The split usually has a history. The print workflow came first, built around a page layout tool and an issue schedule. The website arrived later with its own CMS, and stories were copied across once the issue was finished. Over time the web became daily, and the copying became a job in itself.
The cost shows up in small ways: corrections made in one place and not the other, images cleared for print but not online, and digital teams waiting for files that are already finished.
Decide where the story lives
The first decision is which system holds the master copy. For most publishers that is now the CMS, with print layouts drawing on it, because the website is updated more often and reaches more readers. Some titles still work better print-first. Either can work, but only one place can be the source of truth for each story.
- The edited text, including late corrections
- Headlines and standfirsts, with separate print and web versions where they differ
- Images, captions, credits and the rights for each channel
- Issue, section and page information
- Status: commissioned, in edit, subbed, approved, published
Keep the issue as a thing in its own right
Print readers still buy issues, and many publishers sell back issues and digital editions. The CMS should know which stories belong to which issue, and in what order, so an issue can be presented as a whole online and reused later without rebuilding it by hand.
Two production lines means every story is handled twice. One workflow means it is handled once and published twice.
Rights travel with the image
Picture rights often differ between print and web, and again for social and syndication. If rights live in a spreadsheet or someone's memory, images end up where they should not be. Holding them alongside the image in the CMS lets the system warn, or block, before anyone has to remember.
Bring both teams in early
- Map both workflows step by step before designing anything
- Find where work is duplicated, and agree which side owns each step
- Pilot the joined workflow on one section or title before rolling it out
- Keep the page layout tool if it works, and connect it rather than replace it
Joining print and digital is mostly a question of who does what, and when. Settle that first, and the software can be designed around the answer rather than the other way round.
