manroland AG - ppi Media and KnowledgeView form close partnership on the Arabian market

Software vendors ppi Media GmbH (a subsidiary of manroland AG) and KnowledgeView Ltd., a leading publishing solutions provider in Europe and the MENA region, have strengthened their cooperation to introduce a publishing workflow with maximum automation to the Arabian market.

The Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC), publisher of the daily newspapers The National and Al Ittihad, signed contracts with the two companies. Both dailies lately optimized their publishing and editorial workflows with solutions from ppi and KnowledgeView. The result is a combined workflow that allows highly integrated processes, customized products for the Arabian market and optimized interfaces. “Since the partners know each other’s products very well, integration was smooth and only took a few days until we produced the first pages. It couldn’t have gone better,” said Raed Alkhatib, production manager at Al Ittihad. For page layout in Adobe InDesign, ppi’s and KnowledgeView’s products merge to form a unit. The RAPID Browser plug-in is directly integrated in InDesign, whereas PlanPag is linked by ppi’s InDesign plug-in InLink. InLink creates and manages production documents for editors and layout designers, so that editing is always based on the latest planning data. This allows tight integration between Ad planning, editorial planning and workflow at the press floor with significant improvements in efficiency through tracking of production progress across the whole cycle. To achieve maximum automation in the publishing and editorial department, ADMC has ordered ppi’s PlanPag and PressEditor for newspaper production, AdMan and AdPag for the advertising department, as well as ProPag and printnet OM for the prepress workflow. At Al Ittihad, RAPID Browser is complemented by PageView and RAPID Archive from KnowledgeView, as part of the Publish live product suite for news management, editorial workflow and multi-publishing.

About KnowledgeView
KnowledgeView Ltd is a UK-based company with headquarters in London and offices in the Middle East. The company was founded in 1995 to develop cross-media publishing, news management and editorial sharing systems. Users of KnowledgeView’s Publish live solutions included the Independent News and Media, Guardian Media Group, News Corporation and the Washington Post. In the Middle East, KnowledgeView is a leading newspaper integrator, with over 40 media companies, providing consultancy as well as technology.

manroland AG is the world’s second largest printing systems manufacturer and the world’s market leader in web offset. The group with its production facilities in Offenbach, Augsburg and Plauen employs almost 8,700 people and has annual sales of some Euro 1,7 billion with an export share of 80 percent.

Webfed and sheetfed offset presses provide tailor-made solutions for publishing, commercial, and packaging printing – from brochures to newspapers with circulations running into the millions. A worldwide network of about 100 sales and service centers markets manroland’s products as well as process compliant system components and pressroom products.

Web offset presses for newspapers and high-quality commercial printing of brochures, catalogs, magazines, supplements and books are manufactured in the Augsburg facility (founded 1845). They are designed to meet the continually increasing demands on print quality and performance coming from printing and publishing companies all over the world. manroland’s Plauen facility (founded 1896) is renowned for newspaper presses and paper supply systems. The sheetfed press product range built in Offenbach and Mainhausen (founded 1871) comprises system families in small, medium, large and extra-large formats for commercial printing, posters, books and packaging. Some models are available with the revolutionary direct drive system. manroland offers added value with PRINTVALUE.

manroland offers also designing, planning, building, equipping and commissioning sheetfed and web offset printing plants – from prepress through printing right up to finishing. manroland is a provider of customized 24/7 service and (remote) maintenance packages plus integrated services and training measures (printservices). The portfolio includes a certified range of pressroom products (printcom), software products, and workflow management systems (printnet). The group provides consultancy services covering all aspects of investment and building planning, organization, management, systems engineering and process optimization (printadvice).