` Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Created: 28th July 2021 Proposal for Composition and ePublishing Services Submitted by: Bhuvnesh Gulati PHi Business Solutions Limited 8-99, Sector 34A, Sub-City Centre, Chandigarh 160022 India Tel: +1-365-994-9060, +91-981-514-4883 © 2021 PHi Business Solutions Ltd. Confidential Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Company Profile PHi Business Solutions Limited, is a renowned publishing enabled services provider, operating from India, USA and Canada and its state-of-the-art production facilities based in Chandigarh, India. Our domain interests include a comprehensive range of print and electronic publishing, data digitization & conversion, content creation & management, eLearning and related services. PHi is part of a US $300 million business group with diversified interests including IT Services, manufacturing of high-end steel, dairy products, and automotive components. PHi has a well defined Quality Management Systems (QMS) in place, certified by DNV GL, Norway. We have served over 150 big and small customers across the globe in last 20 years. PHi is a one stop shop solution for all types of content needs. Our language capabilities include English, Hindi, German, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, French, and Arabic, among others. Detailed description of our services is as follows: Pre-press Services: PHi's composition team specializes in layout and make-up for the complete range of the paper and electronic media. Our composition services include books, journals, magazines, Comics, newspaper, covers, full service projects, indexing, lettering, abstracting, copyediting, vector drawings, engineering drawings, and PrinceXML composition. Data Digitization & Conversion: PHi offers a comprehensive range of low cost and accurate data entry, scanning, and OCR services. We can digitize your data from virtually any format and font with 99.995% accuracy. While 90% of the services providers struggle with text accuracy, our processes are fully optimized to provide you data that is guaranteed to exceed your expectations. Our digitization services include: scanning, OCR & OMR, OCR cleanup, online & offline data entry, data cleansing and data mining, transaction & form processing, XML/HTML/SGML, DTD/CSS designing, EDGAR conversion, MathType, and LaboStyle/word processing. Electronic Publishing: PHi has an expert conversion team that specializes in various e-book formats. We can convert your document from any file format to any format. Our ePublishing services include: flexible and fixed layout ePubs, interactive and smart ePub3 and HTML5, eBooks as apps, mobi, and mobile applications, PDF eBooks, iBook Author, complex math eBooks using GeoGebra. etc. Content Creation & Management: We offer matchless content management services, with the goal of affordability and impeccable quality. Our copyeditors provide the best-in-class copyediting on all subjects ranging from STM, education, literature, and law books. Our content services include: copyediting, abstracting, analysis of financial reports, content creation and management, and indexing (article and back-of-the-book indexing). Confidential Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing eLearning: Over the years we have developed expertise in creating and designing interactive training eLearning content for educators, educational institutions and training organizations across the globe. Our eLearning division provides unique end-to-end eLearning solutions. We can make your books more interactive than you think. Our subject matter experts and designing team design the content from users’ perspective and in turn simplify learning. Our team is expert in Graphic Designs, Script Writing, Story boarding and Interactive multimedia. Translation and Linguistic Services: PHi has a network of excellent in-house and freelance translators and subject-matter experts. With our language expertise, you can be assured of the efficient translation of your content at the lowest cost. We specialize in the following languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Italian, Japanese, and Swedish. Why PHi? With over 20 years of experience managing, supporting and delivering content for publishers and enterprises we have mastered skill-sets that set us apart. Other than the cost benefits here are 5 reasons why you should work with us! Innovation & Technology Nearly everything around us is generating data. PHi helps enterprises unify and format the massive amounts of data innovatively to enhance value and delivery. We deploy technologies that meet your specific business requirements and seamlessly integrate it across all your delivery formats. We enrich content and make it better by design! Scalability and Agility Content can take many forms and formats and managing the quantum can be challenging. Distribution in some ways has become disruptive while monetization is still a challenge. Our SME's, instructional designers, and technologists develop and deploy solutions that achieve efficient, low-cost production for delivery across multiple formats. Stakeholder and not Supplier Each customer has needs and goals that are unique to its ecosystem. We understand that your content-related needs are dynamic and forever changing. So we become collaborators in your success and work as a partner and not a vendor! We become stakeholders in your success. PHi collaborates within your ecosystem to develop integrations that improve user experience and delivery. Confidential Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Security that Accelerates Business PHi secures data on its servers, devices and in the cloud. We ensure that transient data as it moves between networks, devices, and storage repositories is secure and safe. We follow industry best practices in data security and portability. Industry Recognition Year after year, business media and analysts recognize PHi for its innovative solutions, technological superiority and value-added features. We are an ISO 9001:2015 certified company. We are a member of the prestigious information technology trade body in India, National Association of Software & Service Companies (NASSCOM). We are also a member of SEDEX. Confidential Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Executive Summary The proposal is being presented in response to Tender No. DU2021/01 launched by PeterLang on the 7th July 2021. It is understood that Don, a subsidiary of the PeterLang group is seeking production partners to provide them with post-editing publishing production services for the combination of their new titles and new editions. The services being sought are typesetting, followed by at least three rounds of corrections, ePub conversion, XML conversion, PDF eBooks, structured word documents, and digitization in rare cases. The total yearly volume of about 600 books (~ 180,000 pages). PeterLang / Don have provided multiple samples for each of the complexities along with detailed specifications. It is assumed that the sample documents fairly represent the titles expected for production, in terms of size and complexity. PHi proposes that if at any stage of production, the size or the complexity of the work turns out to be significantly different from the sample work then PHi should be given the opportunity to submit the revised pricing for the affected titles. We have thoroughly reviewed each of the samples provided taking into account each content type and complexity category. We have carefully determined our costs and in turn quoted our best price. Various complexities have been broadly summarized in the next page. PHi Business Solutions Limited, having worked on several large volume composition and ePublishing projects over the last 20 years, proposes a dedicated resource model arrangement, wherein PHi will allocate project managers, typesetters, ePub experts, XML experts, graphic designers and quality staff to execute the project. In this arrangement, PHi will: a) Allocate a dedicated team to work only on Don’s tasks which will not be allocated on any other project. b) Implement an effective workflow that reduces file management and tracking of Don. c) Adopt the best technology and practices through the entire lifecycle of the project and thereby ensure smooth and accurate deliverables. d) Perform effective knowledge transfer by replicating/translating/transforming exiting processes. Confidential Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Complexity A - Simple A+ - Moderate Confidential Description Color: Single Color Column: Single Design: Simple Heads: Two Level Body: Text, Indent Text, Abstract List: Three Level (Bullet and Alpha) Figure: In-line (1/5 ) Box: 1/3 Table: One Third (1/5) Footnotes EM, Glossary, Index FM Color: Single/ Two Color Column: Single/Two Design: Moderate Heads: Three Level and more Body: Text, Indent Text, Abstract List: Three Level (Bullet and Alpha) Figure: In-line Box: 1/3, half and full Table: 1/3, half and full Equations: 15-20 % Computer Programming: 30 % Footnotes EM, Glossary, Index FM Complexity Description Color: Single/ Two /Four Color Column: Single/Two and Major/Minor column Design: Complex and Mix Design Heads: Three Level and more Body: Text, Indent Text, Abstract List: Three Level (Bullet and Alpha) B - Complex Figure: In-line Floating Box: 1/3, half and full (Floating elements) Table: 1/3, half and full (Span Table) Equations: 50-80 % Computer Programming: 50-80% Footnotes EM, Glossary, Index FM Color: Single/ Two /Four Color Column: Single/Two and Major/Minor column Design: Highly Complex and Multi-layered Design Heads: Three Level and more C - Highly Complex Body: Text, Indent Text, Abstract List: Three Level (Bullet and Alpha) Figure: In-line Floating Box: 1/3, half and full (Floating elements) Table: 1/3, half and full (Multi Span Table) Equations: 70-100 % Computer Programming: 70-100% Footnotes EM, Glossary, Index FM Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Our Solution - Proposed Workflows Typesetting (Word to print ready PDF) It is understood that the Don will provide the manuscript as structured Word documents or any other format from which the text can easily be copied. The production process for Word to print PDF shall involve: Typesetting of edited documents in InDesign Don Corrections Quality certification Delivery of final Print-ready PDFs. Paperless Workflow - Composition Editorial Author Production Article submission Review of MS, images, tables and other mandatory info Publisher Approval for publication Assign Author review task MS, images, tables uploaded on EM Yes Insufficient info/missing elements No Copy-editing Submission of package-Indd, images, XML, ePub, Mobi, PDF PDF Proofs Corresponding Author Assign copyediting task Copy-edited MS Author Corrections ? Assign composition task efiles conversion and print ready PDF Confidential Typesetting and artwork No Yes Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Our typesetting process has following two major stages: 1. Composition: Once the template is approved by the customer and the edited version of the manuscript is available, the composition work is carried out. If the project has XML first workflow, the manuscript is tagged and the tags are mapped with their corresponding styles in InDesign. Once typeset, the articles are thoroughly compared character for character with the copy-edited manuscript to rule out any errors. 2. Artwork: In case the art is not provided by the customer and we are asked to redraw the same then the artwork team draws the illustrations following the guidelines. The drawings are sent to the customer for approval before they are handed over to the composition team. ePublishing (Conversion from Print ready PDFs to XML and ePub) Our workflow for XML/HTML/ePub conversion from Print ready PDFs starts with XML conversion whose output is used as input for HTML/ePub. The process is very sophisticated and involves a great deal of automation, yet due to customer specific requirements, the process involves a good amount of manual work as well. The process entails text extraction from PDF cleanup of text in a word document image cropping and resizing XML conversion and validation HTML conversion and CSS coding embed fonts in HTML (if required) ePub conversion and validation comparison of word and ePub documents to ensure text accuracy Quality certification Delivery. Our key sub processes are explained in detail below: Word clean-up: In word document, we replace bold/italic/superscript/subscript/headings and other key elements and font changes with their corresponding XML tags. The word document is then saved as TXT with UTF8 mode so that all special characters get their correct UTF-8 entities. XML conversion: In this process, we first run a script to apply our standard tags in the word document to all typographical elements, headings, list and tables etc. which subsequently are replaced with the appropriate XML codes. The special characters are converted to their respective hexadecimal entities and the document is saved as a TXT file. The TXT file is opened in Epsilon editor and all project specific & DTD specific instructions and codes are applied. Once coding is done, the file is saved as XML and is validated with the DTD. The validated XML document is then converted to PDF and is compared with the original word document to ensure the accuracy of the text. Confidential Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing XML to HTML and ePub conversion: In this process, an XSLT file is designed for the transformation of the XML document to HTML format. We map all XML tags in the XSLT with their corresponding HTML tags. We use Oxygen Software for this transformation. Once the conversion is done, we thoroughly review the file and make necessary corrections. The CSS document is also created simultaneously by an expert. Once coding is done, we process images, embed fonts, check layout on browser and make the folder structure as per IDPF standard. Subsequently the HTML document is validated and ePub is generated. Capturing fonts, Graphics, Equations and Metadata: For non-Roman languages like Arabic, Chinese, Russian etc., the relevant fonts have to be embedded in the ePub. Graphics are optimized per Adobe and client guidelines. Images are usually set at a resolution of 300 DPI. In case of extensive number of graphics within a single document, the images sometimes have to be downsized in order to bring the file size down. Metadata that may include elements like Title, Language, publication edition, keywords etc. is defined in the OPF document. Display equations (when can’t be represented by text) are usually captured as vector graphics. Here are some standard guidelines we follow for ePub conversion: Confidential We perform the ePub conversion and validation in adherence to the ePub 3.0 standard. In order to make the ePub Apple compliant, we adhere to the Apple iBooks standards. Final checking and viewing is done in iPad. We ensure the following while performing ePub conversion: a) Retain section and chapter breaks, bold and italic formatting, and paragraph alignment as in input files. b) Link bibliographic references, figure/image and table call-outs, footnotes/ endnotes, and index entries; c) Update the copyright pages to change the print ISBN to the eBook ISBN d) Crop complex tables into images e) Use the printed cover or marketing cover of the printed book as the cover image of the ePub files; f) Parse/validate the ePub files using the ePub Checker; g) Perform final viewing of ePub files on various ePub readers; h) Incorporate all other specifications provided Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Proposed Workflow – Print PDF to XML, HTML and ePub Approved PDFs files from Don File analysis and resource allocation Text and image extraction XML tag font changes (auto) Image cropping and resizing Manual XML tagging Validation EQA PDF to PDF comparison and corrections Quality checking by external quality group Does accuracy meet SLA? XSLT designing HTML conversion Yes File delivery to Don ePub conversion and Validation PDF to PDF comparison and corrections Other quality checks EQA Confidential No Send error report to production for corrections Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Quality Control Mechanism PHi has a comprehensive Quality Management System (QMS), which is ISO 9001-2015 certified by DNV GL, Norway and covers almost all areas of production processes. An external quality team will be allocated for the project to ensure that every deliverable goes through a thorough auditing process before it is delivered to Don. Quality Checking PHi will perform the following quality checks to ensure accuracy of the output files: a. 100% character for character verification of text, styles, equations, tables etc. b. 100% character for character proofreading of corrections and modifications. c. PDF to PDF comparison after ePub, XML and HTML conversions. d. Validation of marked-up documents at all production stages. e. Certification of accuracy by an external quality group within PHi. The minimum text accuracy that Don can expect is as follows: Input Accuracy Text 100% Styles and tagging 99.9% Quality Audit Besides the production QA process, PHi has a well established External Quality Assurance process that covers the process and product audits. The objectives of such audits are to perform Create a QA over QC process and determine ways to improve effectiveness of the deployed processes. These audits are performed by External Quality Assurance (EQA) group. Process Audit: Process Audit (Internal Audit) plan is a part of the PHi’s QA system, which is prepared by Head - EQA, according to the Service Level Agreement. The various steps involved in the Process Audit are: Confidential Prepare Audit Schedule: Head EQA defines the scope covered in each Audit. Project team and support functions are identified and informed. Form the Audit Team: The QA team consists of quality executives and members of the EQA who are well conversant with the defined processes. Ready Audit Checklist: Audit questionnaires are prepared before the process audits and the same are used while conducting the audits. Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Determine Compliance: The audit team interviews the representatives from production and reviews the project’s quality records; determines compliance to the baseline processes and procedures and makes observations on non-conformities; and solicits feedbacks from the team and identifies opportunities for improvement. Audit Report: Head EQA prepare a report to accurately reflect observations and findings and; Non-conformities identified are communicated through an e-mail to the Project Managers, and the Senior Management; and Corrective and Preventive actions are taken in collaboration with the Project Manager. Product Audit: The Product Audit is planned in the Project Plan of large batches and is conducted after the Project Manager has signed-off the project (before the Project Release). Product Audit is a sampling exercise conducted as follows: 1. Randomly select 7% test cases from the production files a. If all test cases pass, the product (batch) is accepted b. If 1-25% of test cases do not match with the results, take additional 25% test cases: i. If all the test cases pass, then the product is accepted but the errors found are corrected before batch delivery ii. If any test case of these 25% fails, the product is rejected and rolled back to the production team for rework. c. If greater than 25% of test case do not match, the batch is rejected 2. For rejected work products, the Project Manager decides to get re-work, and correction. We assure Don that every file delivered will go through our stringent process quality checking and auditing. Files will be delivered to Don only after obtaining the quality certificate. Confidential Proposal for Don – Composition & ePublishing Capacity and Turn-around-time We assure Don that we have the required capacity to take up any volume that Don eventually decides to assign us, taking in to consideration maximum yearly volume of 600 books. It is understood that the volume would be evenly spread thought out the year. We accept the Turn-around-time proposed by Don in the RFP document and ensure that Don we will allocate the necessary resources to execute the project by the specified deadlines, regardless of the volume assigned to us. We will keep a back-up team always ready in the event of anticipated/unanticipated delays. Information on local holidays and any reshuffling of resources will be shared with Don well in advance and time extension, if unavoidable, will be sought accordingly. PHi has 24x7 operations which give our clients the privilege of getting their urgent jobs done during the weekends as well. We propose the following delivery times for composition services: Composition Services First round Corrections round 1 Standard Composition 14-18 days 3 days 2 days 1 day Composition of Fast-track titles 8-10 days 2 days 2 days 1 day XML and ePub (after approval of print proofs) 5 days PDF eBook (after approval of print proofs) 2 days Confidential Corrections round 2 Corrections round 3