What does the system do?
Pagination is a cloud-based database publishing solution. If you need to regularly create catalogues, price lists, line sheets, weekly ads, or any kind of simple commercial documents, you can create them automatically, quickly and completely in the cloud with this package.
The developer, an Italian company also called Pagination, says the software eliminates two of the biggest issues related to document creation: the leg-work – the long and error-prone task of creating documents from scratch – and the need to install and master cumbersome or complex in-house solutions.
Pagination takes the strain out of the process by automatically creating documents based on your data and images.
It’s not a DTP suite, there are no fancy design tools and it works best with simple, highly repetitive documents.
Pagination says its automatic publishing solution integrates your data with your layout, enabling you to quickly create high-quality documents, ready for print and digital distribution, with minimal training.
How does it work?
It’s a no-frills database publishing system that outputs to PDF or InDesign file. It accepts data in a wide variety of formats – spreadsheets, databases, and other business applications.
Data, document templates and any related images are uploaded via a secure web interface. Pagination provides templates suitable for a range of applications in a variety of formats: Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Excel or PDF. These are completely customisable according to user requirements.
There are no real restrictions on template designs, although it’s important that the names of the fields in the source data tally with those on the template.
The package allows for unlimited pagination and can process 40 pages per minute, according to the developer. Pagination first creates a draft document, which can be tweaked as required until the user is happy. The finished documents are available as both InDesign and PDF files and are created in two formats: as high-quality, ready-to-print documents and lighter weight versions for web publishing.
Pagination will also create covers, tables of content, sections and section separators.
Pagination is cloud-based, so customers can work on projects anywhere, anytime, simply by accessing Pagination’s web interface.
When was it launched and what markets is it aimed at?
Pagination the company was set up in 2009. Today, the solution is being used to create more than 3 million pages annually for customers around the world.
The company says the package is ideal for any type or size of business, from fashion brands, to international electrical suppliers, to furnishing and design companies.
Its purpose is to streamline common and time-consuming publishing processes to achieve better results, save costs and reduce time to market. The developer says that its ease-of-use and flexibility make Pagination practical for all business departments, results particularly for marketing, design and sales departments. Pagination is designed to enable collaboration, so that everyone with an interest in the document can collaborate on its creation and maintenance. This is thanks to Pagination’s cloud-based operation, which allows multiple people to work on a project at any one time, anywhere and from a wide range of devices.
What is Pagination’s USP?
“A never-before seen combination of speed and accuracy,” according to the developer, which adds that this unique result is based on six key tenets: high quality, precise output; speed; ease-of-use; flexibility in project creation; affordable prices; and cloud-based agility.
What does it replace?
Pagination is intended to replace a range of time-consuming manual and error-prone tasks involved in the creation of commercial documents tasks, such as cutting and pasting, updating references, merging documents and exporting PDFs. “Pagination overcomes the limitations of traditional manual editing systems and in-house software, offering the opportunity to create documents far more quickly, with greater ease, and better results.
“Pagination eliminates the high probability of making mistakes typical to manual document editing and saves time and costs related to software training and licences,” says the developer.
How easy is it to use?
Pagination stresses that ease-of-use is one of the system’s biggest advantages, and one of the features that makes it most competitive with other publishing solutions.
The system is based on an intuitive folder-sharing structure. Customers simply update project files and download the completed documents a few minutes later.
“With Pagination, customers can create and manage beautiful documents, originating from something as simple as a spreadsheet,” says Pagination. Additionally, for customers who don’t have a project layout, Pagination can create tailored InDesign layouts or provide existing InDesign templates ready to be filled with data.
What support is available?
The company offers fast project setup, allowing customers to start a project within two to three days. It also offers evolutionary maintenance, which includes all project updates and prompt customer service via phone and email throughout the project’s duration.
How much does it cost?
The system is sold as an annual software and service subscription, which entitles the customer to use of all Pagination’s features. Pricing starts from $2,400 (£1,900) per year although discounts are avaialable for new customers.
SPECIFICATIONS
Features Unlimited pagination, 40pp/min processing speed, 24/7 cloud-based service, output to PDF and InDesign, cover merging, table of contents creation and chapter separators
Output Output to PDF and InDesign files in two formats: high-quality for print and lightweight for web publishing
Pricing Pricing starts from $2,400 (around £1,900) per year. First-year discounts are available for new subscribers.
Contact Pagination 020 3300 0741 Pagination.com
ALTERNATIVES
There is nothing on the market that does quite what Pagination does.
The most obvious alternative is to create the document by hand using a page design program such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. But the sorts of documents that Pagination is focused on are time-consuming to create by hand and the process is prone to input errors. There are InDesign tools such as Data Merge, XML and Place Command that can link your data with InDesign, but these aren’t the sorts of functions that most InDesign users will be familiar with, and learning curves can be steep. What pagination does is take the donkey work out of the process.
