NCI Latest News

...now browsing by category

The most recent news from NCI.

 

Hi Res Conversion Letter

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

Dear Market Representative,

The beta testing for the new High Resolution (Hi-Res) workflow has been successfully completed with 15 magazines participating.  We now have 175 magazines scheduled to convert to this workflow during the months of October, November and December. 

If you’ll recall, we sent a communication out in August explaining the need to convert to this new workflow.  Basically, the manufacturer, of Synapse Prepare (Kodak), decided not to upgrade Synapse Prepare to support Quark 7.0 or Indesign.  This untimely decision, forced NCI to respond by shifting the current low resolution/high resolution “swap” workflow to a high resolution only workflow, allowing the use of Quark 7 and Indesign. 

As you prepare to convert to the Hi-Res workflow, it is important to note the current Synapse Prepare “auto-correct” fixes certain file settings during PDF generation. The new process for generating PDFs  for Quark 7 & InDesign will not “auto correct” these file settings.  Prior to conversion to the Hi-Res workflow, we highly recommend that you review the logs generated by Synapse Prepare for your files and then evaluate any warnings or error messages within these logs.  This step will prevent inconsistent output when you switch to the Hi-Res PDF Workflow.  Below is the procedure that will show how to access the log files in Synapse Prepare to determine the adjustments that need to be considered prior to conversion.

Weekly web conference sessions have been scheduled and will begin the week of 10/20. Due to the detailed information covered in these sessions, we are limiting each web conference to 20 participants per session.

 

Sessions will be held on the following days:

Mondays          10am – 11am               Quark Hi-Res Workflow

Fridays             1pm -  2pm                  Quark Hi-Res Workflow

Fridays             2pm – 3pm                   InDesign Hi-Res Workflow

 

Please contact your account manager to schedule training for the Monday or Friday sessions, or if you have any questions in general about the Hi Res workflow.  We appreciate your continued partnership.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • TwitThis
  • Live
  • LinkedIn
  • Pownce
  • MySpace

Very Important – Please Read

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

To All Independent Distributors & Market Reps

We were not able to complete the install of the upgrade to our email server last weekend as planned and have rescheduled for this weekend. The upgrade to our email server requires 4 to 10 hours of downtime to complete.  The downtime window is scheduled from 8:00 PM Sunday 10/5/08 to 6:00 AM Monday, 10/6/08. 

We wanted to let you know in case you should need to send an e-mail to an NCI employee during these hours.

Thank you for your patience.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • TwitThis
  • Live
  • LinkedIn
  • Pownce
  • MySpace

NCI Email outage this weekend

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

 

Very Important – Please Read

To All Independent Distributors & Market Reps

 

We will be installing an upgrade to our email server that requires 4 to 10 hours of downtime to complete.  The downtime window is scheduled from 8:00 PM Saturday 9/27/08 to 6:00 AM Sunday, 9/28/08. 

We wanted to let you know in case you should need to send an e-mail to an NCI employee during these hours.

Thank you for your patience during this time period.

 

Susan Alvarado

IT Director Client Support

Network Communications, Inc

770.962.7220×24588

salvarado@nci.com

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • TwitThis
  • Live
  • LinkedIn
  • Pownce
  • MySpace

Hi-Resolution and Quark 7 Submission Update

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

Dear Independent Distributor:

 As a follow up to our letter dated July 1, 2008, I wanted to provide you with a current status on NCI’s plans to upgrade to Quark 7, replace Synapse Prepare and transition to the High Resolution Workflow Submission. 

We have identified and will begin converting our first pilot publications to Quark 7 and the high resolution workflow in mid August. As discussed in our previous letter, with the industry shift to high resolution files, we, too, must adopt the acceptance of these files in our environment using one of the two options below: 

Option 1

 

         Stay on Quark Xpress 6.5 until April 1, 2009

 

         Tiger Operating System

 

         Cannot use Leopard OS

 

         Can still use Synapse Prepare

 

         Less functionality (cannot use drop shadows or transparencies, which are new Quark design features)

 

         Least cost/easiest transition

 

         Can provide hi-res proofs to your advertisers

 

         NCI will phase out option 1 on April 1, 2009

 

Risks

 

         PDF file size will be larger than Option 2

 

 

Option 2

 

         Choice of Quark Xpress 7 or InDesign CS3

 

         Can use Leopard OS

 

         Can use Quark or InDesign CS3 to create PDFs

 

         Can use drop shadows and transparencies (new Quark design features)

 

         Can provide hi-res proofs to your advertisers

 

Risks

 

         Cost of Quark Xpress 7 and Adobe Acrobat 7 or 8

         Minor training (learning curve for Graphic Artist)

 

         Workflow on Creating PDF/Installation Settings

 

         NCI will not provide technical support InDesign

 

 

Our technical support team will be contacting you in the coming weeks to identify and schedule the option of your choice. 


******************************************************************************

On a related subject we have secured discounted pricing with Quark Xpress for upgrading:

 

Quark Version

List Price

NCI Discount

Your Cost

 

Quark 7 Xpress Upgrade Version

 

 

$299

 

 

$100

 

$199

 

Quark Xpress 7 Full Version

 

 

$799

 

$200

 

$599

 

Once your book has been scheduled for conversion, Technical Support will provide you with a key code to contact Quark at 800-998-1716 or ServicePlus@quark.com to place your order. You will need to provide Quark with your book number and key code to order your software. For this discount to apply, your purchases must be made by 12/31/08. Quark 8 will also be released in August, but will not be supported as a submission method to NCI until further testing and development has been completed.

 If you have any questions about this letter, please contact your Account Manager.

 Sincerely,

Colleen Scanlon

Vice President, Customer Support

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • TwitThis
  • Live
  • LinkedIn
  • Pownce
  • MySpace