DTI Upgrades, Automates NewsSpeed, Offers New Database

By: E&P Staff InterSystems Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., and Digital Technology International, of Springville, Utah, announced at the Ifra Expo in Amsterdam earlier this month a new version of DTI's NewsSpeed editorial system, built on the Cache post-relational database from InterSystems.

DTI Chairman and CEO Don Oldham called NewsSpeed's availability on the Cache database platform a response to growing demand among newspapers for high performance in the Web environment. Cache's architecture speeds transaction processing and handles very large data volumes -- important for daily work with massive graphics files -- with "significantly lower hardware requirements than those of legacy two-dimensional relational database products," said Oldham.

Now available on Windows 95 and later, Cache-based NewsSpeed will be available for Mac OSX next spring. InterSystems' Worldwide Response Center can provide "fully committed support and fast response" to DTI customers anywhere, according to Oldham.

DTI also introduced PageMagic, which can capture and precisely execute a newspaper's style guide with a high degree of automation while leaving the page designer in control.

PageMagic is a result of a 12-month study of newspaper workflow completed with the cooperation of DTI customers worldwide. Undertaken to find out to what extent pagination could be automated, the study showed automation to be "an effective way to preserve aesthetic quality of the newspaper in the daily execution of design rules set by designers," according to DTI. All papers in the study were said to have benefited from automation, but their different workflows required custom solutions.

The solution relies on a core set of scripts, which are refined for the workflow at each newspaper, making implementation possible in weeks rather than months, according to the company.

PageMagic allows a designer to quickly place or remove stories by designating general locations and spaces. A paginator then selects a story and a story format from a list of styles associated with the corresponding edition and section, and PageMagic places the story and executes the style. Columns snap to the appropriate width, flow around other stories and ads, and maintain spacing between page elements.

Stories can quickly be restyled, resized, or repositioned. PageMagic handles the details of page rearrangement, allowing designers to consider more layout options and to make changes on deadline.

A designer can select a story style or format by the format's appearance in the gallery. Aware of the section and page in which the designer is working, PageMagic automatically opens the correct story galleries, which know a given story's column width. It only presents galleries with formats fitting the story space.

One PageMagic tool, StyleMagic, can automatically open all character styles, paragraph styles, libraries, and color swatches from the NewsSpeed database that were created for a particular page or section and assigned to that user.

DTI had earlier introduced the 5.5 release of its editorial pagination suite at Nexpo, in June.

In NewsSpeed 5.5, Adobe InDesign and InCopy are multi-user applications, allowing several staffers to work on the same page concurrently or to work on multiple stories, on multiple pages, at the same time, while seeing changes others are making. NewsSpeed also now includes the Editorial Budget Center content-planning tool, which creates an "electronic blueprint" complete with story and media assignments and tracks all budgeted elements. Electronic forms and a contact manager are included to assist in making writing, photo, and graphic assignments. Reporters and photographers are notified and can also view the story budget panel. Wide area networking permits group newspapers to share stories and information.

NewsSpeed 5.5 also enables users to manage large numbers of stories or files by assigning an action to a specific keystroke.

The system's new Message Center helps newsroom staff communicate without leaving the system, in the manner of instant messaging. Message Center will keep trying to send a message until it is received, and it allows messages to be sent to one or more users at a later time, once or on a repeating basis. Embedded documents may accompany messages. Message Center also enables users to place linked graphics by selecting a frame on a layout tagged for a photo or graphic. Double clicking on a linked Message Center graphic places it in the selected frame.

NewsSpeed's database may be instructed to alert a user that a specific story has arrived over the wire.

Other planning options, available in NewsSpeed's PlanSpeed 5.5 simplify planning multiple editions. Paginators can see multiple plans side-by-side. Designers can move, copy or share pages among plans. Making the same changes to multiple pages can be done in one step.