Today MetaCommunications, Inc. shipped Production Pack 5.0, a plug-in automation module for its recently released Workgroups 2007 software suite. Production Pack 5.0 now includes Mac OS X universal binary support and automation tools for Adobe's Creative Suite (CS) 3. Users of Adobe's CS 3 can now automate page layout and illustration tasks by accessing digital assets, electronic job tickets, and schedules directly from their native applications. Production Pack 5.0's plug-in interface integrates directly with the Workgroups 2007 suite, enabling users to quickly access information about the job or project they are working on.

"Production Pack 5.0 integrates Adobe's CS 3 with our Workgroups 2007 process and productivity suite. Users can pull up job tickets that contain page layout instructions, schedules, and even the images that need to be placed. By adding this workflow management tool, creative and production users can automate tasks, facilitate collaboration, and enhance access to creative assets," says Robert T. Long, Executive Vice President of MetaCommunications.

Production Pack 5.0
Production Pack 5.0 provides creative, publishing, and prepress staff the ability to access related production and digital asset information from within their production tool of choice. Production Pack 5.0 consists of Adobe Creative Suite Plug-ins and QuarkXPress XTensions which automatically capture detailed multi-page document previews, rich XML metadata, and seamlessly integrates into MetaCommunications' Workgroups 2007 suite - automating production tasks and providing instant access to job tickets, digital assets, schedules, and other publishing related information. Additional information can be found at www.meta-comm.com/products/workgroups_2007/plugin.htm.

Workgroups 2007
The Workgroups 2007 suite is a tightly integrated process and productivity management suite for creative, publishing, and prepress. Workgroups 2007 is comprised of four modules, and is designed to be open and modular so that users can adopt the modules of the suite that meet their initial needs and retain the ability to easily expand the solution later.
Workgroups 2007 consists of four core components:

• Job Manager, a powerful suite of financial management tools that enable users to accurately create estimates and quotes, monitor job costs, quickly generate on-demand reporting and invoices, and share information with industry leading accounting systems.

• Virtual Ticket, a configurable project and workflow solution that brings together all the components of your work in a centralized location, including project briefs, job tickets, schedules customer information, associated document files, and more.
• Approval Manager, an approval management workflow tool for managing, tracking, and scheduling any proof review process within and across marketing, creative and production environments.
• Digital Storage Manager, a powerful storage management solution designed to integrate a workgroup's file management into the overall creative and production workflow. The solution associates files with projects, archives & retrieves files, and enables users to quickly find digital files for creative or production processes.

Pricing and Availability
Production Pack 5.0 is available immediately, directly from MetaCommunications or through certified partners worldwide. Production Pack 5.0 is included free of charge to licensed users of the Workgroups 2007 suite. Customers on Meta Assurance and Support will receive the upgrade free of charge. Upgrades are available from authorized resellers, system integrators, distributors and OEM partners. For more information, visit www.meta-comm.com.

About MetaCommunications
MetaCommunications (www.meta-comm.com) is a leading software developer of cross-platform process management and productivity solutions for the graphic arts industry, including its award-winning Job Manager™, Virtual Ticket™, Approval Manager™ and Digital Storage Manager™ components. MetaCommunications has thousands of users of its software worldwide, helping some of the world's top creative agencies, corporate marketing groups, printing and prepress firms, and publishers work more efficiently and profitably. MetaCommunications was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa. For more information, please visit www.meta-comm.com.