Adobe InDesign
Custom fit
Canadian newspaper publishing giant gains efficiency using Adobe Creative Suite and a workflow based on AdobePDF
Each week, Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd. delivers vital business and community information to millions of readers across Ontario, Canada. With 71 newspapers, countless advertising venues, numerous distribution networks, and web publishing, virtually no target is unreachable. From 20 locations, including up to a dozen major production centers, Metroland publishes 110 editions of 71 newspaper titles. The company's publishing and printing processes have gained a major efficiency boost since switching to Adobe® Creative Suite software, including Adobe InDesign® CS, and a workflow based on Adobe PDF.
The switch from QuarkXPress to InDesign CS for page layout began after the group started moving to Mac OS X in 2004. "Upgrades for QuarkXPress had stalled, and there was nothing very useful for us in the new versions that did come out," says Steve Levant, director of information technology for Metroland.
Sustaining growth
For an operation like Metroland, inefficient publishing is not an option. As of October 2005, the combined distribution of the community newspapers published by Metroland was approximately 4.5 million copies per week, according to Levant, and the company is continuing to acquire more newspapers. Metroland's flyer distribution volumes have grown every year for 20 consecutive years and now number more than 2.2 billion pieces per year.
Besides distributing 4.5 million copies of its weeklies in towns around Toronto, Metroland is among Canada's largest distributors of advertising flyers and circulars. It jointly owns Metro, Toronto's leading free daily commuter newspaper, and Sing Tao, Canada's largest Chinese daily, and it publishes specialty products targeted at specific demographic and interest segments.
"To keep growing at this pace, we have to keep up with technology," says Levant. "Adobe offers forward- thinking tools with advanced functionality built in, and also with support for scripting and technologies like XML that help us stay one step ahead. Adobe solutions are vital to our ongoing success."
Integration plus built-in effects
The need for increased productivity spurred Metroland to acquire a few copies of InDesign CS and participate in training. "When our people saw the integration between Adobe Photoshop® CS software and InDesign CS, in particular the ability to place native Photoshop files into layouts, that's what really impressed them," says Levant. "Increased integration, plus sophisticated typographical controls and built-in transparency effects, made our layout artists eager to make the move to InDesign CS."
Metroland began its transition to InDesign CS in spring 2004 with the production of Niagara This Week, a publication that has the largest weekly circulation in Canada. Leveraging training materials provided by Adobe and working with an Adobe certified training provider, the Metroland team built a workflow using Adobe tools that Levant describes as "extremely scalable and flexible." Based on the success at Niagara This Week, Metroland quickly began rolling out its new workflow and new page layout solution, Adobe InDesign CS, to the locations and teams publishing its other titles.
Metroland has countless advertising venues across Canada and is a major distributor of advertising flyers. The Adobe Creative Suite enables Metroland artists to create eye-catching consumer ads.
Today, Metroland operators complete layouts using Adobe InDesign CS, Illustrator® CS, and Photoshop CS software. Levant says effects such as drop shadows can be achieved faster and easier. Artists have more time and more tools with which to experiment, and the natural result is more sophisticated, eye-catching materials for readers.
Custom workflows for diverse operations
Unlike many newspapers that use systems integrators and packaged publishing systems, Metroland acts as its own systems integrator, creating its own flexible solutions to suit the diverse operations at each of its locations. Each workflow is customized or modified to accommodate preflighting of Adobe PDF files or more complex operations involving color management or color profiling.
With Adobe Creative Suite, layout artists have more time and more tools with which to experiment and can, therefore, create section fronts, ads, and editorial layouts with exceptional visual flair.
"We keep an open architecture and a workflow that's as simple as possible," Levant says. "The Adobe Creative Suite is at the heart of the architecture."
Keeping up with pages from 25 groups
Among the most vital benefits of using Adobe tools is the ability to preflight large numbers of files in the company's production workflow. Twenty-five editorial and production groups send newspaper pages to six print sites for production. Many files have issues such as missing fonts, or images that are the wrong resolution or are saved in the wrong color space — RGB instead of CMYK. Operators must catch and fix these errors before sending the files for raster image processing. Without strong support for scripting in Adobe tools to allow for high levels of automation, there would be almost no way to keep up.
Through AppleScript routines, Metroland's operators can drop files into hot folders to create high- or low-resolution Adobe PDF files. Adobe Acrobat® software and Enfocus PitStop Server automatically preflight the files and, in many cases, can fix problems on-the-fly.
Adobe PDF from start to finish
Metroland has a workflow based on Adobe PDF inside and out: in prepress, with advertisers, at its own five printing plants, and with outside print service providers. the company's goal now is to move all remaining titles at all locations to the Adobe Creative suite and Adobe PDF workflows. Levant reports that over 70% of the group's newspapers had transitioned by the end of 2005.
Easily move print content to web
Today, the bulk of Metroland's titles have been converted to InDesign CS. And, productivity is on the rise in its print operations thanks to an efficient workflow based on Adobe PDF. As a next step, Metroland is eyeing new tools available for cross-media and web publishing.
Levant says the company plans to leverage support for XML across the Adobe Creative Suite and Adobe application programming interfaces as an option to repurposed print content for the web. "Adobe has provided good application programming interfaces for developers and good XML integration for end users so that we can streamline cross-media publishing," he says. "The ability to easily leverage content will be a major boon for us."
