Preview of Nexpo '93 in New Orleans: the latest in newspaper equipment.

We don't know how long it will take to get used to the new name for this event steeped in history, but it is now Nexpo. Gone forever is the ANPA/TEC designation for the annual occasion for checking on the status of the U.S. newspaper industry.

In other respects, though, we shouldn't notice much change. It still brings together the latest in front-end systems, digital photography, rip and recorder technology, and related products to serve all segments of the market.

And this year's show should be as good as any ANPA/TEC event in recent memory. It will feature new systems from major vendors, the fastest high-resolution output devices the industry has ever seen, new companies with interesting new products, and so on. Here is a sampling of some of the new developments.

New front-end products. System Integrators will introduce the replacement for its venerable System/55 (see The Latest Word for additional details). Atex will display an incredibly comprehensive lineup including its traditional products for newspapers and magazines, the "new front-end" that made its debut last year and a wealth of new items acquired through recent deals that help to tie everything together.

CText will join the ranks of the Quark converts, showing editorial pagination with Xpress. CompuText will show a new version of its Comet system running under Windows and featuring pagination with Xpress. Harris Publishing Systems, which is showing signs of aggressive moves, will bring the NewsMaker system that was shown at America East in March. Harris also will introduce its Vantage Archive System and the PageTrak management system.

Although it was unveiled at last year's show, Stewart Dewar has been polishing his DewarView integration framework and getting rave reviews everywhere he goes. Hyphen and Linotype-Hell will feature their Option and LinoPress Advertising systems ready for a thrust in this market. Digital Technology will show a new Graphics Management System.

Gone from the listing is Mycro-Tek, although there is a chance its Freedom Series will appear in the Monotype booth.

Output devices. ECRM will bring a new ScriptSetter handling 14* media and costing less than $30,000. Autologic and Tegra-Varityper will feature their fast, new capstan recorders -- the 47*/min. APS-6/108FC Lightning and the 54*/min. 5300H. CalComp will show a new chemical-free film processed with heat.

New companies. Last winter's shakeup at Hyphen not only brought changes to the company's UK and U.S. offices, but it also resulted in the birth of new companies under the direction of the former executives in those countries. One of the new ones -- Advanced Prepress Systems, Inc. -- will exhibit its new line of rips and output management tools at Nexpo.

Another company we haven't seen before, although it has installed a dozen systems, is Advanced Publishing Technology, which will show a low-end system on pcs. Not new to the industry, but new to this show, is CCI Europe, developer of high-quality systems now installed at two sites in the U.S.

Topical coverage

Editorial and classified systems. These days, most systems include some kind of pagination, often using Quark Xpress, but we haven't tried to separate those with pagination from those without it: Advanced Publishing Technology, ATS, Atex, Baseview Products, CCI Europe, CompuText, CText, Cybergraphic, Dewar, Digital Technology, DuPont, Graph-X, Harris, Hyphen, Information International, Linotype-Hell, QED Technology, Quark, SCS, Stauffer, Synaptic, System Integrators and Ultra.

Rips and recorders. Agfa, Apple, APSI, Autologic, Bidco, CalComp, DuPont, ECRM, Graphic Enterprises of Ohio, HP, Hyphen, Information International, Konica Imaging, Linotype-Hell, Monotype, QMS, Scitex, Tegra-Varityper, Ultre and Xitron.

Scanners and faxes. Agfa, Auto-Grafica, Autologic, Bidco, DuPont, Eskofot Canada, Howtek, Hyphen, Information International, Integrated Technologies Solutions, Konica Imaging, Linotype-Hell, Mission Critical Technologies, Nikon and Scitex.

Digital photography, archival/retrieval, etc. Agence-France Presse, Associated Press, Harris Publishing Systems, Linotype-Hell, Mac Solutions, National Digital, Nikon, Sony, T/One and Tribune Publishing.

Color systems. Agfa, APSI, Diadem, DuPont/Crosfield, Howtek, Linotype-Hell and Scitex.

Our preview coverage. Unlike some years, when we have attempted to include information about every exhibitor even remotely relevant to our areas of interest, this time we have narrowed our focus slightly. We requested information from the same group of exhibitors as usual, but some never got back to us with their plans. So, to keep to our aggressive schedule, we have omitted a few that didn't supply anything.

Among the companies in that category are Kodak, Sony and Fuji Photo Film. When we ran out of time, we decided to leave them off our list.

We also have not included a floor plan this time, primarily because preparing one is an enormous amount of work and there is always a good map at the show. We have listed booth numbers to enable readers to find the booths by following aisle numbers.

Advanced Prepress Systems 1720

Advanced Prepress Systems (APSI), a new company founded by former executives at Hyphen U.S., will make its debut. Its areas of specialization, not unexpectedly in view of its Hyphen roots, are output management and software rips. APSI will introduce QueMan and PrintMan queuing and output management modules, both based on Helios EtherShare. They provide unattended batching of jobs, "rush" queues, opi support and the ability to send queued jobs to the next available rip. (For more information, see The Latest Word.)

We don't know much about the software rips, but they run on pc and Sun platforms and drive recording engines from Agfa, ECRM, Linotype-Hell and Ultre. At the show, APSI will demonstrate output to an Agfa AccuSet 1000 and a 600-dpi proofer.

APSI will show its Acrobat server and remote communications program demonstrating the ability to view and proof live news pages from London and San Francisco. In each case the pages will be distilled (compressed) using Adobe Acrobat Distiller at the remote locations and transferred via modem to APSI's file server at the Nexpo show. Once the files are received, they can be viewed using Adobe's Acrobat Exchange or proofed through the APSI proofing system.

APSI will show the latest release of Agfa's Pix and Catalyst retouching and layout systems, which it sells through a var deal.

Advanced Publishing Technology 2225

Advanced Publishing Technology (APT), not to be confused with Applied Publishing Technology, which developed the Chameleon Cora proofer, offers an integrated newspaper production system that manages and automates the assembly of text, photos, art, advertising and design elements into completed newspaper pages. It supports multiple publications and sections.

Called the Automated Complete Typesetting system (ACT), it has been installed at 12 sites in California. It runs under Windows and uses the FoxPro database, Xpress for pagination, and a choice of Word, AmiPro and WordPerfect for editing.

APT says the key to the system is the central production element database that controls the creation, run schedule and placement of each element of the newspaper. The system automatically creates boxes for elements based on their content, after which a layout person designs the paper interactively.

The system was designed to drive laser printers for output.

Advanced Technical Solutions 1230

ATS will show its Osiris II editorial system, which made its debut at last year's show. Osiris II is an integrated pc and Macintosh system based almost entirely on off-the-shelf components, although the database structure has been developed by ATS. Standard components include Novell networking, XyWrite and Microsoft Word editors, and Quark Xpress for pagination. It also supports a gateway into an Atex editorial system with file locking. A sophisticated production tracking system is included, tracking off-the-shelf applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator as well as the progress of stories and pages on the system. User-customizable colors are available to represent different aspects of the process.

ATS is the first oem customer of Agile Enterprise, which debuted at the Seybold Seminars in Boston in April and is discussed in the Seybold Special Report, Part II, from that event.

Agence-France Presse 2846

AFP will show its digital addressable broadcast network, DIT.B. Using a standard pc-based decoder, AFP clients will receive the AFP photo report and specials into any available picture desk, including AP Leaf Desk and Crosfield Newsline, via interface.

Agfa 858

Besides the Agfa line of processors, silver recovery units, and so on, Agfa will show its new Access Plus high-end scanner link and the Pix and Catalyst midrange color system. Access Plus, which interfaces to all leading drum scanners, features faster performance than the earlier Access.

For Pix and Catalyst, the main changes -- already shown at the Seybold Seminars in April -- affect performance and opening them to easier use in heterogeneous, open environments. Pix and Catalyst also will be shown in the APSI booth, as will an AccuSet 1000 recorder.

Apple Computer 718

We weren't able to get any advance information about what Apple will demonstrate, but we presume part of the focus will be on the new Workgroup Server products shown at CeBit in Germany and the …