Correcting announcements in the preprinting stages costs a lot of time and money – Konradin Druck already verifies PDF files with the delivery of CLI Tools from callas software.

With several specialist and magazine publishing houses, media consulting and convention event enterprises, as well as two printing houses, the Konradin Media Group is one of the few independent and owner-led media enterprises in Europe. At present, these four magazine and journal publishing houses account for 38 different titles on the German market. Their spectrum covers technical journals for industry, magazines for the areas of construction and crafts, journals for the working sphere or opthalmics, as well as titles in the domain of Information Technology. Thus, there is much to do for the two large printing houses of the group: Konradin Druck in Leinfelden-Echterdingen in Stuttgart and Heckel in Nuremberg.

“We are specialists in printing of the four color magazine and journals in the DIN A4 format,” explains Andreas Mohl, Supervisor of Preprinting at Konradin Druck. At the two locations, 380 colleagues produce, in sheet fed printing and offset printing, not only the titles of their own publishing houses, but also entire magazines for other publishing houses or advertising supplements for advertising campaigns of the large electronics markets. Each day, approximately 125 million printing pages are provided for customers. Due to the large quantity of expendable material – each year, approximately 77,000 tons of paper is used – and due to the high operating volume, one sees how much Konradin has saved on time and costs by automation. For three years, they have enabled a publishing house system to produce entire journals, as well as an integrated management system containing the entire technical development of the delivered advertisements.

“Each year, approximately 60,000 advertisements run through our system. Since it is important that not only the allocation of the advertisements is ensured on the many different titles at any time, but also that they are also absolutely suited for printing from the outset,” Rüdiger Brändle, Assistant Supervisor of Preprinting at Konradin Druck. In order to optimize the project and process costs for the clients and for the Konradin Media Group itself, the enterprise has already operated as a web portal for the acceptance of advertisements for three years. The chief attraction: advertisements, which are not suitable for printing, cannot be transferred at all and, thus, cannot reach the internal media database.

The system is very easy: The advertising client selects the web portal, sends their PDF and first puts it to the acid test. If the file is suited for printing, then they receive the result in an online verification report immediately displayed. Afterwards, they can send it to the central media server. The client can immediately work on files, which exhibit insignificant errors, independently online. In the background of the portal, the callas software command line modules pdfInspektor3 CLI work to verify the files and pdfColorConvert to convert the color space. The callas software product pdfCorrect CLI for deleting typical defects, for instance for faulty overprinting adjustments, as well as for general printing optimization, is likewise employed. Thereafter, completely corrected and optimized files are reexamined by pdfInspektor3 CLI and can finally be transferred by the client. All examined display files were first centrally stored in the media database before they were placed on their magazine pages by the editorship. The finished pages are then passed on to the closed Kodak Creo Printing System and exposed on printing plates.

The early adoption of callas software’s tools with the display acceptance has already saved advertising customers and the Konradin Media Group much time and unnecessary costs. Formerly, hardly 40 colleagues of the preprinting had to open the incorrect advertisements, often by hand, identify the errors, correct the file by themselves if possible or ask the client for a new advertisement. With the large display volume, the economy effect becomes substantially apparent: Up to 10 minutes per advertisement are saved. Yearly, ten thousand hours of precious work time are again at the disposal of the colleagues at Konradin Druck for productive tasks.

“I find the possibility of being able to import already existing verification settings from Adobe Acrobat simply ingenious. I define all settings by myself, save them as a profile and put them in the verification file of pdfInspektor3 CLI. This approach facilitates my work enormously.”
Rüdiger Brändle, Assistant Department Supervisor of Preprinting, Konradin Druck

“We got the idea for our portal from the Drupa 2004 exhibition, when we saw the pdfcity.com presentation by callas software and system integrator Diron,” Andreas Mohl said. “We thought at that time that that was what we wanted to also offer our clients.” In Autumn 2004, within only two weeks, the web portal, equipped with pdfInspektor3 CLI, was finally up and running.

“The problem was not the actual website development or the integration of the CLI modules but the final definition of our test conditions for the client upload. Finally, we do not want to frighten any customers but instead simplify the working process,” explains Rüdiger Brändle.

After approximately one year, in fall 2005, the command line modules pdfColorConvert CLI and pdfCorrect CLI were finally integrated into the range of products as the last stage of development. Meanwhile, Konradin Druck’s Internet portal is so successful that it is also used as a display entry point by external publishing houses. In this connection, the fast and reliable command line tools pdfInspektor3 CLI, pdfColorConvert and pdfCorrect CLI from callas software, likewise lie hidden beneath the web interfaces adapted to each case.

”We have continuously used pdfInspektor3 CLI for two years, and it is absolutely reliable. Likewise, when pdfColorConvert and pdfCorrect came on the market as CLI modules, it meant for us to immediately integrate them into our portal.”
Andreas Mohl, Supervisor of Preprinting, Konradin Druck