Having installed a Matrix CMS system at Falk & Ross' UK subsidiary BTC, we're pleased to announce that we've installed a system for BTC's parent company Falk & Ross.

Falk & Ross are Europe's largest distributor of promotional clothing. They have offices all over Europe and are using Matrix CMS in a wide variety of languages including; English, German, French, Spanish, Polish, Czech and Dutch. The system will be distributed all over Europe with system management taking place in Germany, product management in the UK, translation in various countries and page design in the Netherlands. The translation module of Matrix CMS has been massively enhanced to deal with the complexities involved. Matrix CMS is a Unicode system so storing the various non-Western European characters languages like Polish, Czech and Hungarian contain isn't a problem. However the difficulties of creating a set of pan-European catalogues with multiple languages and multiple pricing but without making separate documents, is quite a challenge.

For example;You create a French catalogue, it has French text and Euro prices and a QR code for a link to a French website. Then you make a French/Swiss catalogue, this has French text, but the prices are in Swiss Francs and the QR code is to the Swiss website. The German/Swiss catalogue is also in Swiss Francs, also has a Swiss QR code but now has German as it's language! This overlapping of languages, currencies and other items like QR codes is further complicated by there being a "dealer priced", "consumer priced" and un-priced version of each catalogue.

Matrix CMS automates all this using InDesign layers, so using the example and chronology of the versions above, when you came to make a German catalogue, the system would simply open each page, turn the existing proofed German language layer on which was created for the German/Swiss catalogue, turn the existing Euro pricing layer on from the French catalogue and update the QR codes for the German website. This all happens automatically, including the creation of PDFs. Checks need to be made for overflow of text because the length of each product description can vary between language, but normally enough room is left to accommodate the wordier languages such as Polish and German.

All this automation of what is a very complicated production, proofing and collation problem has obviously produced massive accuracy, time and cost savings.