Tera Digital Publishing S.r.l

Press

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

IHT Goes Live with Tera TARK Digital Archive

Milan, Italy - The International Herald Tribune, perhaps the world's most widely read English-language international newspaper - on sale in 180 countries - has gone live with Tera's Tark archiving software.

Because of Tark archive's seamless integration with GN3, all the content published in an IHT edition - stories, pictures and complete pages - can now be archived in a single step without requiring manual intervention.

Most importantly, all the relationships between the various page elements, which are established when placing them in the same page or in the same section are preserved in the library, so that it is possible to search for a story and then jump to the page where it was published and from there, for example, to list all the pictures used on that particular page.

After an edition has been published and flagged for archiving, an automatic procedure running in the editorial system starts exporting all the elements linked to this edition from the editorial database. All Tark content is exported in XML, a key point given the NYT's emphasis on a Web presence, color pictures are retrieved and converted into JPEG format, while grayscale and line art are converted into GIF. At the same time, a PDF of each page is generated.

The IHT is a longstanding Tera customer and was the first to go live with GN3 in 2000 as the beta test site for that release of the publishing system.

In the years since GN3 was installed, IHT, with a circulation of around 235,000 copies per day, has been able to increase the number of print sites at which it is published from 18 to 33 around the world. Thousands of fully paginated IHT pages have been successfully produced using GN3 and sent out to the print plants.

Because Tark is a complete digital asset management system, IHT will have great freedom on how it is used in the future of the newspaper and in the links between its archive and the NYT.

Although the IHT has only five reporters based in Paris, it has over 40 editors; and because of its close ties with the New York newsroom, IHT already has access to all NYT reporters' unedited copy as soon as it is available, so it can be published in a fast-paced operation in the IHT the same day.

IHT's technical team was extremely impressed with Tera's outstanding support for GN3 during the initial editorial system installation, including Tera's ability to produce system enhancements in a matter of weeks rather than months. For example, Tera was able to design a picture desk that was built into the GN3 interface. The picture desk allows IHT editors to search wire photos, browse IPTC header information, and to put crop marks on pictures for later editing.

Importantly, Tark as configured at the IHT includes the advanced exalead one:enterprise v4.6 search engine.

The exalead search engine integrates research functions in one piece of software, combining internet, desktop and enterprise functionality, which Tera sees as giving its fast-paced newspaper customers like IHT a 'one-stop' interface for finding information quickly and easily.

Tark's unique exalead interface provides thumbnail previews of target pages along with the results, and allows advanced refining on the results page (language, geographic location, file type, categories) and also gives access to data such as rich content (audio, video, RSS), and related terms.

Tark with exalead, according to the well-regarded independent Butler Report when reviewing exalead, "enables users to search in the same way that they think.

"Each search query results in a table of contents being generated by recording the information's structure. Users are then able to refine their search by clicking on hyperlinked categories and related topics, or by location, author, or format. A perpetual problem encountered in searches is that the words used in the original query are often not contained within the document that is being searched for. This problem is overcome in exalead one search by providing the user with related terms and categories to allow the search to be broadened, refined, or even re-focused."

Tark can be installed as a standalone Digital Archive.

About the International Herald Tribune:
The International Herald Tribune creates, collects and distributes world news, information, entertainment and opinion of the highest journalistic integrity. Its balanced perspective addresses all areas of human interest and is trusted and enjoyed by people in all corners of the globe.
Established in Paris in 1887, today the IHT is owned by The New York Times Company and continues to expand the reach of its authoritative journalism through the newspaper, which is sold in 180 countries and via computers and mobile devices at IHT.com.

About Tera Digital Publishing:
Tera DP is a worldwide manufacturer of editorial, web, content management, pre-press and archiving solutions for newspaper and magazine publishing. With more than 300 installations worldwide, Tera is a recognized world leader in newspaper publishing technology.
Dominant in many world markets, Tera is best known for the quality of our engineering, the ease-of-use of our products and their very low cost of ownership.
Tera’s product line includes multi-media editorial, archiving, advertising and prepress solutions. All Tera products deliver the highest performance, maximum reliability and low operating costs. Tera solutions are installed quickly, and easily, with the smallest impact on the organization.
Tera is the dominant vendor in the UK, Brazil, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia and Croatia. In the US, Tera systems are used to publish over 100 titles. Tera is the dominant vendor for American Spanish-language newspapers.
Tark, Fred, GN3, GNPortal, GNWeb and the Tera-ribbon logo are trademarks of Tera Digital Publishing.

Tera Digital Publishing