Case Study: Amar Chitra Katha

How India’s largest comic publisher scales multilingual titles without breaking artwork

At a glance

Customer - Amar Chitra Katha
‍Industry - Publishing, Comics
‍Use cases - Comic localization, DTP automation, scan-to-editable
‍Products used - Nativ Dashboard, Photoshop plugin, InDesign plugin, API
‍Outputs - Edit-ready InDesign packages, print-ready PDFs, low-res proofs
‍Languages - 10 major Indian languages with room to expand

‍Headline results

More than 1 Billion new customers unlocked.
From 2 weeks to 45 minutes for routine 24 to 32 page titles‍
Artwork and panel rhythm preserved
Editor controls for glossary and style guide
Parallel production across multiple titles and languages

About Amar Chitra Katha

Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle are India’s most loved comics that reach tens of millions of readers across India and the diaspora. With over 500 tiles published, the editorial bar is high. Artwork, lettering, panel rhythm, and voice must stay intact while titles ship in multiple Indian languages. The team wanted a faster, controllable way to take titles into 10 major Indian languages - Hindi, English, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam - without losing artwork integrity and font feel.

Challenges before using Nativ

ACK needed a way to scale titles across languages without losing what makes comics sing:

Dense comic layouts

Speech bubbles, narrations, SFX, onomatopoeia, overlapping scenes, stylized type packed per page

Dense comic layouts

Speech bubbles, narrations, SFX, onomatopoeia, overlapping scenes, stylized type packed per page

Dense comic layouts

Speech bubbles, narrations, SFX, onomatopoeia, overlapping scenes, stylized type packed per page

Strict print specs

Bleeds, 100% black text, DPI, and font consistency for print

Strict print specs

Bleeds, 100% black text, DPI, and font consistency for print

Strict print specs

Bleeds, 100% black text, DPI, and font consistency for print

Brand and editorial control

Protect proprietary names, keep spacing/kerning consistent, reflow without harming art.

Brand and editorial control

Protect proprietary names, keep spacing/kerning consistent, reflow without harming art.

Brand and editorial control

Protect proprietary names, keep spacing/kerning consistent, reflow without harming art.

“Nativ helped us turn complex comics into clean, editable, multilingual packages, fast.”

- Ramesh, Manager - Strategic Initiatives, ACK

Why ACK chose Nativ

Production-grade outputs: InDesign packages and print-ready PDFs, not just mockups.

End-to-end tools: Photoshop and InDesign workflows, dashboard, APIs, and pricing built for scale.
Quality tiers with SLAs: Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3 options with QC and external QA for 99%+ assurance when required.
Enterprise guardrails: Service warranty, confidentiality, and IP ownership terms suitable for a marquee publisher.

“This looks pretty good.”

Preeti Vyas, Former CEO, ACK

Implementation & adoption

Onsite working session in Mumbai with product demos and roadmap alignment

WhatsApp and email follow-ups captured action items:
- Handle voice effects separately from bubble text
- Use image context alongside surrounding text for accuracy
- Allow glossary and style-guide upload
- Expose horizontal spacing along with font size and vertical spacing
- Support scanned pages
- Offer multiple candidate outputs to choose the best rendition
Production flow: receive open files or optimized PDFs, localize and re-typeset, return print-ready InDesign packages and PDFs for proofing

“Print checks were solid. 100 percent black text, bleeds, DPI, all correct.”

Manish Dalvi, Graphic Designer, ACK

What shipped

Nativ delivered:

Titles localized across 10 major Indian languages, including complex pages with dense speech bubbles and SFX
Edit-ready InDesign packages so ACK can fine-tune bubbles, margins, and fonts in house
Low-res PDFs for annotation, then locked print-ready files after signoff

“We picked the best of three outputs and moved on. Huge time saver.”

Savio Mascarenhas, Group Art Director, ACK

Results

By partnering with Nativ, ACK has gained:

Speed: Hours, not weeks. Teams move from manual DTP to a repeatable, parallelized pipeline
Scale: Multiple titles and languages running in parallel with consistent QA gates
Quality: Fonts preserved, spacing consistent, 100 percent black text where required, clean bleeds and cut marks, DPI intact
Control: Proprietary names and universe terms respected via glossary rules. SFX handled as SFX, not as dialogue

“Ten languages in hours, not weeks. Our team could actually keep schedule.”

Sonali Jain, Senior Manager, ACK

Key Takeaways

New readers unlocked

10 Indian languages across India and the diaspora, ready for distribution on web, print, and digital storefronts, to over 1 billion readers.

New readers unlocked

10 Indian languages across India and the diaspora, ready for distribution on web, print, and digital storefronts, to over 1 billion readers.

Lower DTP overhead

Revisions channeled into one source of truth with InDesign packages and editorial control on ACK’s side.

Lower DTP overhead

Revisions channeled into one source of truth with InDesign packages and editorial control on ACK’s side.

Finance friendly

Predictable rate cards and invoicing simplify budgeting.

Finance friendly

Predictable rate cards and invoicing simplify budgeting.

Looking Ahead

Expand title coverage and languages

Extend to audiobook scripts and motion assets using the same QA bar

“Scan to editable worked cleanly. We proofed in InDesign and shipped.”

Harshal Narse, Senior Graphic Designer, ACK

About Nativ

Nativ is an AI-powered localization and culturalization platform built for marketing and creative teams. It automates translation and formatting of PSDs, videos, and other assets into multiple languages while preserving brand voice, design integrity, and cultural fit.