out an on-line request form. Within 48 hours the person receives offers with information and pricing from qualified sellers. KnightRidder.com will begin implementing this free service for its Real Cities visitors this month.

BuyerWeb Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in New York, NY.

KnightRidder.com's national network of regional hubs is on the Web at http://www.realcities.com/, while Macromedia is on the Web at http://www.bergen.com/ and BuyerWeb is on the Web at http://www.buyerweb.com/>

Metacode will develop XTensions software to add the Metatagger content enhancement technology to Quark products.

The ability to tag content as it is created and automatically index it to industrial or business classification schemes could significantly change the way publishers operate, the company said.

Metacode of San Francisco is located on the Web at http://wwwmetacode.com/, while Quark of Denver is on the Web at http://www.quark.com/.

ContentWare takes all of OpenPages' existing applications and ties them together in one environment, giving businesses the ability to build print and Web content simultaneously using one system rather than numerous incompatible solutions.

OpenPages ContentWare 2.0 includes Catalog Edition, WebBuilder 2.0 and updated features including extended SQL support to create complex SQL queries; e-commerce support for popular application server platforms; Composer 2.0; Palette 2.0; Autoimport 2.0; Administrator 2.0, and Layout Services.

The company also said that KnightRidder.com, the new business unit for all of Knight Ridder's Internet operations, has selected OpenPages ContentWare 2.0 for its RealCities Network, a national network of 30 RealCities.com regional hubs on the Web.

In addition, Open Pages said that NETWORK WORLD magazine would use ContentWare to produce nwfusion.com. NETWORK WORLD has been an OpenPages customer for two years.

Lastly, the company said that Community Newspapers Co. (CNC) of suburban Boston has chosen ContentWare to manage its award-winning Town Online http://www.townonline.com/. Town Online will use OpenPages ContentWare to manage and dynamically publish content from more than 100 CNC publications throughout Eastern Massachusetts and automate its conversion to over 85 on-line communities.

Southborough, Mass.-based NETWORK WORLD and its on-line extension Network World Fusion http://www.nwfusion.com/ are published by IDG, which is on the Web at http://www.idg.net. San Jose-based KnightRidder.com is on the Web at http://www.realcities.com/ and OpenPages, based in Westford, Mass., is on the Web at http://www.openpages.com/.

The company said that XPress 5.0 will allow users to design and lay out documents for export as HTML, including support for image maps, rollovers, meta tags and forms. Users will be able to create hyperlinks and control all basic HTML page options, such as background images and page titles. The powerful QuarkXPress style sheet feature will be complimented by cascading style sheet (CSS) formatting for the Web. The HTML code generated by QuarkXPress 5.0 will be table-based for compatibility with version 4.0 browsers and above.

XPress 5.0 is expected to ship in the fourth quarter of this year, Quark said.

The company has also announced eStage, a database-driven publishing system that addresses the production needs of the direct marketing, retail and catalog industries. The eStage software lets content builders, such as merchandisers, access and stage content from multiple databases. eStage also leverages XML in exchanging content with third-party applications. By keeping content separate from design, eStage allows the publishing department to deploy in both print and Web formats.

Quark is based in Denver and is on the Web at http://www.quark.com/.

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