[Hidden-tech] Editorial Production - Seeking suggestions for a better process

[eddygold at aol.com]

Hi H-T ers,


I'm an editor for a couple of trade magazines. I'm looking for a better way to make corrections during editorial production. We have a small company (about 20 people), with 2 editors and one art director/designer. Here's how we do it:


1) I post final editorial pages in MS Word files on an ftp site.


2) Our art director "grabs" the files, does his magic (design, layout, etc.), and posts them in PDF form.


3) The other editor and I download the PDFs, print them out (and/or read them on-screen), proofread them, tweak the headlines, cut articles to fit, etc.


So far, so good. Here's where I'd like a better system.


4) The other editor sends me his corrections in a Word doc. I combine them with mine and type up all of them in a new Word doc, specifying page number, column, graf, and line, followed by the actual correction. Example: Page 7, col 2, graf 3, line 7 -- essential  --> essentials



5) I send the Word doc with all the corrections back to our art director, who makes the corrections, then posts a new PDF for the editors to check.


6) Rinse and repeat until all the corrections are made and approved, then send the files to the printer.


I'd like to be able to make the text corrections myself -- save typing up the corrections, save our art director from making them, and have more control over the final stages of the editing/proofing process.


I've been asking around and people have suggested the following:


1) Using Stickies in Adobe Reader (not jazzed by this one)


2) InDesign/InCopy -- which can be pricey to supply for a relatively small company.



Here are some additional facts & factors:


Location: We're all in different places: Editors in Amherst & Fort Worth, art director in San Francisco.


Technology: Our art director has pretty much everything, but the editors only have Adobe Reader. We use Macs.



What's strange to me, as I puzzle through all this, is that 20 years ago, using PageMaker, I was able to make changes to text to cut lines, add lines, fix mistakes, etc. But we were in the same office, so I'd just walk over to our art director's terminal and do that.


In the age of the cloud, hosted apps, SaaS, remote everything, there must be a better solution I haven't come across.


Suggestions? This system works fine, but... Is there a better way? 


And any thoughts on the ROI in terms of cost for new software vs. time saved (and minor quality improvements)?


Thanks for any ideas, pointers, etc.


Eddy Goldberg


eddygold at aol.com





 
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