Newsquest Selects Atex Cross-media for Glasgow Titles

By: E&P Staff Newsquest Herald & Times, publisher of the Evening Times, Herald and Sunday Herald in Glasgow, Scotland, as well as several magazines, will replace its Macintosh-based QPS system with the latest database-managed cross-media content-management solution from Atex, Reading, England.

The Atex system follows the group's investment in new printing equipment. "With Atex, we believe that we are providing our journalists with the best tools available to meet the stringent quality and accelerating cross-media demands of both our readers and advertisers." Managing Director Tim Blott said in a statement.

The installation will give 300 PC users access to a central SQL database. The flexible system will allow delivery of any type of content, anywhere, and in any format.

The editing, pagination, and content-management solution combines industry-standard desktop publishing applications with purpose-built software -- all connected to a standard, relational database to track constantly changing content. News and advertising can be linked in ways that increasingly leverage content to make it more valuable.

With its journalists already accustomed to working with Quark Software, Newsquest Herald & Times chose to use Quark CopyDesk for text input and QuarkXPress version 6.5 for pagination, both tightly integrated within the Atex workflow.

The publisher also will implement the Atex Web module to supply and manage content on the newspapers' Web sites. Atex Web allows publishers to deliver and manage up-to-the-minute online content easily and economically by retrieving information from the editorial database and automatically delivering completed Web pages ready for serving.

Atex Web constantly examines the content database, identifies stories that are to go online, and automatically laces text and graphics using pre-set designs and criteria such as time, keyword or subject, allowing editors to concentrate on providing fresh content.