More revenue per ad
While your customers are still typing, the Stylo ServerRenderer shows designed variants of their ad – the perfect stage for upselling. The ServerRenderer is included in the licence at no extra cost. Learn more ↓
The ad editor that helps you sell
Stylo is the online editor for publishers: your customers design their ads in the browser, Stylo checks them for print and suggests suitable upgrades – in your ad system and in your customer portal.
Why Stylo
What Stylo does for your publishing house
Six reasons that count in the ad business.
Error-free into print
Stylo warns about low-resolution images and overset text, checks against a blocklist, reports problems to your ad system and can refuse to save if you wish. Newspaper ICC profiles such as ISOnewspaper26v4 ensure reliable colours. That means fewer complaints and less rework.
AI that pitches in
Alice, the AI assistant built into the Stylo editor, generates images, removes backgrounds, extends motifs and automatically upscales images that are too small. She suggests texts and corrects them. You decide in the template what Alice may do – and with Mistral, a European AI provider is available too.
Print and digital from one template
The same template produces the print ad and the version for your digital channels – animated, too, with the Animation Machine. Learn more ↓
Full control for the publisher
With rights groups and the Configurator you decide what your customers may do in the editor – from free design to pure text entry. Fonts are stored centrally on the server, so your brand and your font licences stay protected.
Integrated into your system
Stylo runs in the browser and can be embedded in ad systems and self-service portals: via a postMessage API and StyloCallback, as a Docker image and multi-tenant.
All the new features at a glance: find out what’s new in Stylo in our Helpdesk →
References
Publishers who trust Stylo
ServerRenderer
Upselling that designs itself
While your customers are still typing, the Stylo ServerRenderer keeps showing updated variants of their ad – with a frame, with a background, with an image. Switching takes a single click, and text and images are kept. Best of all: the ServerRenderer is included in the Stylo licence.
Recommendations in real time
The variants are created in the background while your customers type. In a self-service portal, every classified ad becomes an upgrade offer.
Template swap without loss
Switch from one template to another without re-entering text or images – in the portal as well as in the ad system.
Data in, ad out
The ServerRenderer automatically inserts data from partners into your templates. The result is a complete Stylo file that can be edited at any time – soon also in combination with the SML-Mapper.
Output without lifting a finger
PDF for print, JPG or PNG for online channels – the ServerRenderer creates them automatically, without anyone opening the editor.
Animation Machine
Ads that move
With the Animation Machine you bring ads to life right in Stylo – no extra tool needed. The same template produces the print ad and the animated version for websites and apps. For your publishing house it’s a new product, for your customers an eye-catcher.
Keyframes and easing
You set keyframes, Stylo calculates the motion in between. Easing curves make movements smooth and natural – from a gentle fade-in to a lively entrance.
Triggers for hover and click
Animations start as soon as someone moves the mouse over the ad or clicks on it. The ad responds to its audience.
With sound
Music, jingle or voice: audio can be embedded directly in the ad and reinforces the message.
An add-on to sell
Offer the animated version as an option alongside the print ad. It is output via the new HTML5 export and runs in current browsers without plug-ins.
Try it yourself
Try the animation →
Make an animated ad your own
Try it on a second sample ad: a garden centre advertising in four scenes, ending with a date and QR code. Swap the texts, images and QR code – Stylo re-sets the ad and plays the animation straight away.
Coming soon: SML-Mapper
Data delivery in, finished page out
The SML-Mapper (SML stands for Stylo Markup Language) is Stylo’s data import: it takes deliveries from suppliers and editorial systems – death notice listings, cinema programmes, concert dates, classified sections – and typesets them automatically with the paragraph styles of your Stylo template. Together with the ServerRenderer, this produces a finished page without any manual work.
Seven formats, one tool
JSON, CSV, tagged text, RTF, pseudo-HTML from legacy typesetting systems, exports from PageOne and HTML from editorial systems. XML and Word are on their way.
Configure instead of programming
Instead of writing a separate converter for every supplier, you create a profile. A sample file instantly produces a working draft, which you refine in the interface with a live preview.
Proof print at the push of a button
The SML-Mapper has the ServerRenderer set a sample file directly into your template. You see the finished page as a PDF without opening Stylo.
Watch folder with Stylo
A delivery with hundreds of records lands in the input folder. The SML-Mapper splits it into individual documents, and the ServerRenderer typesets each one – as PDF, SVG, PNG or JPG, as you choose.
Release with a safety net
A profile only goes live once all expected results match. Every version is saved, and you can return to an earlier release in no time.
Nothing gets lost silently
Anything that can’t be transferred is listed in the report, with a count. And special characters such as m², ½ or € arrive correctly, even from PageOne exports.
In detail
Highlights from the editor
What makes the difference in everyday work – from family announcements to smartphone photos.
Family announcements with feeling
Verses and text modules for obituaries, birth and Easter announcements help where the right words are hard to find.
Smartphone photos go straight in
Stylo understands modern image formats such as HEIC, AVIF and JPEG XL. Photos from a smartphone go into the ad without a detour.
Vertical justification
When the text grows or shrinks, Stylo automatically distributes the space between text boxes and graphics – according to proportional factors you define. The ad stays balanced.
Spelling and hyphenation
Spell checking and hyphenation work in German, English, French and Spanish.
Effects like in a graphics program
Drop shadow, glow, bevel, blur and blend modes, plus path operations, text wrap and linked text frames.
Guided tours
Built-in tours guide new users through the editor step by step. No elaborate training is needed.
One tool for everything
You build templates and enter ads in the same editor. There is no separate template designer – and with it no extra training or licences.
Made for touch
On tablets and touch devices, a dedicated touch-optimised interface is available – on the desktop, too, if you wish.
Four languages
The Stylo interface is available in German, English, French and Spanish.
Beyond ads
One editor, many products
Stylo grew up as an ad editor. But its strengths – templates with firm rules, pre-press checks, automatic output – pay off wherever a fixed layout meets changing content. For your publishing house, that means new products from the tool you already have.
Print products for your customers
Business cards and flyers are built as Stylo templates just like ads: your customers fill them in in the browser, and Stylo checks them for print.
Whole pages from data
With the SML-Mapper, Stylo typesets not just single ads but whole pages from data deliveries – from death notice listings to the cinema programme. Learn more ↑
For web and app
The same template produces JPG and PNG for online channels – and, with the Animation Machine, animated HTML5 versions. Learn more ↑
Thinking of a completely different use? Whether in publishing or beyond – talk to us. We’ll gladly provide demo material and show you what Stylo can already do today. Contact us →
Integration
Fits into your system
You embed Stylo in your ad system or self-service portal via a postMessage API with around 60 commands and the JavaScript interface StyloCallback. The editor runs as a Docker image, is multi-tenant and can be undocked into a separate window if you wish. Stylo is already fully integrated in the alfa Webstore. More about integration →
Administration & configuration
Elegantly set up, smoothly run
Behind the scenes, three tools keep Stylo in shape: the Administration for tenants and system settings, the Configurator for interface and rights, and the Stylo Toolbox for checking, maintaining and operating.
Rights at a click, in the real editor
The Configurator opens the editor exactly as your customers see it. Every menu, every colour, every tool has a checkbox: you tick what a rights group may do and see right away how it looks.
An interface made to measure
Font sizes, line spacing, colours, effects, zoom levels and themes are set in the Configurator – as are Alice’s actions, with your own prompts for text and images.
Tenants under control
In the Administration you create tenants, based on the settings of an existing one if you like. That’s where you manage image resolutions, ICC profiles, image pools, image connectors such as OpenMedia and MediaStore, and the AI providers. Administration and configuration use separate keys.
Stylo Toolbox: checking documents
Overset text, missing fonts, placeholders, blocklist, image resolution, RGB images in CMYK print: the Toolbox checks templates and ads and draws the chain of the vertical justification. It opens directly from the editor with the current document.
Maintaining content and fonts
Verses, logos, images, decorations, border styles and sounds for animations are managed in clear tiles, with a recycle bin, export and backup. When merging font pools, the Fontpool Merger suggests the matching families.
Operations and support
After an installation or update, the Stylo Check shows whether everything is running, and the AI connection can be tested at the push of a button. For support, a diagnostic file bundles all findings – access credentials stay out.
Stylo in action
Arrange a consultation →
From draft to finished ad.
Design, check, sell: Stylo brings everything your ad business needs together in one editor.
Prefer to talk right away? Call us on +49 6074 3104-0 or email info@alfamedia.com. Or design something yourself first in the workshop.