The firm's chairman, Mike Slater, denied Atelier had gone into receivership, but confirmed that it had stopped trading on Monday.

"It ceased trading [on 8 May], but if you are asking whether it has gone into receivership, then no. At this point in time, I've no further comment to make," Slater said.

It is understood that Atelier commercial director Mike Palmer handed his notice in a month ago, according to industry sources.

The news has come as a shock to the publishing sector and leaves customers such as Redwood Publishing and Cedar Communications having to quickly find alternative repro suppliers.

Centaur, which had planned to take most of its repro in-house this year, has already moved over to Wyndeham Icon, according to Icon technical sales director Nick Finegold.

"If people are having to look elsewhere for their pre-press, I would recommend they call us," he said.

Caspian Publishing had already pulled out of Atelier a week ago to consolidate its repro. "I don't know which crystal ball we were looking in," said Caspian production director Andrea St Hill.

"Digital Desktop Publishing (DDP) was actually probably one of the best systems around. It was just a matter of consolidating our repro. It was a hard decision to move away, but in retrospect it looks like it was for the best."

In March, Atelier signed a two-year deal to implement its workflow software DDP at Encanta Media, which recently took over nine magazines from Highbury Group.

Last year, Atelier developed Isis, a bespoke internet-based workflow, with Polestar for publishers of magazines, catalogues, books and brochures.