Southern Lithoplate Inc. announced sales through the CTP Alliance to four newspapers.

The Norfolk (Neb.) Daily News tapped the alliance for SLP’s Viper 830 thermal plates, Screen’s PlateRite News 2000LE platesetter and Polkadots Software’s Introflo workflow app.

The all-digital workflow replaces two imagesetters, two film-processing lines and two plate burners.

Daily News General Manager Les Mann said his newspaper’s existing relationship with SLP was key in the buy.

 “Our history with them has been great,” he said. “The slam dunk was being able to resolve the issue of redundancy by developing a relationship with a nearby printer. We agreed to serve as each other’s backup in case of an emergency. We feel we have the redundancy we need.”

Runge Publishing Inc., based in Renfrew, Ontario, incorporated Viper 830 plates and a PlateRite News 2000S into its prepress operation. The thermal PlateRite News replaced a UV-Setter 57 from basysPrint, which imaged computer-to-conventional plates.

Runge is a division of Torstar’s Metroland Media Group Ltd., and produces community newspapers in eastern Ontario including Ottawa Valley area publications the Renfrew Mercury, Arnprior Chronicle-Guide, Stittsville News and KanataKourier-Standard.

The publisher’s prepress department outputs an average of 4,000 plates per month, according to Dennis Girard, plant manager.

“We’re very pleased with the system we installed,” he said.