Automatic high speed publishing system

An apparatus for imaging a publication composed of manuscript material such as text and graphics, said apparatus comprising:

• a computer system including
• means for defining the structure of a publication to be imaged to include a plurality of identifiable entities associable with manuscript material wherein said entities make up at least a portion of said structure, and for assigning at least one imaging attribute to each entity before associating a manuscript material therewith,
• means for receiving manuscript material along with entity-identifying information,
• means for associating said material with ones of said entities identified by said information, and
• means for imaging said manuscript material associated with each of said entities according to said attributes assigned thereto, said imaging means further including
• means for searching the manuscript material associated with predetermined ones of said entities for at least one predetermined manuscript item,
• means for retrieving, in response to detection of said manuscript item, predetermined manuscript material stored in said computer system memory and unassociated with any particular publication, and
• means for imaging said predetermined manuscript material in association with said entity having said manuscript item.

A method of imaging a cook book for printing, the cook book including recipes with each recipe having a title, ingredient list, and recipe method, said method comprising the steps of:

• defining in a computer system entities making up the structure of the cook book to include at least the entities of recipe and associated recipe title, ingredient list and method;
• assigning an entity-identifying code to each of said entities and assigning at least one imaging attribute to each of said entities;
• receiving manuscript material into said computer system including recipes and associated recipe titles, ingredient lists and methods identified by respective codes without any attribute information included in said manuscript material;
• performing at least one processing operation on said manuscript material before imaging in accordance with said attributes;
• and
• imaging said manuscript material according to said attributes into a camera-ready signature page format to include left and right hand pages, said imaging step including the steps of
• searching the manuscript material associated with at least one of said recipe title entities for a predetermined food item word,
• retrieving in response to detection of said word a predetermined graphical icon stored in said computer system memory and unassociated with any particular publication and illustrative of said food item, and
• imaging said icon in association with the recipe of the recipe title having said word on the same page therewith.