Sony Music: catalog production on demand

Sony Music Distribution's previous automated method of producing its wholesale distribution catalog took four hours and locked the design department out of the final document entirely. If last-minute price or text changes were needed, the data had to be updated on the mainframe and the whole process repeated.

TECSoft built an AppleScript and FileMaker Pro solution that imports Sony Music title information directly from a mainframe download and lets users browse title data before creating a catalog. It allows last-minute changes that were impossible before, including quick mass updates or deletions of whole groups of titles.

The design department chooses which catalog sections to publish and creates custom catalogs at the click of a button in under two hours. The solution supports custom sort and exception rules, layout styles, and page and column headers for each section. Because the final output is a QuarkXPress document, the designers remain free to edit the catalog as they choose.