Georgia Press Association Technology

NEWS

Public notice site to get full participation
By Sean Ireland
Publications Editor

Georgia citizens now have the widest possible access to public notices from across the state that they've ever had, thanks to the newspaper industry.

The Georgia Press Association has public notices from 153 of the state's 159 counties now available online at www.GeorgiaPublicNotice.com. Notices from the remaining six counties should be online by the end of the month.

This is in addition to the access available through the pages of local newspapers, and it's being offered at no extra cost to the governments required to publish the notices or the people interested in reading them online.

The progress toward 100 percent compliance comes as third-party companies begin to lobby state legislatures to turn public notice publishing over to them. The companies would only be able to provide electronic access to the notices.

Notices from about 91 percent of Georgia's counties were available in March. GPA Technology Manager Mike Freyberger has been working with individual newspapers to find the best way for each to post their public notices to the Web site over the last few months, and the final push to get the remaining counties online has resulted in several newspapers getting on board with the effort.

As the final counties are brought online, the Georgia Public Notice Web site itself is debuting a new look with added features to make it easier for readers to use. A map that is clickable by county has been added to the search functions that allow public notices to be found by category, county, keyword or date.

"It's easier to find a public notice ad than ever before," Freyberger said.
Getting 100 percent participation in the Web site is a key step in its development, and should be a clear sign to the state that no changes are needed to public notice procedures in Georgia, which require that each county post its public notices in its legal organ newspaper.

Legislation already has been introduced in other Southeastern states that would only require public notice publication online. Such a move is expected in Georgia during the next legislative session.

The newspaper industry in Georgia is committed to the widest possible distribution of the information.

But third-party companies interested in publishing public notices via the Internet are trying to get a foothold.

"As municipal budgets tighten across the nation, government leaders must look for ways for public money to be spent more efficiently, while not cutting back on the level of service provided to citizens," wrote Jason Christie, president of one such company, Enotices.com, on the company's Web site.

"One way to accomplish this is by encouraging state lawmakers to pass legislation allowing local units of government to publish legal and public notices on Web sites instead of newspapers.

"We're not suggesting public notices be published by individual governments, we're proposing the use of a third-party entity where notices can be found easily and efficiently, without the high cost currently associated with publishing legal notices in newspapers," Christie wrote.

The GPA is guarding against any attempt to cut access to public notices by removing the requirement that they be published in newspapers. Millions of Georgians without computer or Internet access would be cut off from the information without newspaper publication, which also provides a measure of safety from computer attacks, human errors or data failures.

In conjunction with completing the push to 100 percent participation in www.GeorgiaPublicNotice.com and the redesign of the site, the GPA plans to launch an advertising campaign to reach across the state and remind government officials and readers of the importance of public notices in newspapers. Advertising is planned for publications produced by the Georgia Municipal Association,and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

Georgia newspapers can participate in the campaign by publishing ads in their own pages emphasizing the importance of the widest possible access to public notices. A media kit is available with ads of any size for print products banner ads for Web sites

Contact Freyberger at (770) 454-6776 or mfreyberger@gapress.org to obtain the kit, which is free.

Many Georgia newspapers turning toward InDesign for production
By Sean Ireland
Publications Editor

Many newspapers in Georgia have been making a slow but steady march toward changing their workflow software.

As newspapers once embraced QuarkXPress over PageMaker for pagination software, they now seem to be turning toward Adobe InDesign and the suite of applications Adobe makes to support it.

Georgia Press Association Technology Manager Mike Freyberger estimates that more than 25 newspaper members have made the conversion from QuarkXPress to InDesign in the last two years.

For some, the change has gone smoothly. For others it's been a bit rockier. But conversion troubles aside, InDesign seems to be gaining wider acceptance among many Georgia newspapers, especially ones updating Macintosh operating systems to OS X.

The trend is gaining momentum throughout the industry. Kevin Slimp, director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology in Tennessee, reports in his January 2007 column that two large newspaper chains are switching from QuarkXPress to InDesign.

In this state, InDesign has been taking hold because of the way it works with Adobe Photoshop, and other Adobe applications included in the Adobe Creative Suite (CS) for the publishing industry.

"It's an overall better program," Freyberger said. "It's not as stiff as Quark, and it comes in the Creative Suite, which all works together."

Leonard Woolsey, publisher of the Times-Georgian, made the conversion in 2006, taking production of his Carrollton newspaper, a daily with more than 8,300 circulation, and two other dailies, seven weeklies and a shopper from Quark to InDesign in a 90-day period. The Griffin Daily News and the Douglas County Sentinel, two sister newspapers also owned by Paxton Media Group, were the two dailies.

"It just provided a more seamless environment for our production department to work from," Woolsey said.

He was familiar with the Adobe products from working with them at home and in the past. "I think a lot of it has to do with my experience with Adobe Creative Suite. As we migrated to [Macintosh] OS X, we had a choice of the Quark product or [Adobe] Creative Suite, and the way the Creative Suite package is set up, it's just so seamless to move between applications."

The Blackshear Times, a weekly newspaper with nearly 3,600 in circulation, considered making the transition in 2006, trying InDesign for a while before deciding to buy the latest version of QuarkXPress to go with an upgrade in operating systems to OS X.

But Publisher Robert Williams said he now regrets a gut feeling not to go with InDesign and will soon switch to it because of problems with QuarkXPress. "Quark 7 is tremendous disappointment," he said. "It's slow and has a lot of bugs, and Quark is not interested in working with you on getting it fixed. I couldn't be more disgusted with Quark."

MainStreet Newspapers Inc., which runs four weekly newspapers, including The Commerce News, The Madison County Journal of Danielsville, the Banks County News of Homer and The Jackson Herald of Jefferson, made the transition about a year ago.

The production staff had access to both the programs with Quark available as a backup if there were problems with InDesign, said Steve Cromer, a technology consultant for MainStreet. The staff slowly worked its way to InDesign, reluctant at first to fully embrace it.

The transition eventually was made, with the staff now using InDesign full time. Part of the credit for that, Cromer said, is training offered by Freyberger and the GPA.

"In hindsight, I wish we had gotten GPA involved in it earlier," he said. "But, ultimately, I think they learned more by struggling and then going with Mike for training."

Woolsey also credits GPA training for helping the Times-Georgian staff find its way. "Honestly they were a bit apprehensive about it, but after going through the training program and having experience with it, they don't want to go back to Quark," Woolsey said. "If you had experience in Quark and used Photoshop, the learning curve wasn't that great. That's one of the nice things about the CS package - so many of the shortcuts are the same in all four applications."

Freyberger is available to all GPA member newspapers for technology training.

GPA training can be done on-site at each newspaper with the mobile technology lab or at the GPA office in Atlanta.

Using six laptops with InDesign and Adobe CS, Freyberger offers a one-day class for six to eight hours that takes students from starting the programs to printing a page. QuarkXPress training is also available. All classes cost $40 per hour.

Contact Mike Freyberger at mfreyberger@gapress.org

GPA Member Technical Support
One of the many benefits of membership in GPA is the tech support offered to member newspapers. Working in today's fast-paced digital environment can be time consuming and costly. Tech support from GPA is fast and easy and can provide assistance with issues ranging from web site creation & management to setting up digital work flows for newspaper output.

On-site visits: $40 per hour
Email & phone calls: FREE (in most cases)

GPA also offers assistance in getting your public notice ads posted online at:
www.georgiapublicnotices.com
Support for public notices is a free service!

GPA Technology Contact:
Mike Freyberger,
GPA Technology Manager
Ph: 770.454.6776
Email: mfreyberger@gapress.org

A few areas that GPA can help with:

WEB SITES
Having an online presence for your newspaper is essential in today's competitive media markets. GPA tech support can give your newspaper that presence by helping you establish a web site from the ground up or help you enhance your existing site. Tech support will provide all the steps to start your newspaper's web site, including helping you build templates that your staff can use and maintain with ease. GPA tech support can also help your newspaper set-up an online subscription form as well as other extras such as message boards, blogs, and photo galleries.

Troubleshooting
With electronic file submission becoming the standard in the industry, the issues associated with creating and sending digital files continue to grow. Tech support from GPA can help with these issues by troubleshooting files and in some cases, repair damaged files.

GPA tech support will take a proactive approach to helping with these issues by providing education and answering questions for your newspaper staff.

TRAINING
GPA provides training for current software programs used by today's newspaper industry. GPA will bring the training to you, which includes the use of 6 Apple G4 PowerBooks and the software for hands-on training. Most training classes last about 8 hours and are specific to newspaper production. Software training on site is $40 per hour.

Available software training from GPA:

Adobe InDesign CS & CS2

Adobe Photoshop CS & CS2
(3 levels: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced)

Adobe Acrobat v5, v6, & v7

Adobe GoLive CS & CS2
(2 day class)

Quark XPress v4.1 & v6.5


GPA Home Page GPA MESSAGE BOARDS FREE Georgia Public Notice (.com) PSAs INT X.0 Institute of Newspaper Technology InDesign and Adobe's Creative Suite Training - FREE -		NEWS Public notice site to get full participation By Sean Ireland Publications Editor Georgia citizens now have the widest possible access to public notices from across the state that they've ever had, thanks to the newspaper industry. The Georgia Press Association has public notices from 153 of the state's 159 counties now available online at www.GeorgiaPublicNotice.com. Notices from the remaining six counties should be online by the end of the month. This is in addition to the access available through the pages of local newspapers, and it's being offered at no extra cost to the governments required to publish the notices or the people interested in reading them online. The progress toward 100 percent compliance comes as third-party companies begin to lobby state legislatures to turn public notice publishing over to them. The companies would only be able to provide electronic access to the notices. Notices from about 91 percent of Georgia's counties were available in March. GPA Technology Manager Mike Freyberger has been working with individual newspapers to find the best way for each to post their public notices to the Web site over the last few months, and the final push to get the remaining counties online has resulted in several newspapers getting on board with the effort. As the final counties are brought online, the Georgia Public Notice Web site itself is debuting a new look with added features to make it easier for readers to use. A map that is clickable by county has been added to the search functions that allow public notices to be found by category, county, keyword or date. "It's easier to find a public notice ad than ever before," Freyberger said. Getting 100 percent participation in the Web site is a key step in its development, and should be a clear sign to the state that no changes are needed to public notice procedures in Georgia, which require that each county post its public notices in its legal organ newspaper. Legislation already has been introduced in other Southeastern states that would only require public notice publication online. Such a move is expected in Georgia during the next legislative session. The newspaper industry in Georgia is committed to the widest possible distribution of the information. But third-party companies interested in publishing public notices via the Internet are trying to get a foothold. "As municipal budgets tighten across the nation, government leaders must look for ways for public money to be spent more efficiently, while not cutting back on the level of service provided to citizens," wrote Jason Christie, president of one such company, Enotices.com, on the company's Web site. "One way to accomplish this is by encouraging state lawmakers to pass legislation allowing local units of government to publish legal and public notices on Web sites instead of newspapers. "We're not suggesting public notices be published by individual governments, we're proposing the use of a third-party entity where notices can be found easily and efficiently, without the high cost currently associated with publishing legal notices in newspapers," Christie wrote. The GPA is guarding against any attempt to cut access to public notices by removing the requirement that they be published in newspapers. Millions of Georgians without computer or Internet access would be cut off from the information without newspaper publication, which also provides a measure of safety from computer attacks, human errors or data failures. In conjunction with completing the push to 100 percent participation in www.GeorgiaPublicNotice.com and the redesign of the site, the GPA plans to launch an advertising campaign to reach across the state and remind government officials and readers of the importance of public notices in newspapers. Advertising is planned for publications produced by the Georgia Municipal Association,and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia. Georgia newspapers can participate in the campaign by publishing ads in their own pages emphasizing the importance of the widest possible access to public notices. A media kit is available with ads of any size for print products banner ads for Web sites Contact Freyberger at (770) 454-6776 or mfreyberger@gapress.org to obtain the kit, which is free. Many Georgia newspapers turning toward InDesign for production By Sean Ireland Publications Editor Many newspapers in Georgia have been making a slow but steady march toward changing their workflow software. As newspapers once embraced QuarkXPress over PageMaker for pagination software, they now seem to be turning toward Adobe InDesign and the suite of applications Adobe makes to support it. Georgia Press Association Technology Manager Mike Freyberger estimates that more than 25 newspaper members have made the conversion from QuarkXPress to InDesign in the last two years. For some, the change has gone smoothly. For others it's been a bit rockier. But conversion troubles aside, InDesign seems to be gaining wider acceptance among many Georgia newspapers, especially ones updating Macintosh operating systems to OS X. The trend is gaining momentum throughout the industry. Kevin Slimp, director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology in Tennessee, reports in his January 2007 column that two large newspaper chains are switching from QuarkXPress to InDesign. In this state, InDesign has been taking hold because of the way it works with Adobe Photoshop, and other Adobe applications included in the Adobe Creative Suite (CS) for the publishing industry. "It's an overall better program," Freyberger said. "It's not as stiff as Quark, and it comes in the Creative Suite, which all works together." Leonard Woolsey, publisher of the Times-Georgian, made the conversion in 2006, taking production of his Carrollton newspaper, a daily with more than 8,300 circulation, and two other dailies, seven weeklies and a shopper from Quark to InDesign in a 90-day period. The Griffin Daily News and the Douglas County Sentinel, two sister newspapers also owned by Paxton Media Group, were the two dailies. "It just provided a more seamless environment for our production department to work from," Woolsey said. He was familiar with the Adobe products from working with them at home and in the past. "I think a lot of it has to do with my experience with Adobe Creative Suite. As we migrated to [Macintosh] OS X, we had a choice of the Quark product or [Adobe] Creative Suite, and the way the Creative Suite package is set up, it's just so seamless to move between applications." The Blackshear Times, a weekly newspaper with nearly 3,600 in circulation, considered making the transition in 2006, trying InDesign for a while before deciding to buy the latest version of QuarkXPress to go with an upgrade in operating systems to OS X. But Publisher Robert Williams said he now regrets a gut feeling not to go with InDesign and will soon switch to it because of problems with QuarkXPress. "Quark 7 is tremendous disappointment," he said. "It's slow and has a lot of bugs, and Quark is not interested in working with you on getting it fixed. I couldn't be more disgusted with Quark." MainStreet Newspapers Inc., which runs four weekly newspapers, including The Commerce News, The Madison County Journal of Danielsville, the Banks County News of Homer and The Jackson Herald of Jefferson, made the transition about a year ago. The production staff had access to both the programs with Quark available as a backup if there were problems with InDesign, said Steve Cromer, a technology consultant for MainStreet. The staff slowly worked its way to InDesign, reluctant at first to fully embrace it. The transition eventually was made, with the staff now using InDesign full time. Part of the credit for that, Cromer said, is training offered by Freyberger and the GPA. "In hindsight, I wish we had gotten GPA involved in it earlier," he said. "But, ultimately, I think they learned more by struggling and then going with Mike for training." Woolsey also credits GPA training for helping the Times-Georgian staff find its way. "Honestly they were a bit apprehensive about it, but after going through the training program and having experience with it, they don't want to go back to Quark," Woolsey said. "If you had experience in Quark and used Photoshop, the learning curve wasn't that great. That's one of the nice things about the CS package - so many of the shortcuts are the same in all four applications." Freyberger is available to all GPA member newspapers for technology training. GPA training can be done on-site at each newspaper with the mobile technology lab or at the GPA office in Atlanta. Using six laptops with InDesign and Adobe CS, Freyberger offers a one-day class for six to eight hours that takes students from starting the programs to printing a page. QuarkXPress training is also available. All classes cost $40 per hour. Contact Mike Freyberger at mfreyberger@gapress.org GPA Member Technical Support One of the many benefits of membership in GPA is the tech support offered to member newspapers. Working in today's fast-paced digital environment can be time consuming and costly. Tech support from GPA is fast and easy and can provide assistance with issues ranging from web site creation & management to setting up digital work flows for newspaper output. On-site visits: $40 per hour Email & phone calls: FREE (in most cases) GPA also offers assistance in getting your public notice ads posted online at: www.georgiapublicnotices.com Support for public notices is a free service! GPA Technology Contact: Mike Freyberger, GPA Technology Manager Ph: 770.454.6776 Email: mfreyberger@gapress.org A few areas that GPA can help with: WEB SITES Having an online presence for your newspaper is essential in today's competitive media markets. GPA tech support can give your newspaper that presence by helping you establish a web site from the ground up or help you enhance your existing site. Tech support will provide all the steps to start your newspaper's web site, including helping you build templates that your staff can use and maintain with ease. GPA tech support can also help your newspaper set-up an online subscription form as well as other extras such as message boards, blogs, and photo galleries. Troubleshooting With electronic file submission becoming the standard in the industry, the issues associated with creating and sending digital files continue to grow. Tech support from GPA can help with these issues by troubleshooting files and in some cases, repair damaged files. GPA tech support will take a proactive approach to helping with these issues by providing education and answering questions for your newspaper staff. TRAINING GPA provides training for current software programs used by today's newspaper industry. GPA will bring the training to you, which includes the use of 6 Apple G4 PowerBooks and the software for hands-on training. Most training classes last about 8 hours and are specific to newspaper production. Software training on site is $40 per hour. Available software training from GPA: Adobe InDesign CS & CS2 Adobe Photoshop CS & CS2 (3 levels: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced) Adobe Acrobat v5, v6, & v7 Adobe GoLive CS & CS2 (2 day class) Quark XPress v4.1 & v6.5


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