The 1.5m circulation London-based title trialled the software on a live server to provide an advertising-based preflight and proofing service replacing its legacy system and has since been rolled out to four, with a range of work flow automation for advertising and editorial as well as data transmission and archiving.

Robert Banbury, production project development specialist at The Economist, said: "Switch has become increasingly important for the newspaper’s production as the need to move, check and repurpose data and assets for other media outlets has come to the fore.

"Automation has removed many manually repetitive tasks from users, freeing them to concentrate on other important matters, and enabling them to meet critical deadlines."

Banbury added that one of the most attractive features was the software's capability to integrate with other third-party software, future-proofing it for further developments, and is itself a key component of the Enfocus Crossroads Community ecosystem of print and publishing production software.

"Switch will remain a core application for the foreseeable future at The Economist. Its ability to link other applications in easily-managed workflows, whilst utilizing XML and metadata, makes it a key system tool."

See also Star Product: Enfocus Switch 10.