Rhapsody moves Emagine upstream with Edesign launch

Rhapsody, the pre-media subsidiary of Walstead Investments, has launched Edesign, an InDesign plug-in that adds editorial collaboration tools to its Emagine cross-channel production workflow.

The East London pre-media business will show live demos of the Edesign plug-in alongside its Emagine workflow at this month's Publishing & Media Expo, at Earls Court Two from 26-27 February.

Compatible with InDesign CS5 and above, it takes Emagine upstream into the design and content creation stage and enables collaboration between designers, editors, contributors and other stakeholders.

Edesign runs in the background when a designer is working on an InDesign file, creating a copy whenever the file is saved that is instantly populated in Emagine and uploaded to a browser to allow collaboration between the various stakeholders from the content creation stage right through to final production for print, tablet or mobile.

Users can add comments to the copy in Emagine, which the designer will then be notified of by the Edesign plug-in. Emagine also stores all images and versions of the InDesign file, charting its evolution, in its asset library.

Rhapsody managing director Les Pipe described Edesign as "a natural extension" to Rhapsody's Emagine workflow. "Emagine is a collaboration tool within a production environment that - once you've created a file - allows you to manage and add value to that for print, mobile and online," he said.

"We recognised there was a need to bring that collaboration within Emagine further upstream so that when any designer is creating a page, that page can be captured within Emagine and be visible on a shared basis across the internet.

"People want that functionality and we've already got two major customers using it."