Winter 1996
Volume 11 Issue 4
We have been promoting having the publisher send in their text pages on a
disk, instead of as camera ready copy, for nearly a year now. Little by little the
momentum has been swinging toward disks and in the most recent two week period, 50% of our
incoming book pages were on a disk. That is up from about 30% a couple months ago and
about 5% a year ago.
The reason we have been emphasizing disks is that for at least two years
we have felt that the entire graphic arts world is moving toward digital technology and it
would be challenging and rewarding to be at the forefront of this movement... at least in
the book printing industry.
To help us get prepared for this move, (which we feel will be as
significant a move in book printing as the switch from letter press to offset was) in 1995
we invested just under $500,000 in electronic prepress equipment and software, over 1000
hours in employee training at outside training facilities and well over 2000 hours of
employee training inside our own plant. We believe we now have arrived at a "state of
readiness" where we are set to do more than just suggest publishers consider moving
from providing camera copy to providing disks.
Accordingly we are now, or will shortly be, offering:
- A per page discount of $.30 each for all jobs that come to us from one of
our preferred compositors;
- A list of outside "preferred compositors" (if you use a
compositor) that we will work with in a "seamless" fashion so if there is a
problem with your file, we will work with the typesetter to straighten it out without the
publisher having to get involved. There will be no finger pointing;
- A discount of $2.00 per halftone on all jobs that are done via O.P.I., where the customer places and crops the
halftone;
We're setting up every modern method known to man so a customer can send and receive
files, corrections, graphics, fonts, etc., quickly, conveniently and inexpensively (see
the back page for more about this).
Elaborating on these one at a time...
1. $.30/ PAGE DISCOUNT FOR "CLEAN" E.P. JOBS. This is an initial and
conservative pass at the savings we believe will occur when files are successfully used
for producing text copy. Beginning March 1, all of the books that come to us
electronically will receive a discount of $.30/ page off our quoted price...assuming the
file is "clean" or trouble free. You can guarantee this savings by using one or
more of our preferred typesetters. Files supplied by others will not be considered
"clean" until film has been output and no problems have arisen. If it turns out
to be trouble free, you will then receive the discount.
2. PREFERRED TYPESETTER LIST. We are currently developing a list of typesetters
that we will guarantee you the $.30/ page discount should you use them. However, whether
your typesetter is on our list of preferred typesetters or not, if the disk is clean you
get the discount. We hoped to have the initial preferred typesetter list ready to go now
but we haven't got enough names on it yet. We are visiting typesetters, or they are
visiting us, to be sure our operations are compatible and to be sure they are willing to
work with us to clear up any incompatibility issues that do crop up unexpectedly. Our
purpose here is twofold... 1- keep problems to a minimum and 2- avoid causing the
publisher any concern or headaches that could occur if the printer and the typesetter both
say "It's not my fault." We anticipate solving any hiccups without involving the
publisher.
We have no intention of keeping this list of typesetters exclusive. We'd like to
include everyone out there but first we want to assure ourselves that they can provide us
with compatible files and if problems occur, they are willing to work with us to solve
them. We will have the profiles of these firms ready in early April and will send it out
to our customers then. If you are not a customer, you will see it in May in the next
Printer's Ink, or you could get it earlier via fax or Internet if you ask us.
If you prepare your own files without involving a typesetter and send us either
application or PostScript files, you will still receive the discount provided your files
turn out to be trouble free. Your files will need to clear all areas of E.P. without
problems to be considered "clean".
To give you further assurance that books done from "clean" files will be
trouble free, our in-house quality checking includes making an underlay for every job,
putting the full plate size negative with all 16 pages on it on a light table then putting
the laser page proofs you supply down on the top of each page negative for direct
comparison, checking type density on each flat with a densitometer and visually checking
out the negative imposition with the computer generated imposition... all before a plate
is made.
3. $2.00 PER HALFTONE ON CUSTOMER PLACED O.P.I. JOBS. We have been doing
illustrated books via the O.P.I. process for 4 months
now. We have handled several thousand halftones via O.P.I. and have no reservations on the
notion that it is truly the highest quality and quickest way to produce illustrated books.
If you are unfamiliar with O.P.I., we covered it
at length in the last issue of P.I., and you can ask us
for a copy if you missed it then. Basically it is a system whereby the publisher sends us
their photos early, we make a high resolution and a low resolution scan of each picture,
and send the publisher the low res scans for them to crop and place in the text copy file.
They then send in the file with the low res scans in place and cropped, we swap the low
and the high resolution scans, and we're ready to output full format (16 pages up)
negatives with the halftones already in position.
Obviously the complete text has to be done electronically and not as camera ready copy,
for us to do this.
We are sold on the O.P.I. system enough so that
even if the publisher (or their typesetter) does not want the responsibility of placing
the halftone and getting the $2.00 each savings, we will use the O.P.I. process ourselves, creating both the low and high
res scans, do the positioning on our own computer, swap the scans, and create the full
format negatives that way. Stripping halftones electronically can be faster, and if you do
it, you can save money.
This system may sound complicated but in real life it is working out very easily and
very well. If you'd like to talk with some of our customers that are having us do it, let
us know and we'll give you some references.
4. SEE THE BACK OF THIS ISSUE OF P.I. FOR THE DETAILS ON COMMUNICATION.
AND...this initial $.30/ page discount is just our first shot at this. We are still
reviewing our costs and as our experience and skills increase, this discount has the
potential to increase significantly. So, the bandwagon is picking up steam. If you are
interested but not confident in how to proceed, give us a call. You could talk with your
Customer Service Rep or if you aren't already a T-S customer, ask for Laurie Briegel.
Laurie is our designated liaison between our CSR's and our Electronic Prepress Department
and one of her responsibilities is to counsel customers in how to best take advantage of
E.P. opportunities.
In summary, these advantages include a better price from T-S, potentially a
faster schedule, and better quality of reproduction because of using 1st generation
material to create the negative. And, since better quality film is being used (film used
for E.P. is twice the price of conventional Litho film) there are practically no pinholes
or specs that can occasionally get on the printed page when books are reproduced from
traditional camera copy. And one last plus is that if you work with a typesetter that is
familiar with T-S, we expect they should be assured that we can work easily with their
files and your book production should be seamless on your end. This, combined with not
needing a repro proof, could create additional savings from that source.
Well, that's it folks. All the news that's fit to print about electronic prepress and
why you should take advantage of it. However, if you're still not sure what it's all
about, give us a call and we'll be happy to talk with you about the new revolution in copy
preparation.
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Bookbuilders West, an Association of Publishers in the 13 Western states,
just announced the winning entries in their annual contest to find the best designed and
produced books published in their area in 1995. In the areas of scholarly and poetry
publications, where black and white books of relatively short runs reside, Thomson-Shore
produced more books than any other book manufacturer and as many as all the other Michigan
printers put together. The West is an area where we have no sales representation and a
comparatively "modest" presence so we were particularly pleased by this.
Another West coast publishing organization, Publisher's Marketing
Association, announced in their January newsletter the results of their "Printer's
Survey." They had asked publishers to rate the overall performance of printers they
worked with and T-S came in at the top of the book printers who got votes. With a score of
3 representing "excellent", 2 being "average", and a 1 being
"needs improvement" we got a score of 2.85. Half of the printers listed scored
1.81 or below.
* * * * *
White and natural paper prices prices have recently gone down. We are
currently paying 7% less for white paper than we were last summer and about 4% below
current natural paper prices. Last summer, people connected with the paper industry were
predicting that prices were going to continue their upward climb as far as the eye could
see, but at a somewhat slower rate than in the immediate past. This seems to be another
illustration of the inherent hazards in predicting.
* * * * *
Late in 1995, T-S discontinued using color key proofs for covers and
jackets. We switched to a proof known as a "water proof". This proofing system
is similar to color key in that there is a limited number of colors available to proof in
(although, the number of colors available in water proofs is about 50% greater than for
color keys) but there are quite a few advantages. The water proof shows the art that is
being reproduced on one substrate instead of a series of clear plastic overlays that color
keys use. The substrate that it shows the proof on, can be virtually any printable
material so we can actually use the same material that is to be used for the printed cover
or jacket. Unlike a colorkey, the waterproof is considered a contract proof for process
and the water proof, using pure water as its developer, is more environmentally friendly.
If you have a T-S quote that mentions a color key proof, you will now get a water proof.
We assume you will like it.
* * * * *
The Thomson-Shore Customer Satisfaction Survey is now underway. When a
job ships it will be followed up in a couple weeks with a questionnaire designed to find
out how we performed and also to learn of any suggestions you have for us. We're offering
"bribes" of a sweat shirt, an umbrella, etc. to induce you to send it back.
We'll also give the results to our people as well as putting them in Printer's Ink. No
customer will receive more than one survey in 6 months.
* * * * *
T-S has installed an 800 fax number. It is 800-706-4545. We are also
considering using a regular 800 phone number for incoming calls but we want to be sure we
are ready to handle the increase it will likely create in incoming phone calls. The phone
company says that number could double and we want to have systems in place that will allow
us to handle any phone call increase before we initiate the country-wide use of the 800
number.
* * * * *
In the last issue of P.I. we mentioned that Kenaf paper, made from a form
of Hibiscus instead of trees, was available but that it was not easy to get, was expensive
and seemed to have trouble with color consistency from sheet to sheet. One of our readers
disagreed with me and sent in a book they had had printed as an example of how it looked
when made into a book. After seeing the book I will add an additional concern and that is
that it also looks funny. Perhaps it will appeal to some people but I would suggest that
any publisher who is interested in using it should see samples of books printed on it
before specifying it. So far we have had no quote requests come in that specify that
paper.
* * * * *
Because of our contract pricing we formerly could buy Roxite cloth (made
by Holliston) less expensively than Arrestox cloth (made by I. C. G.). Because of this we
would specify Roxite on our quotations that were for A or B grade cloth casebound books.
Now, however, Arrestox pricing virtually matches Roxite's so we have no particular
preference. As far as the comparative costs of various cloths is concerned, A grade is
about $.02/copy below B, Kivar 5 is about $.07 less, Kivar 7 is $.10 less and Crown Linen
about $.05 less. These numbers will vary as quantities get over 4000 or so when the
non-wovens (Kivar and the like) start getting still less expensive.
* * * * *
For those customers who are preparing cover and jacket art on disk for
T-S, we now have guidelines for how to handle traps. You can get these guidelines on our
Web site or, if you ask, we'll fax or mail them to you.
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About 18 months ago we decided we would make the financial, manpower,
training and space commitment to become a leader... or THE leader... in Electronic
Prepress technology in the short run book printing field. As best I can tell, this has
been a pretty successful effort and a good investment for us. On the first page of this
Printer's Ink you can read about our latest efforts to attract more E.P. jobs into our
plant but in addition to making it less expensive to produce your book via electronic
files, we're also trying to make it easier to communicate with us via electronic methods.
To help you understand, this is an update of where T-S stands in the various electronic
communication areas.
E-Mail (via Internet):E-Mail goes over the Internet and is used
primarily for communication from your computer "site" to another one. You can
gain access to e-mail through a University connection, an on-line service such as Prodigy
or America-On-Line or through an outside provider. Once you have access you can send an
instantaneous message to other e-mail addresses inexpensively. Small files can also be
sent through e-mail as an enclosure. In addition to sending e-mail messages, you can
receive them on your computer as well...however, your computer must be turned on before it
will display a message. If it is turned off, the message will be held in memory until you
turn the computer on then it will tell you that you have mail.
To send an e-mail message you need the e-mail address of your recipient.
Thomson-Shore has 100 separate e-mail addresses. If you would like the list of addresses,
we can mail or fax that to you.
FTP Server: File Transfer Protocol is used strictly for sending
files (graphic images, corrected pages, fonts, etc.) to our electronic prepress area. To
send something to an FTP server you need Internet access and some additional software that
is actually available free via the Internet.
If you are interested in using FTP, ask us for our FTP
guidelines and we'll mail or fax them to you or you can access them by visiting our
Web site. One additional point here, sending files (of up to 5Mb) is both convenient and
free via FTP, if the file is for the copy of an entire book, we also will need the hard
copy (laser proofs) so it might be easier to send the whole thing together via surface
transport instead.
Web Page: The T-S Web site has been up and running for over 8 months now. We've
mentioned it frequently in Printer's Ink and we are currently getting an average of 650
"hits", or visits, each working day. According to a recent Bookbuilders West
Newsletter, there are 3 major Web sites for book printers. These are Thomson-Shore, R.R.
Donnelley and Banta. They visited all three sites and concluded that Thomson-Shore's was
"Currently the most complete and useful site of any book printer."
Our site includes an index,
a plant tour, a library, all of our EP guidelines,
pictures and bio's of all of our customer contact people, current edition of Printer's Ink (3 weeks before it is mailed), a quote request form that is immediately
reproduced at an estimator's desk, and "much, much more." Our Internet site
address is http://www.tshore.com.
T-S BBS:The T-S Bulletin Board Service is something new and it allows you to
communicate with T-S via a computer and a modem. The Internet is not involved. The BBS is
intended for sending small files containing things like page corrections, fonts, etc. It
utilizes phone lines so there is a cost to the sender. It does not transmit as fast as the
Internet so it would be slow and relatively expensive to send a large file to the BBS. We
have "Client Guidelines" that
we'll be happy to send you that cover the simple instructions for using our BBS.
Our BBS phone number is 734-426-6298, it is on 24 hours a day and it has a connect
speed of up to 19,200 bps. If you send us something on the BBS, you will need to call us
and tell us, giving us the file name, otherwise, we'd never find the file.
Well, there you have it. All the latest in up-to-the-minute communication
tools...in addition to the usual fax, telephone and personal visits...all written up by a
guy who has yet to send a fax or an e-mail message. If you feel intimidated by all this
stuff... you ain't alone.
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In an effort to increase the percentage of phone calls answered directly
by customer service people (as opposed to the number of calls that go to voice mail), we
are now utilizing an automatic call forwarding procedure. We have 5 Customer Service Reps
(Diane, Lana, Linda, Mike and Thom) and each of them has a Customer Service Assistant. The
teams are Diane and Renee, Lana and Rebecca, Linda and Becki, Mike and Tammy, and Thom and
Lee. Here's how the new answering procedure will work.
In the past, when a CSR was away from their desk or on the phone, an
incoming call went into their voice mail after a couple of rings. Now, however, with the
help of modern technology, if your call goes to a CSR's voice mail it gives you the chance
to switch to their assistant rather than leave the CSR a voice mail message. If the
assistant also happens to be unavailable then you can have the option to leave a message
with either person.
The CSR's and their assistants share the same office with desks
practically touching one another. They both have their own computer, similar training and
skills and immediate access to the files for all of their customer's current jobs.
We've actually been doing this for 3 months on a trial basis with Linda
and Becki and it has worked very well. By the time you read this all 5 teams will be
working this way.
One last note, by March 1, Linda will have a new assistant. Becki is due
to have a baby in late February and she doesn't plan to return to work for a while. When
she does return it will be part time and in another area of the Customer Service
Department.
We expect this change will give us the chance to get most all of your
calls to T-S answered personally.
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We have mentioned in the last few Printer's Inks that we are developing
seminars to help you become more comfortable and familiar with how electronic prepress can
help you. Our first seminar is scheduled for late March and will be held in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. Eventually we will be conducting these seminars in other areas of the country.
If you are interested in attending this, or future seminars, give Laurie Briegel or Jim
Holefka a call and they can tell you more about it.
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Thomson-Shore will be attending these shows in the next 3 months...
International Small Press Publishing Institute
February 29 - March 2
San Diego, CA
Wyndham Emerald Plaza Hotel
Jim Holefka will have T-S samples and information on exhibit.
Michigan Press Photographers Association
March 9-10, 1996
Lansing, MI
Holiday Inn South. T-S will have an exhibit. Kay Stevens, Christine Blanke, and Donna
Fulner will be attending.
Book Publishers of Texas Convention
March 22-24, 1996
Austin, TX
Omni Austin Hotel. We will have an exhibit and Jim Holefka will be in attendence.
Southern University Press Meeting
March 22-24, 1996
Charlottesville, VA
Omni Charlottesville Hotel.
Larry Meilleur will be a panel member discussing electronic prepress during the "Does
Anybody Know What's on the Disk?" session. Ned Thomson, Chris Shore, Linda Skrzypek,
and Laurie Briegel will also be attending this meeting.
AAUP Production Managers Meeting
April 25-27, 1996
Chapel Hill, NC
Carolina Inn.
Ned Thomson, Sue Campbell, Laurie Briegel, Diane Nourse, and Jim Holefka will host an
electronic prepress seminar, the afternoon of April 26. The seminar is designed to give
registrants an overview of how to take advantage of electronic prepress.
Pub Tech '96
May 9-10, 1996
Chicago, IL
Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.
Jim Holefka will have T-S samples and information on exhibit.
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In early March our primary halftone scanner will go through a major
upgrade that will offer significant improvements in both the optics and the software that
digitizes the photo. It should enable us to digitally handle rescreens so we can include
rescreening of already printed pictures in the O.P.I.
process. It will scan and create better quality reproductions from color prints and will
allow us to do more than one scan at once. In the O.P.I. format we can bypass the power
station and go directly from the scanner to the server bypassing the production step that
was formerly done by the power station.
The new software was created and designed to work in a digital environment, whereas the
former software was designed for a conventional shoot & strip environment. We believe
this is now absolute state-of-the-art halftone scanning.
This new system can reproduce the halftone in a negative form or in a digitized file
format and the reproduction quality for either should be identical.
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Utilities For Checking PostScript Files
Macintosh Users: A utility called Download Mechanic (made by
Acquired Knowledge) can be very useful for checking/preflighting your files before you
send them to your printer. It will list for you the fonts used in your document (and
whether or not they are saved in the PostScript code), graphic file formats, how many
pages are really in the file, the size of the bounding box, among other useful things.
Acquired Knowledge tells us they are shooting for first quarter of '96 to have a DOS
version of this program.
FlightCheck (by Markzware) is a utility that will collect all the
components of your job, and make a report of any missing items or problems with your
files. We're not aware of this utility on the DOS side, but it is available for Mac
platform.
Both Macintosh and DOS/Windows Users: Adobe Acrobat Reader and
Adobe Acrobat Distiller have a feature that allows you to display your PostScript file on
your screen.
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Printer's Ink is a quarterly newsletter written by Ned Thomson, president of
Thomson-Shore, Inc. A hardcopy version is sent out to approximately 20,000 addresses,
world-wide. If you are interested in being added to our mailing list please contact us one
of the following ways:
- Phone: 734-426-3939
- Postcard: send us a postcard with your return address to:
Thomson-Shore, Inc
7300 W. Joy Road
Dexter, MI 48130
- Email: send email to
donnaf@tshore.com. Include the message -I want
Printer's Ink- and your return postal address.
- NEW If you want to be notified by email when the next electronic version of
Printer's Ink is available on the Web, email richs@tshore.com.
Mention in the email that you want to be on the Electonic Notification of Printer's Ink
Mailing List. We will not send you Printer's Ink via email, we will just send you a
notification that the new issue is available on the Web.
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