Techniques for Building

Flexible Cross-Media

WorkflowsDwight Kelly – Apago

Tom Petrillo – Adobe Systems

About Apago

• Software development and consulting firm

• Founded in 1991

• Customers include major graphic arts

OEMs, publishers, printers, corporations,

government and consumers

• Implemented numerous cross-media

workflows for customers

What is cross-media

publishing?

The term “cross-media publishing” has traditionally

been used to describe “repurposing” content for both

print and web.

A simple example is Microsoft Word’s HTML filter that

creates HTML from Word documents.

Another is exporting a “low-res” PDF.

What is cross-media

publishing?

But now cross-media publishing has taken on a greater

importance. Content brands need to be visible in as

many venues as possible for their target markets.

Every day more devices and services are released that

can attract the desired demographic.

New forms of delivery

Other demands for

cross-media publishing

Repurposing content isn’t the only example of cross-

media publishing today.

Other demands for

cross-media publishing

Repurposing content isn’t the only example of cross-

media publishing today.

Other examples are:

• Extracting images and text for insertion into a Digital

asset management system (DAM)

• Building a search archive

• Reformatting for use in 1:1 marketing campaign

• On-demand books

Each of these derivative products have their own

requirements for color, image quality, fonts,

graphics, etc.

Generating all of the variations can be problematic

and time consuming.

Key question

Maintain layout (e-magazine)

or

Reuse content (article text & images on website)

The dream

“Create Once, Publish Many” – a magical button that

publishers push to have content “auto-magically”

come out in all of the right variations in the right

formats.

The dream

“Create Once, Publish Many” – a magical button that

publishers push to have content “auto-magically”

come out in all of the right variations in the right

formats.

Doesn’t exist and besides doesn’t take advantage of

unique capabilities of individual devices and

services.

The reality

“Create Once, Produce Many” – a single content

master is used to create each variation.

Methods:

• Optimized PDF

• Convert to Flash or other rich media

• Export assets using XML or other format

Optimized PDF

• Benefits

– most publications are already available as PDF

– rich graphics model (color, image, vector, fonts,

transparency, etc.)

– free viewer (Acrobat Reader)

– easy to create with Indesign “Export PDF”, Acrobat "PDF

Optimizer", Apago PDF Enhancer, etc.

– text is searchable (but not indexed)

Optimized PDF

• Problems

– no control over viewer experience (branding, controls, etc)

– difficult to reflow text for easy reading on small screens

– many web users dislike PDF and Reader because it takes

over page layout and interaction

– complex pages can take a lot of storage

– no inexpensive centralized rights management

– no viewer tracking or ad revenue opportunities

– limited rich media capabilities

Convert to rich media

(Flash/Silverlight/SVG/HTML)

• Benefits

– complete control over viewer experience (design,

interaction, website integration)

– viewer can be integrated into web pages, desktop, etc.

– flash is already installed on 99% of computers

– rich media elements (video, music, animation)

– “the page flip”

– some companies provide viewer tracking metrics,

subscriber services, conversion and hosting services while

others are self-service

Convert to rich media

(Flash/Silverlight/SVG/HTML)

• Problems– PDF and Flash graphic modes differ

• Transparency & overprinting

• Font & image formats

• Dash lines

• Smooth shadings

– supports unmanaged RGB only (no CMYK, ICC profiles or spot

colors)

– Complex pages can display slowly

– only 65K elements per movie

– limited support for text searching

Examples

Examples

E-document companies

Exporting assets

• Indesign export to XML and the new IDML

– limited tools available for working with IDML however it is

“standard” XML

• PCI Scriba integrates with K4 and Quark to

implement automated workflows for exporting tagged

and untagged content from page layouts to DAM,

web sites, etc.

• Good translation requires knowledge of page layout

(geometry or tagging)

Exporting assets

Source:

pcipage.com

Designing for cross-media

“Create Once, Produce Many”

• Separate content creation from layout and

publishing

• Articles written for web tend to be longer than

printed articles because of space limitations

• Leverage metadata (XMP, PRISM)

• Use templates for publishing

What about existing

printed content?

• Probably not digital or in format that can be easily repurposed

• Possibility of 100s of 1000s of pages to be processed

• Old physical copies need to be scanned, cleaned up and

optimized

• Text readability issues

• Can you find all of the back issues? It’s surprising that many

magazines have incomplete/damaged archives

• OCR vs. re-keying, index text content (create taxonomy)

• Services bureaus are available to do the hard labor

Recent Apago projects

IPA Initiatives

• Active cross-media working group

• Currently working on updating ISO 12647 –

“Process control for the production of half-

tone colour separations, proof and production

prints”

• Determining recommended workflows, file

formats, etc

Conclusions

The design of your cross-media workflow

depends highly on where your content

originates (old vs. new), at what point you

want to extract or repurpose the

content/layout, and how the user will

interact with the new products

Tom Petrillo

Sr. Solutions Engineer

Media and Entertainment

Adobe Systems Incorporated