Concepts of Catalog Publishing -

The second type of catalog is the one that most are familiar with, a "data catalog." This type of catalog isn't intended primarily to intrigue the eye, but to describe and specify products. It's the catalog most often provided by a manufacturer to its representatives and distributors. It is often "structured," meaning that its layout is highly controlled and consistent, to save time and money in production. There may only be a dozen or so total layouts that all items must fit into, as opposed to the brochure-style catalog in which each and every page can have its own special layout. It's the data catalog that Vision Publishing is outstanding at producing. With our planning, template development, and efficient production, we can create catalogs in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take.

The all to familiar "price books" fall into the same category as the data catalog, except that whereas the data catalog may have both prices and product descriptions, price books normally have only product listings by part number with prices. However, that does not mean that price books are automatically easier to produce. They are a source which must be updated on a continual basis to be a real value to the end user.

Forms that Catalogs can take -

Paper has its advantages. First, it can be carried and used anywhere, any time, anyplace in the world. It's durable and can be used even when it's badly dog-eared, water-soaked or ripped from the binding. People are familiar with it and feel comfortable using it. It does become outdated relatively quick and needs updating every year or two, this is due to changes in the manufacturers pricing, product lines added or dropped by distributors, and new products added within existing product lines.

All electronic distribution requires some form of reader on a computer. Some, like HTML, might even require a network or Internet connection. PDF files created with Adobe Acrobat also require a reader to view on the Internet and are being utilized more and more. But, how they are used is an issue that must be carefully considered since they typically are larger in size than their HTML counterpart pages. Still, electronic distribution is attractive because it adds another means to market products to the masses. If electronic files exist for a paper catalog, these files in most cases can be used to create catalogs for the Internet or CD-ROM thusly saving considerable time and money compared to creating the material from scratch. If electronic catalog files do not exist, files can be created that can be used to produce paper, HTML, PDF or CD-ROM catalogs. This means that one data source is all that is necessary for whatever medium is chosen. A large number of companies are putting up websites on the Internet and do not have sites that are user friendly. They may be slow loading due to graphic image file sizes, fancy routines that a web page designer thinks is neat, or any other combination of misapplied principals that cause the potential customer to quickly become frustruated and simply go somewhere else on the Internet. Vision knows what it takes to make a sites web pages quick for the user and the products of the industry to make the customers browsing easy. So, if you already have a site and you are not happy with its' appearance or speed, contact us to see what we can do for your company.

How Catalog Data is acquired -

Today, however, there is a growing reliance on "database publishing," in which the vital information is stored in a database until it's needed, then it's converted into text, output from the database, placed in the catalog template, formatted and sent to the printer. Or it can be output from the database files, converted to HTML and or PDF and published to a website. And in practice it's almost as fast to do as it is to read about. Database publishing can speed up production by fifty percent or more, and it's more accurate, not requiring endless review (assuming that the database's data is accurate). So, if an inventory database exists, we can extract the information that clients want in their catalog and import it into our Catalog Software and apply the design and format that is desired, regardless of the medium that is desired.

Also, please visit our Technical Services for more details about our capabilities.
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