SoftCare GmbH has announced the release of their K4 Publishing System 3.2. It’s billed as a collaborative publishing system for magazines, and it integrates Adobe InDesign and InCopy together with an open SQL database. The system has already been put in place at European magazine publishers with 15 to 250 users.
The new version now sports customizable header fields for articles and layouts designed to fit company-specific workflows. Header data can be edited without checking out a file. A layout view in InCopy also enables editors-in-chief to use a single mouse-click to view the complete layout and text.
There’s new text-before-layout functionality; articles can be managed in the database prior to being layed out. Articles can be detached from and reassigned to layouts while preserving their geometry, according to SoftCare. K4’s palettes get a new look and feel, too.
SoftCare managing director Andreas Schrader said that a lot of effort has been put into making K4 more user-friendly. “Palette columns can be rearranged, sorted and hidden according to personal preferences, and all frequently used K4 functions are directly available through buttons in the palettes. Users at our beta sites were absolutely thrilled,” said Schrader.
K4 Publishing System 3.2 will be on-hand at Managing Editor Inc.’s booth at this week’s Seybold Seminars — look for it at booth 536. The system will also be on-hand at the Adobe Solutions Network Pavilion at booth 401. Seybold Seminars runs through Friday the 22nd at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City.