CSI (1978 - 2001)Hermes (2000 - 2010)Méthode (2009 - present)
Bob Rosenthal has had a direct and significant impact to multiple generations of the publishing infrastructure that Dow Jones has used to produce The Wall Street Journal and Barron's magazine. Every word printed in the Journal and in Barron's since 1978 has been processed in an RAR-developed system.
These include systems at the heart of the operation:
CSI (1978 - 2001)
Hermes (2000 - 2010)
Méthode (2009 - present)
And others that have played a significant supporting role:
GGS (1997 - 2014)
GAMS (2003 - present)
Global Sked (2004 - 2013)
The relationship between RAR and Dow Jones began in 1978 when Dow Jones installed the CSI system, on which RAR was the software architect and lead programmer, in DJ's Chicopee and Dallas composing plants. The system soon migrated to Hong Kong, Brussels and The World Financial Center and became the front-end system for all WSJ and Barron's editors.
RAR with former WSJ publisher Karen Elliott House
on the day in 2001 when the CSI system was shut down
During the 1980's, after CSI had been acquired by Crosfield, RAR was the local chief executive while a joint Dow Jones - CSI project named "typenodes" was installed throughout Dow Jones editing and composing sites.
During the 1990's, after RAR had become an independent consultant, Dow Jones hired EDS to produce the GNMS system as the successor to CSI, and EDS in turn contracted RAR to design and develop the composition engine. The GNMS project was ultimately discarded, however its composition package was successfully used for two years to produce WSJ regional and special editions.
The GNMS project also had the requirement to replace DJ's twenty-plus-year-old messaging system named IMOS. At this GNMS was succcessful, principally due to RAR's design of the Global Gateway System (GGS), which for many years provided communication services among DJ's vast array of sites, systems and computers.
In the 2000's RAR performed systems analyses and produced designs for two systems, GAMS and Global Sked, used for the management & scheduling of all the graphics and stories that appear in DJ publications. Global Sked was replaced in 2013 by the Topics functionality of Méthode, while (as of May, 2016) GAMS is still running.
RAR first developed all the styles and formats needed to produce the WSJ, WSJA, WSJE and Barron's as part of the GNMS project. When in 1999 DJ deployed the Hermes pagination system, RAR was again asked to develop these formats, and then again ten years later when Méthode replaced Hermes. RAR is now involved in every expansion or redesign of Dow Jones print publications.
1995 GNMS
1999 Hermes
2002 Color Redesign, Personal Journal
2005 Overseas Compacts, Weekend Edition, Barron's Redesign
2006 Barron's Page Depth Reduction
2007 WSJ Page Width Reduction
2009 Méthode
2010 Review & Off Duty
2011 Color-48, NY Post Méthode Conversion
2012 Mansion
2015 Global Journal
2016 Project Add-A-Line
2017 New York Post Leisure Pages
2018 WSJ Exchange, Weekend Design Refresh
2020 Barron's Design Refresh
2022 Barron's Statistics Section Redesign
RAR has been brought back from semi-retirement to rebuild all of the WSJ, WSJA and WSJE news page templates as part of the Global Journal project. This project brings a single full color, global edition of The Wall Street Journal, with some regional variations, to a world-wide audience. No longer are graphics re-cropped or headlines re-written to fit a different grid.
Over the past years the Méthode publishing system from EidosMedia has been successfully established as the single publishing platform for Dow Jones' entire roster of print, web and mobile publications. RAR has been an integral part of the implementation team, and the senior member in the area of developing typesetting styles, formats and page templates. This year he led the print side of the "Color-48" project which significantly expanded the number of full-color pages in The Wall Street Journal. He was also asked to assist in implementing Méthode for The New York Post, another News Corporation publication.
RAR with EidosMedia project manager Julien Febvre and WSJ.com editor Brian Fitzgerald
at the dinner celebrating WSJ's completion of Project Gemini
RAR was named to the team implementing the new EidosMedia publication system chosen by Dow Jones for production of the Wall Street Journal's domestic, Asian and European editions as well as WSJ.com, Barrons and the MarketWatch web site. This system is a strategic step by parent company News Corp. that allows a single system to be used for the production of "media independent" content that is delivered to print, to the world-wide-web and to mobile devices. RAR was once again asked to implement the "look" of Dow Jones' print media products.
January 2nd saw the debut of WSJ 3.0, the new Wall Street Journal for the digital age. The newspaper was narrowed by three inches, introduced new fonts throughout and incorporated many new features and techniques to more thoroughly integrate it with the WSJ.com web site. For RAR this was a huge job, requiring rebuilding of every typographical command & format and rebuilding hundreds of page templates, all of which had to be ready to launch on the same day. As he has many times before, RAR wrote the "Formatting & Pagination Guide", the bible of production techniques which sits on the desk of every WSJ editor and paginator.
With the new narrower WSJ coming at the end of the year, the physics of printing presses demanded that the page size of the Barron's weekly magazine be shortened by three inches. RAR performed this work in the Spring of 2006, and then nine months later, it debuted without a hitch.
In the Fall of 2005 two large projects, both critical to Dow Jones future, took place simultaneously-- the introduction of the WSJ Weekend Edition and the shrinking of the Asian and European Journals to "compact" size. Both of these projects required extensive formatting and programming efforts by RAR.
Spring, 2005 -- RAR implemented a complete redesign of Barron's weekly magazine.
Global Sked -- The WSJ editors manage three daily publications, one each in New York, Hong Kong and Brussels, and their main tool for planning and scheduling is the Global Sked system. This allows them to keep track of every story, determine in which editions and where each runs and how the play, length and art may vary in each. RAR conducted user interviews, performed all the systems analysis and wrote the functional specifications. The system met unanimous approval from a very critical audience, and as the editor of the Money & Investing section said, "It is really fun to use!"
GAMS -- In a manner similar to Global Sked WSJ editors and art directors manage the graphic content of all three publications with this system, also conceived and specified by RAR.
RAR implemented the first redesign of the WSJ in sixty years. Also, and almost simultaneously, he converted the Asian and European WSJs to full digital pagination.
RAR was instrumental in converting The Wall Street Journal and Barron's to full digital page production, allowing Dow Jones to finally retire its aging CSI system.
GGS -- RAR conceived and designed the Dow Jones Global Gateway System.
RTF Text Conversion -- Every story produced by Dow Jones reporters (using Microsoft Word) is converted by RAR-written software into special text formats requied by the DJ production systems.
RAR's portion of the ill-fated GNMS project met all requirements and was used for two years to produce the weekly Regional Journals.
RAR was the general manager of Crosfield CSI at the time the Typenodes system was installed at several Dow Jones sites. This system, which was used to deliver type to all the composing plants, used special CSI systems that allowed editors to make fit decisions without regard to the particular brand of typesetting machine used for production.
RAR was the software architect and the lead programmer of the system used for twenty-two years to edit and typeset The Wall Street Journal.