SCS Installs New ColorAdBoss App

By: E&P Staff The Trinidad Express, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and Panorama, Maracaibo, Venezuela, will soon install ColorAdBoss (CAB), a new add-on to Layout-8000, version 11, from Software Consulting Services LLC, Nazareth, Pa. The software also has been in use at The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., where it was beta tested last year.

Used by the layout operator to place color ads, CAB understands the color capacity of the press and guides the user through the color ad placement, enabling collaboration on color-page assignment between the pressroom and advertising department. Once all color ads are placed, ColorAdBoss creates a press imposition map that can be passed to the pressroom on paper or to the press system as an electronic file.

"The problem we are solving with this application is the lengthy dialog and bargaining that goes on between the advertising department and the press room concerning color placement," SCS Installation Specialist Brian McCasland said in a statement.

McCasland, who worked with the Star-Ledger on the product last fall, added: "Since CAB understands the capabilities of the press, the operator can see in real-time the options for color placement. CAB understands both capacity and complexity when... calculating configurations."

The Star-Ledger also is installing SCS/ClassPag to replace its FT&A software and paginate classified ads from the Mactive front-end serving both the Star Ledger and The Times of Trenton.

In streamlining and automating the process, "most likely we will be able to cut the pagination time in half" McCasland said.

Designed to quickly paginate classified sections of any size, works with predefined placement criteria and is used with a variety of front ends.

SCS also announced that the Cortland (N.Y.) Standard and The Derrick, Oil City, Pa., went live on the Scoop editorial system, purchased from Software Consulting Services, in the course of their two weeks of installation and training.

Derrick Publishing, which produces the regional daily and semi-weeklies, replaced its homegrown editorial system with a 16-seat Scoop system and a QuickWire system for handling wire copy.

For pagination, the paper switched from QuarkXpress to Adobe InDesign. Most of the user questions for the SCS installer during the practice sessions were related to this conversion rather than to Scoop itself. It did not take long for the users to become acclimated to InDesign, however, even though they had no formal training in InDesign before or during the switch.

In Cortland, Scoop runs on Windows workstations, replacing an FSI/Mets system for 15 staffers. Wire copy runs through Quickwire. Eight page designers formerly using QuarkXPress now paginate with Adobe InDesign in conjunction with Scoop PageTrack. According to SCS Installation Specialist Chris Stival, the old system was unable to handle sports agate, which had to be pasted up.

Developed by Sweden's Scoop Publishware AB and distributed by SCS in North America, the editorial system features modular, scalable tools for reporting, file management, edition and page tracking, online editions, library management and other editorial needs.