Keeping track: Xpance makes things
easy by listing recent ads as well as a
list of recent ad queries.

Page element trackers can hunt, shoot and meet deadline

What's all this furor about element tracking, and why is it gaining increasing importance in newspapers?

As the electronic age matures, newspapers are finding that the best way to manage and repurpose the heart of the paper, its content, is to use a database to keep track of all the elements (stories, photos, captions, headlines, advertising, even assignments). That way, anyone could at any time know just where the pesky elements are and when they are scheduled to be used next.

To track elements, you gotta have elements in the first place, and one usually needs some sort of database -- preferably relational, like Sybase or Oracle -- in which to store them. Think robust, able to keep track of the many disparate elements already mentioned. Think fast, although this is also a function of hardware.

Consider the element tracker as a trusty scout that never fails to locate a needed element (except in case of hardware and software failure). To find those sometimes elusive elements, of which there can be several varieties, a good element tracking database must be able to recognize most, if not all, file formats and keep tabs on their various properties.

The modern element tracker just won't hunt if it has a nose for only one kind of element. That's why speed, power and ease of use are key parts of element tracking. A complicated set of commands to tell that old element tracker to "go fetch" on deadline just won't do.

With all that said, here is an example of an element tracking program that has no fancy, top-of-the-line database, but instead relies on the now ancient concept of files and folders. Welcome to PlanSystem, which is a product of Van Gennep-M.A.C. bv of the Netherlands being marketed in the United States by John Juliano Computer Services Co. of Decatur, Ga.

In keeping with a "dancing with the one that brung you" philosophy, the Macintosh-based PlanSystem's four modules keep track of publication elements without the expense of a database. This is not geared for a daily paper, but should work just fine with smaller publications.

It's designed for Quark XPress, but claims also to work with other pagination products like Adobe PageMaker, adding editorial workflow tracking with PlanPub, advertising and layout control with PlanAd, management tools for Quark Publishing System with PlanLink, and multimedia capabilities with PlanMedia.

PlanSystem accomplishes its magic with modules based on the job titles of Layout, Managing Editor, Writer/Copy Editor and Paginator. By setting a standard file location in a folder for every story and production item, PlanSystem makes use of the database qualities of the Macintosh finder to keep track of things.

A five-user starter package was priced at $4529.

All these dogs hunt
That's element tracking for the small user. Element tracking for the rest of us isn't so easy to encompass.

Many elements make up a daily publication, and in 1998 all of them can be tracked. The way tracking is accomplished depends on the implementation of the particular publication system.

So it's the four-star deadline and you need to know where all the elements are that have to go into that edition, and you've only got a web browser to track these elements down. With Voyager SXT from the Stauffer Media Group of Joplin, Mo., it's no problem, since any standard browser can be used in conjunction with this system.

Voyager SXT breaks down the paginated Quark XPress page linking photos and other graphics, with articles and images automatically converted into links. The prepared data are then processed to create page images and previews of archived photos.

This element tracking software is so good that SAXoTECH A/S of Aalborg, Denmark, decided that having use of an editorial system through a web browser was more than a good thing, it could very well be the next big thing.

After developing the Voyager SXT software that Stauffer markets, which uses the Internet for searching an archive, SAXoTECH found through the use of modules written in the operating-system independent Java language that a user with no SAXoPRESS editorial system software can log onto the editorial system with an Internet browser and write a story or check photos.

Few words are needed to explain why this idea would seem appealing to newspaper publishers. If a SAXoPRESS system based on Java applets and dubbed @Ccess could allow reporters with notebooks to write stories without any SAXoPRESS software on their computers, this would be like getting something for nothing.

But this Java-based platform independence comes with some caveats. While Internet Explorer 4.0.x or Netscape Navigator 4.03 can run on a PC with a Java patch, only Internet Explorer 4.0.x supports Java Jdk 1.1, used to turn web browsers into a veritable Swiss Army knife of cross-platform element tracking.

Everyone involved in production is pretty well up-to-date on the elements that go into the editorial content of a paper and how to track them. Revision control and repurposing and reusing old photos and graphics have always been readily available in a variety of packages. But imagine, if you will, a software package that applies all those elements and more for advertising.

The makers of Xpance -- Morcor Solutions Inc. of Napanee, Ontario -- claim that their dog can hunt, dig, find and set the table when it comes to keeping track of the elements that go into building an ad. According to Xpance, the program "automates all file management functions, automatically generates correctly-sized ad documents, eliminates almost all common ad-building errors and provides a detailed analysis of user efficiencies."

But wait -- there's more.

Once the ad with its automatically generated discrete number is completed, Xpance checks that all sizes are correct and no ancillary files are missing. Then Xpance creates an EPS file of the ad for easy tracking, approval and placement in a designated pagination folder.

When an ad has expired, Xpance automatically compresses it and moves it to an expired ads folder. Need proofs? The program prepares an EPS version of the final ad, and a list containing all the relevant elements to be reviewed by the client or ad maker.

You can even assign ads to specific people to build them. Yes, it's all handled by the program, which runs quickly on a PowerPC, and works with Quark XPress or Multi-Ad Creator2 files.

Notes on Notes
And now for something completely different -- at least, different in the brand of element tracker.

The popular Lotus Notes application has been the backbone of element tracking software developed by four companies; Dalai, DeskNet Inc., NewsEngin Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. All four use the elements to be tracked in the Lotus Notes format, and provide connections between popular page layout programs like Quark XPress and Notes.

Monterey, Mexico-based Dalai, through its North American marketing arm, Digital Data Publishing Inc. of Weston, Fla., provides a suite of associated applications that link with Ddpi-Dalai Compass, an intranet server that uses Ddpi-News Creator, the first editorial system developed 100 percent on Lotus Notes, and Ddpi-NewsPlacer, which allows placement of NewsCreator text directly on XPress or PageMaker pages.

DeskNet of New York and St. Louis-based NewsEngin have a partnership to distribute the NewsEngin software suite (see The Cole Papers, April 1998). At NEXPO '98, DeskNet introduced NewsPage, which adds two palettes to XPress, enabling Notes-created stories to be viewed and linked to Quark pages.

DeskNet also showed QPOpen 1.3, a plug-in shell that wraps around Quark XPress and Quark Publishing System to enable more robust connectivity, tracking and functionality. Specifically, QPLotusNotes plug-ins automate communication between Notes, XPress and Quark CopyDesk (the text editing component of QPS).

The fourth company, venerable IBM of White Plains, N.Y., has developed IBM NewsFlow for Lotus Notes, which gives editorial organizations the ability to create stories without regard to the output media, and then interface with whatever production system is appropriate.

With these products, IBM is acting like a system integrator, marketing NewsPage and Dalai's Notes interface in addition to its NewsFlow product, and interfacing through NewsFlow to the production and pagination system made by Digital Technology International of Orem, Utah. As the millennium approaches, everyone has become an element tracker and integrator, even good old Big Blue.

Best of the rest
Here's an overview of other element tracking systems:

Miles 33 of Darien, Conn., and Berkshire, United Kingdom, introduced FutureProof to the U.S. marketplace at NEXPO. Scribe, the editorial story manager, is tracking story elements and laying them out on a mixed PC and Macintosh system -- PCs for writers, Macs for page designers and editors.

Press maker as element tracker? 'Tis true for DALiM of Bedford, N.H., which has an association with Goss Graphic Systems of Westmont, Ill. The highly regarded pressmaker is marketing Galerie, a digital asset library that uses concept-based searching, so a search on "killing" will return stories about murder and wartime battles.

For photos, the search engine allows queries about color space, image size and resolution, and even the actual composition (the "look") of the photo -- big, out-of-focus guy in foreground, big out-of-focus tree in background. This, then, is element tracking on a virtual element, the composition of a photo. Pretty sophisticated.

For those who manage a lot of catalog data, San Diego-based Jintek has a Quark XTension for you. Quark's notorious lack of a truly robust database has hampered it in the long document field. Treasure Pro addresses this shortcoming by creating its own asset database, up to 150,000 records.

Then Treasure Pro uses that database to automatically produce a catalog or other long document via template, or drag and drop the elements on Quark XPress pages yourself. Any database changes are reflected in the Quark file.

Since this is a Macintosh-only XTension, Treasure Pro also has the advantage of being AppleScriptable, so repetitive actions can be completely automated. And if you want access to this database without working in XPress, get Treasure, the stand-alone version of Treasure Pro.

Finally, we come to Cenosis of Laval, Quebec. Using a well thought out Macintosh interface, the Cenosis folks have come up with an integrated system that keeps all elements tracked and accounted for.

CenoText is the editorial workgroup part of the system, allowing repurposing of all elements in the central database across many media forms. CenoPub is the module for handling display ads, CenoWeb takes care of web publishing, and CenoAd handles classifieds.

Is that all there is? No, it's only a small sample of element tracking. Everybody has to do it in a modern newspaper environment. These were a few of the many software packages and databases that keep track of what goes into the modern newspaper.

It's a long way from the sharp spike that kept track of the deleted elements in the paper-and-paste world of yesterday. Does improved and innovative element tracking result in better newspapers? That's up to the one element that defies quantifiable tracking -- the human one.

-- George Powell

Cenosis,
(450) 682-8170,
e-mail: dlortie@cenosis.com;
Dalai,
(011) {52} (8) 365 40 77,
e-mail: hgarcia@dalai.com;
DALiM North America,
(603) 471-7100;
DeskNet, Inc., (212) 343-9800,
e-mail: mgookin@desknetinc.com;
Digital Data Publishing Inc., (954) 349-5400;
IBM United States,
(770) 682-1240;
Jintek,
(619) 654-3355,
e-mail: hans@jintek.com;
Miles 33 International, (203) 656-1800,
e-mail: kennyk@miles33.com;
Morcor
Solutions Inc., (613) 354-2912;
NewsEngin Inc., (314) 865-4204,
e-mail: george@newsengin.com;
SAXoTECH A/S, (011) {45} 9631 4200,
e-mail:
heidi_heunecke@saxotech.dk;
Stauffer Media Systems,
(417) 782-0280,
e-mail: kwood@stauffergold.com;
Van Gennep - M.A.C. bv,
(888) 423-1364.

From THE COLE PAPERS, September 1998, Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved.