Reuben Zaramba is the New Vision Pre press manager. He is a holder of a BA degree in industrial and commercial design. He joined the New Vision group in 2004. His job requires him to prepare all work for printing.
Reuben told me that New Vision had acquired modern equipment in the pre press department. The old technology involved making films in a dark room. Today the process is automated direct from computer to plate to press. The artwork of the newspaper is received from the subeditor through the intranet in PDF form in soft copy.
Pre press staff makes an imposition – dummy book like layout on a plate using imposition software. The proofs are presentations of what will appear at the end of the process. It is compared with what is on computer and if okay impressions are made ready to copy to plate. Plates have a coating, which is photo sensitive on one side where the laser beam burns the image.
All these processes use new media for example mobile telephony; “We can receive mobile alerts from the machines should something go wrong during processing. The mobile telephone is also used to contact the subeditor in case there is a problem with the PDF”.
The Internet is also used frequently. The mobile alerts from the machine are also sent to our emails. Additionally New Vision upcountry bureaus use email to send their PDF of the regional newspapers for printing. Before automation, a car used to be provided to drive hundreds of kilometers to collect the dummies.
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