A UK-headquartered systems developer has introduced software which automatically lays out editorial pages.
Miles 33 has added the tools - which paginate pages in seconds - to a new version of its GN4 editorial CMS.
Pages are populated into templates using tagged story files and linked pictures, with less than a minute claimed for the production of 30 pages.
Launched this month, the concept begs a number of questions, and a media statement says completed pages "can be scrutinised by newsroom staff prior to releasing". Meaning a good stone sub may be called for to address decisions about headline shape, and which stories to cut and which to omit.
But for publishers with a large number of pages to process, it could be a huge timesaver. Operations and content management director Peter Meek says editorial staff are often faced with increased pressures with the need to prepare content for multiple channels: "If some of the time spent doing standard pages can be automated, valuable time can be made available to grow a digital, multi-channel presence," he says.
This has been the main thrust behind development of the auto publishing features in GN4. Rules - which are fine-tuned by editorial staff - direct the auto pagination process. It requires pre-built templates and shapes, page category labels, and the tagging of individual articles. A variety of rules are also defined to guide the auto-fitting procedure.
Meek says the individual articles must exist and have elements - such as images, captions, bylines, headlines and body text - associated. Articles need to have been assigned to the edition or placed in a specific folder, and layouts from an ad planning system imported. Then, category-by-category, the system analyses available space on each page, identifying articles assigned to that category/edition and flagged for use.
The "iterative" process of fitting content using pre-defined layouts and shapes depends on the layouts and shapes that exist in the library. "The more there are, the better the end result will be," says Meek.
"The auto process is blisteringly fast and can paginate as many as 30 pages in less than a minute," he says.
"The future of content publishing lies in mobile and online and many newsrooms want to put more emphasis on that side of their business, but get bogged down by print pagination. If we can free up, even a little of their time by automating some part of that task, then the newsroom will benefit greatly".
In addition to the Version 2.2 GN4 release, is supported by a responsive HTML5 client which has been updated to support and control auto-publishing.
Pictured: Pages from the GN4 upgrade await "scrutiny"