Magazine pagination in the blink of an eye

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The brains behind the program are Joerg Diekmann, a ninja software designer with over 12 years' experience in building web applications and Kerry Rogers, a former managing editor (and flatplan-maker) of one of SA's top-selling magazines, with eight years' editorial and production experience in consumer and custom magazines.

Says Rogers, “As far as we can tell, there is nothing else like it on the market - most other options either expensive or not tailored to magazines. Blinkplan is a 100% South African product. A year and a half of tech expertise has gone into it, and it has been extensively tested on a major SA consumer title.”

Little puzzle with eight squares

A magazine flatplan is like one of those little puzzles with eight squares that, when arranged correctly in their plastic frame, form a picture. It takes a lot of shuffling to get one right. And like the puzzle, a flatplan usually involves a lot of re-doing, time-wasting and hair-pulling. Normally there are three ways of generating a flatplan: spreadsheets, design packages and all-inclusive systems.

Once you think you have the correct number of pages, you need to count the ads to make sure you haven't missed one, and you can count on someone interrupting you just as you reach the end, causing you to have to start again.

And just when you've established that you have the correct number of ads, editorial pages, advertorials, etc, chances are you'll realise that the DPS on page 100 would be better off on page 10. Then begins the process of manually shifting 45 DPSs along one slot in order to relocate the spread.

In the meantime, an impatient team is asking you, 'What's taking so long? It's just a bunch of blocks!'

Blinkplan is a secure online package that is supposed to be cost effective and simple, and, among other things, it:

• reflows affected spreads automatically when a spread is relocated
  
• automatically displays a running subtotal of how many ads, editorial pages, advertorials (up to 30 self-defined categories) there are
  
• automatically calculates stitch-in locations
  
• has a safe backup system, works on pretty much any machine with a modern web browser, and generates PDFs for easy viewing and printing
  
• makes sure that the number of content pages corresponds with the defined print sections

For more info, go to www.blinkplan.com.