Test Your Pagination Prowess
At NAA's 1997 Newspaper Operations SuperConference, consultant David M. Cole led a Jeopardy-like game show testing peoples' knowledge of pagination. Here's your chance to "buzz in."
P |
Papers & Vendors |
Technical Trivia |
Numbers |
Definitions & Descriptions |
The People Side |
I |
According to the 1995 ASNE/SND survey, what percentage of U.S. newspapers are paginated? |
Does a paper need to proof hardcopy or will screen proofing work? |
At what resolution should line art be scanned? |
Define SCSI. |
Who should pick a pagination system—editorial, production or computer services? | ||
What percentage of U.S. newspapers paginate on Macintosh? |
Which is the best way to lay out classifieds--back to front, or front to back? |
How wide is an SAU column? |
What does an OPI do? |
Should papers build their own systems, hire an integrator or buy a vendor’s total solution? | ||
Name the company that has the largest installed base of pagination systems. |
How do ad-dummying systems help to automate pagination? |
How many agate lines are there per inch? |
Is an OPI system really needed for optimum pagination? |
Can a large metro paginate with desktop-publishing software? | ||
Name the first totally paginated newspaper in the United States. |
How should a JPEG image be prepared for placement into Quark and decompression on a Level II RIP? |
How many worker-hours does the Inland Press Association say a newspaper should spend per page? |
What is the best way to format a QuarkXpress page for the World Wide Web? |
How long does it take a typical newspaper to become fully paginated? | ||
What paper went direct-to-plate in 1984? |
How can color PDF files be integrated into paginated pages? |
How many suppliers currently offer pagination solutions to North American papers? |
Describe the term "PostScript dictionary." |
How much training do workers require on a new pagination system, and who needs to be trained? |
Answers
Papers & Vendors
100. Twenty percent, although the survey methodology does not ensure an accurate figure.
200. Virtually 100 percent of North American newspapers use Macintosh for some page makeup.
300. Harris Publishing Systems Corp. (Note the word "systems" in the question; certainly the largest number of newspaper "pages" are made up on QuarkXPress.)
400. The Pasadena (Calif.) Star-News.
500. The Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch.
Technical Trivia
100. Many newspapers report success with screen proofing, but there is something tactile about reading a hard-copy proof that frequently causes editors to find errors they have missed on the screen.
200. It is generally accepted that you should lay out classifieds back to front, thereby creating a "class slop" page that editorial can fill.
300. By providing a digital file of the pages and coordinates on which the ads will appear, an ad-dummying system will allow those ads to be placed automatically.
400. The image file should be compressed at the "high" level (67 percent) and placed into the page. The Level II PostScript RIP will decompress the picture and output it.
500. Using a third-party application such as Adobe's Illustrator or TechPool Software Inc.'s Transverter Pro, the PDF file can be converted to an EPS or TIFF file for placement in a paginated page.
Numbers
100. Assuming your output system runs at 1,200 dots per inch, ideally line art should be scanned at 1,201 (one extra for extrapolation) dpi. Actually, anything above 600 dots per inch is usually lost on newsprint.
200. 2-1/16 inches.
300. Fourteen lines per inch.
400. Two hours.
500. According to Cole's Guide to Publishing Systems, 41 different companies offer pagination solutions.
Definitions & Descriptions
100. Small Computer System Interface.
200. An Open Pre-press Interface server substitutes low-resolution images that have been placed for cropping on a page and replaces them with a high-resolution version of the same image. It speeds up page output.
300. Some newspapers have had success with an all fiber-optic network between page-makeup workstations and raster-image processors; the high bandwidth releases the workstation as fast-or faster-than an OPI system.
400. Two products--HexMac's HexWebXT and Astrobyte's BeyondPress--are both good tools to convert Xpress pages to HTML.
500. Since PostScript is a programming language as well as an imaging model, it supports a system of stacking for variable names (similar to dictionary stacks in FORTH, LISP or C). PostScript has two dictionaries that are always present: systemdict and userdict.
The People Side
100. Ideally, a team of these departments should make the decision. If only one department can participate, editorial should make the choice, as they are the ultimate users of the system.
200. Every paper has to answer this question for itself. A great deal of technical expertise is needed for the short period of time that the system is being built and installed. Hiring integrators can be fraught with misunderstandings. A vendor's total solution can be expensive. Publishers have to weigh all these factors.
300. Using enabling technologies, newspapers as big as the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and The Detroit News are paginated with QuarkXpress.
400. Most papers implement far more than mere pagination when they buy a system for "pagination." From a signed order to 100 percent pagination is usually one year.
500. Executives used to say it took three months before an editor became efficient at paginating; today graphical user interfaces speed that up dramatically. Nonetheless, executives should assume that all workers who touch a page or a component of a page during the make-up process should be trained, and that training could last from eight to 40 hours for each worker, depending upon the worker's role.