MEI to debut Innovative Ads solution, new IPS WebTrac at NEXPO 2007

Jenkintown, PA (March 13, 2007) – Managing Editor Inc. (MEI), an Adobe Systems port­fo­lio com­pa­ny and a lead­ing provider of soft­ware and ser­vices to the pub­lish­ing indus­try, will debut the newest ver­sion of its flag­ship Page Director® Ad Layout System, now with industry-first sup­port for Innovative Adsâ„¢, at NEXPO 2007. MEI will also fea­ture the lat­est ver­sion of its Integrated Production Suite, which now offers a Web-based ad-tracking client for inter­ac­tion with the IPS data­base from a browser.

The Innovative Ads plug-in rev­o­lu­tion­izes the con­cept of auto­mat­ed ad lay­out by intro­duc­ing sup­port for polyg­o­nal, multi-layer ads – pow­er­ful, eye-catching ads that more and more adver­tis­ers are demand­ing. Previously, non-rectangular ads required cost­ly man­u­al inter­ven­tion and guess-work. ALS 5.2 with the Innovative Ads plug-in now quick­ly and eas­i­ly incor­po­rates these unique ads into the run­sheet and auto­mat­ed workflow.

The sys­tem offers a Plug-In for Adobe® InDesign® or an XTension for QuarkXPress®, from which “sten­cils” are export­ed to ALS and saved as indi­vid­ual Ad Types. Then, when ALS with Innovative Ads cre­ates its run­sheet from an order-entry sys­tem, the new polyg­o­nal, multi-layered ads are list­ed right along­side reg­u­lar rec­tan­gu­lar, single-layer ads, ready to be placed accord­ing to ALS rules and attributes. 

The result is improved effi­cien­cy and speed, no more guess­ing of space require­ments for sur­round­ing ads and edi­to­r­i­al, and com­plete elec­tron­ic automa­tion of the entire ad lay­out process with­out lim­i­ta­tions on shape or concept.

MEI will also debut a new Web client for IPS, its col­lab­o­ra­tive pack­age of prod­ucts that inte­grates dis­play and clas­si­fied ad plan­ning with edi­to­r­i­al across the entire pub­lish­ing enter­prise. IPS 4 now fea­tures WebTrac, a browser-based solu­tion with all the func­tion­al­i­ty of IPS AdTrac, the ad-tracking client that helps pub­li­ca­tions man­age ad pro­duc­tion from start to finish.

WebTrac users get a com­plete overview of sta­tus and cost details, includ­ing up-to-the-minute infor­ma­tion for each job and time-tracking for each pro­duc­tion step. With an upgrad­ed, stream­lined Web inter­face, IPS WebTrac makes the IPS data­base more acces­si­ble, from vir­tu­al­ly any Mac or PC.

WebTrac also offers a new option­al Web-based Ad Designer, which pro­vides non-designers with a tool for build­ing or updat­ing ads from a brows­er. Its template-based func­tion­al­i­ty allows users to enter text and asso­ciate graph­ics with­in pre­de­fined regions of a tem­plate to cre­ate a com­pelling ad, quick­ly and cost-effectively.

At NEXPO, MEI will also show­case SoftCare K4 Publishing System 5.7 and the new option­al K4 Web Editor 2.0. K4 is the high-performance pub­lish­ing sys­tem that inte­grates Adobe InDesign and Adobe InCopy® to man­age design and edi­to­r­i­al work­flow and to con­trol the entire pro­duc­tion process. The K4 Web Editor mod­ule lets users write, edit and copy­fit arti­cles in K4 from any com­put­er with only a Web brows­er and an Internet con­nec­tion. Accurate rep­re­sen­ta­tions of K4 arti­cles, com­plete with styling, font map­ping and lay­out geom­e­try, are gen­er­at­ed for the remote user by an Adobe InDesign Server and made avail­able via a password-protected brows­er interface. 

ALSO SHOWING AT NEXPO:
– Wave2 self-service adver­tis­ing, for news­pa­pers inter­est­ed in pro­vid­ing a do-it-yourself ad-building plat­form for advertisers
– ALS Direct, which allows ALS and K4 cus­tomers to inte­grate adver­tis­ing and edi­to­r­i­al work­flows into one shared system
– Page Director CLS
– ClassForce, AdForce 

NEXPO will be held April 21–24 at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL; MEI rep­re­sen­ta­tives will be avail­able for demos and dis­cus­sions in Booth 1221. To sched­ule a demon­stra­tion, con­tact Steven Haught at info@​maned.​com, or vis­it MEI on the Web at http://​www​.maned​.com.

About MEI
Managing Editor Inc. is an indus­try leader in the devel­op­ment of qual­i­ty, proven soft­ware solu­tions for the evolv­ing pub­lish­ing indus­try. The Page Director Series of Advertising and Classified Layout Systems, K4 Publishing System, Integrated Production Suite (IPS), Wave2 and IPS AdTrac deliv­er auto­mat­ed pag­i­na­tion and work­flow solu­tions to news­pa­per and mag­a­zine pub­lish­ers, as well as to oth­er print and elec­tron­ic pub­lish­ing mar­kets. MEI has twice been named a lau­re­ate of the Computerworld Smithsonian Collections. Additional infor­ma­tion regard­ing MEI’s prod­ucts and ser­vices can be found on the company’s Web site at http://​www​.maned​.com.