Houston TIPS Toward Full Pagination
by Paul C. SoRelle
Houston Chronicle copy editors are expressing praise for our recently installed Millennium editorial system from CKP Newspaper Systems Inc. of Bedford, N.H.
One editor was so moved that he removed the "junk" sign he had pasted to his workstation monitor. He said the change has meant happiness and well-being in his work environment, and that he is looking forward to using the sketch tool and pagination.
An editor in the features department also expressed satisfaction with the new setup: "I now have more time to edit. I feel as if I've been able to do a truly thorough job of editing. It's because I am not burning all my time struggling with uncooperative formats. The new formats have been great, including recipes that don't follow the conventional formats."
The new composition system is based on CKP's Stonehand toolkit and will allow the Chronicle to begin the path to full pagination later in 1997.
Stonehand composition allows description of geometry for story and page areas either from formats or by using a sketch tool. Elements of the stories are then flowed into the geometry during composition. Editors can see the results of composition in a high-speed preview window.
After editing and composition is complete, the file is output using SPDL output language and converted to a TIFF file using a CKP process called Spiff. The TIFF file is then output through Harlequin PostScript raster-image processors connected to Autologic Information International 3850 recorders. The Chronicle will convert the Millennium output to PostScript later in 1997.
When the sketch-tool module is implemented, editors will be able to sketch geometry on electronic dummies and apply the geometry to stories in the system. The ad stack comes from Computerease, the Chronicle's current ad-layout program.
Rim editors will continue to display the story on their normal editor window and copy-fit a story to a specified geometry. Stories and accompanying art can be viewed in a preview tool that gives a WYSIWYG view.
When stories are ready for publication, they are composed to a page. Pages are then reviewed and, when complete, released for publication by slot editors. Pages can be viewed to show the story, photo and ads on the page.
The Millennium pagination system is known as TIPS, an acronym for Totally Integrated Pagination System. The stories, pages and artwork for the pages all reside in the Millennium database. The elements are stored in CKP's Replicated Object Database, which runs under Sybase.
TIPS also has the ability to import elements that were produced by foreign systems, such as artwork and layouts done on a Macintosh computer. Feature editors will be able to use a low-resolution copy of a special layout as a background to sketch the type. Upon output, the high-resolution version of the page with artwork is married to the type produced on TIPS.
The TIPS system uses a page-oriented filer to display page files and page elements such as photos and artwork. The page-oriented filer also is a management tool. Page listings are color coded to show production status. From a single list, editors and production employees can see the status of the pages.
Work on the Millennium system began in 1988 when the Chronicle contracted with Camex for a Unix-based system that included display-ad building, editorial and classified. The Camex Breeze ad-building system was the first phase of the installation.
Other programs that were part of the installation included conversion of our System Integrators Inc. classified-pagination system to SPDL, placement of display ads from a database into the pages, and development of image and Postscript import and export gateways.
In 1992, the editorial system was first used in the business-news department. After business, features followed and uncovered some problems with composition. To resolve them, DuPont, which bought Camex, chose to integrate the product with a stand-alone composition system. The change was a success in departments like features, but was cumbersome for the production environment of the copy and sports desks, where conversion to Millennium was completed in 1996.
After DuPont chose to leave the newspaper-systems field, CKP Newspaper Systems was formed to continue development of the editorial and classified products. They have also developed products such as Spiff to add value to the Breeze systems.
The Chronicle's editorial and ad-building system operates on 12 Sun Sparc servers, a combination of Sun 670 and UltraSparc 3000 machines.
Staff in editorial and advertising publicity access the editorial system on 292 Sparc workstations and approximately 100 X-terminals. Production workers use 74 Sparc workstations to build ads using Breeze.
The system services large, remote bureaus in Washington and Austin via T1 data lines to Sparc 20 servers, and many smaller bureaus throughout Texas connected via data line, ISDN or dial-up.
Paul C. SoRelle is manager of pre-press implementation and support at the Houston Chronicle. E-mail, paul.sorelle@chron.com; phone, (713) 220-7298; fax, (713) 250-3401.