SMIC is an innovative, webbased publishing solution which allows customers, both large and small, to easily collaborate to produce professional quality publications, both for print and online. Beyond simply being a way to deliver pages to press, SMIC is a comprehensive end-to end solution giving users the ability to collaborate, compose, design, print and ship almost completely autonomously.

SMIC was created by Jonge Helden BV in The Netherlands to enable communities and clubs to collaborate and publish professional quality publications – simply. Since its launch in 2006 the number of customers using SMIC has grown to more than 800 clubs, communities and companies.

SMIC consists of several parts. It is a make-up tool used to compose and produce publications. In order to provide a more through explanation, please find more detailed information here on a component by component basis.

Easy to Use Professional Software

SMIC is a new way to create, assemble and publish customer or club newsletters, magazines, brochures, or internal company publications.

The process is simple, because the writing, editing, assembly and final approval all take place totally on-line within a standard web browser such at Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari.

Several different people within an organisation to easily work together from any location in the world, if required, to produce a very professional and colourful publication issue after issue.

Contributors simply log into SMIC with their email address and password. Stories are added to a list. Multiple people can easily collaborate on stories and edit copy. Assembling the publication is as simple as click and drag to position. No specialised software or hardware is required. No specialised training is needed.

Photos and advertising can be easily uploaded and placed in the publication.

When all the stories and art elements are in place, a final proof can be viewed for approval. Once approved, it’s only a couple more clicks of the mouse and the publication is on its way to the printer. There is a choice of receiving the printed material in a bundle via a courier or you can upload a mail list and each individual document will be sent by Post.

Whether you have a need for publishing weekly, monthly, semi-annually or on demand; SMIC provides new and easy versatility to deliver your publication or brochures when required and on time.

Simple Tools Provide Professional Results

There are a wide variety of features available in SMIC. The goal is to keep SMIC simple, so the features are pretty straight forward. Select from a wide range of type styles, usually referred to as “fonts”. If SMIC doesn’t have your font, we will add it to our font library.

Text can be treated in much the same way as in a standard word processor. Text can be bold, italic, underlined. Users select the range of sizes they want their text or headlines to appear.

Images can be easily added to stories. They can either be embedded in the story or they can appear separate to a story. These photos can come from your PC or Mac or they can be acquired from internet sites, such as Flicker. Basic photo manipulation is another feature provided in SMIC. Images can be rotated, cropped, and minor adjustments made - all within SMIC.

Advertising can be uploaded and placed within SMIC documents as PDFs or images. SMIC makes this so easy to do, that many clubs now effectively solicit and change their ads from publication to publication.

SMIC comes standard with ready to use templates to create stories one, two or three columns across with pre-configured headline sizes and styles. This also includes the ability to import photos and other pre-configured copy as PDFs.

Other templates can be added which include things like square or round cornered boxes around text or even inverted corners. Text backgrounds can be coloured; the text itself can be coloured. SMIC can even provide dropped caps at the beginning of your story. Templates can be added to provide tabular material, with or without borders.

Coloured or semi-transparent backgrounds can be added to pages. SMIC can be set-up to provide consistently the same thing on the same page issue after issue if required.

Most common typographical elements can be created in SMIC, but we suggest simple and clean layouts provide readers with the most enjoyable reading experience.

Getting Started with SMIC

Provide a copy of an existing publication or a basic layout. If you have an existing publication that you would like to duplicate in SMIC, collect the standard artwork or provide a high resolution PDF of the publication.

Templates will be created within SMIC which will provide you the tools to create a professional looking publication.

There is no complicated design and layout software to learn. Simply write your copy in the SMIC text editor or in Word or any other text application of choice. Log into SMIC, select the style you want your text to appear, put a heading on the story, paste the copy in the window provided if not written within SMIC itself, then SMIC does the rest.

Your publication always looks correct because SMIC makes sure the standard things, like the publication title, logo, page numbers and other repetitive text are always in the correct position issue after issue.

Who Uses SMIC?

More than 800 clubs and businesses currently use SMIC to publish newsletters, brochures, magazines and other publications. These include sports clubs ranging from golf to soccer; speciality clubs such as aero flying clubs; real estate companies; fast-food companies; banks and more.

Publications range in size from four to 64 A4 pages.

These are companies and clubs that want to effectively communicate with their members, employees or customers. SMIC is a cost effective way to communicate on paper; on the web or both.

SMIC is used by people who want to efficiently produce a quality publication without the need to learn complicated software. They want the ability to contribute from home or the office. They want to be able to easily collaborate with their colleagues. They want to be able to easily manage the input and creation of the final document.

Simply put, they want to take the hassle out of putting a newsletter or publication together, getting it printed and getting it delivered. SMIC takes the hassle out whilst assuring a professional result.

High Quality Printing

SMIC utilises the latest in digital printing technology. This technology produces a high quality print with vivid colour reproduction matching that of the finest offset presses. At the same time, SMIC gives users the ability to enjoy this quality, even on relatively short print runs. Most importantly, the SMIC user gets these benefits at a reasonable price - something which cannot be attained elsewhere unless the print run is in the thousands.

We offer other fine print finishing, such as folding, staple, saddle stitching, resulting in providing an end product which will rival those of the finest glossy magazine.

SMIC Will Deliver to Your Door

You can select to receive your printed and finished publication in bulk or SMIC will deliver individually via Post to the recipient's door.

During the final process of completing the publish order, users select how they want the publication delivered. If you want the publications delivered to the members of your club, for example, you will upload a mail list. You might also want a number of publications delivered in bulk to pass out at meeting later. You simply enter the number you want delivered in bulk and upload the mail list and SMIC does the rest.

The publication will be printed, inserted in an envelope and put in the post.

From beginning to end, SMIC makes the job of publishing as easy as it can be.

SMIC Can Publish to Your Website

Many groups and companies want to their newsletters or other publications to appear on their websites as well as publishing a printed version. SMIC can seamlessly publish your documents to your website a couple of different ways automatically.

You can publish a separate publication which will appear on your website with built in page turning software, effectively giving viewers a copy of the paper product on the web with the ability to turn the pages as if they were reading the paper version.

SMIC can also publish to your web site via an up-to-the-minute news feed from your publication. As new stories are written and approved, they will automatically appear on your website.