The Utne Reader Case Study

The Utne Reader has raised the level of discourse in America from its very first issue over fifteen years ago. With a Minneapolis office, the Utne Reader has always been a point of civic pride for many Minnesotans. While many aspects of the magazine have changed over the years, the Utne Reader's stance on politics and issues of social justice have remained as solid as the day they started. Recently, The Foundation was asked to solidify an aspect of the magazine most readers never see: the production side.

There are many advantages to this style of work-flow management. The first one is money. The Utne Reader will decrease their pre-press costs anywhere from $6,000 to $30,000 a year. This number doesn’t reflect the reduction of office consumables with the new workflow. Editors can receive PDF files instead of hard copy for proofing.

Dianne Talmage, Utne Reader Production Manager, has already noticed the benefits with increased efficiency. With PDF files, I no longer do a collect for output from Quark. She also mentioned there is no more need for preflighting, the creation of a PDF is its own preflight, and file management is simpler as well. Instead of sending a Quark file and all of the supporting files, you just send one PDF per page. With change comes apprehension, but Dianne Talmage says: (The Foundation) was very patient about not turning me loose until I was comfortable making PDF files on my own. Utne Reader and The Foundation - reducing cost and stress one PDF at a time.