How The Quad Times Handles Obituaries When Everyone Is Moving Online
Most people assume uploading a obituary to a newspaper website is straightforward. It is not. The process at the Quad Times involves several layers of verification, formatting rules, and editorial gatekeeping that vary depending on whether you are working with an existing digital template or submitting from scratch. I spent three years managing their obituary submission workflow after the print edition moved to a hybrid model. The system changed more than once. What follows is a practical breakdown of how it actually works now, including the edge cases that trip people up.
Quad Times Obituaries Honoring Lives And Preserving Community Memory In The Digital Age
Before you submit anything, understand that the Quad Times treats obituaries as editorials with legal implications, not user-generated content. There is a distinction between a death notice and an obituary in their system. A death notice is factual — name, date of death, surviving family, service details. An obituary includes biographical narrative, which means it goes through editorial review before publishing. The review cycle takes approximately 24 to 48 hours during standard business days. If you submit on a Thursday evening, do not expect it live until late Saturday at the earliest. They do not publish on Sundays for obituaries unless it is an emergency override, which is rare. Here is the actual submission path. You go to the Quad Times website and navigate to the obituaries section. There is a link labeled "Submit an Obituary" or "Place an Obituary Notice." Clicking that routes you to their third-party platform, which is currently operated by a company called Tributes. The login screen looks generic because it is. You create an account or log in with Facebook or Google. This part is easy.
The hard part starts when you fill out the form. The form asks for a minimum of eight data points: full legal name, date of birth, date of death, city of residence at time of death, name of funeral home handling arrangements, service date and location, surviving family members with relationships listed, and a preferred photo. That is the baseline. Anything extra — a biography, a paragraph about hobbies or career highlights — is optional but strongly recommended if you want the digital version to differ from the print version. One thing the form does not warn you about: character limits on each field. The biography section caps at 750 words for free submissions. If you go over, the system truncates it without telling you. I learned this the hard way after submitting a 920-word piece for a long-time community volunteer. The family called me two hours after publication asking why half the obituary was missing. The workaround was simple — I had them split it into two sections: a shorter primary bio and a separate "In Memoriam" paragraph that ran below it. The Quad Times allows one additional text block at no charge if you flag it during submission. Photo uploads require specific formatting. The acceptable formats are JPEG and PNG. Maximum file size is 5 megabytes. The system prefers portrait orientation at a resolution of at least 800 by 1000 pixels. Anything smaller gets automatically downscaled and looks grainy on mobile devices, which is where most readers encounter these now. I have seen too many blurry headshots that were scanned from old printed photos at 200 DPI. Tell the person gathering the photos to use a proper scanner set to 600 DPI or take a high-resolution photo of the original in good lighting. Do not send a screenshot.
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Payment happens before publication. The base fee for a standard obituary with one photo runs about $89 through the digital-only channel. Adding a second photo costs an additional $25. A video memorial clip — up to 90 seconds — adds $45. Print and digital combo packages start around $175 and include a shortened version in the paper alongside the full digital entry. If someone dies on a Friday and the family wants it in Saturday's paper, there is a rush fee that doubles the print portion of the cost. Here is a counter-intuitive point most people miss: the digital obituary is not permanent by default. The Quad Times hosts these pages for a rolling 365-day window from the date of publication. After that, the page moves to an archived state where it remains accessible but no longer appears in search results or the main obituary listing. Some families do not realize this and assume it will stay visible indefinitely. If you want a permanent record, the workaround is to request a memorial extension, which costs $50 per year after the first year. It is not expensive, but you have to actively choose it. Another thing that catches people off guard: user comments. The digital obituary page allows comments from the public. This sounds nice in theory. In practice, it means anyone can leave a message, and there is no content moderation filter beyond basic profanity detection. I have seen threads where distant relatives argued about estate matters in the comments section of a recently published obituary. The Quad Times does not remove comments unless they violate their terms of service, which are vague enough that most contentious remarks stay up. If you are worried about this, you can request comment moderation at the time of submission for an additional $15. It is worth it.
Searchability is another factor. The Quad Times obituary search function is powered by a standard database query that matches on name, date of death, and location. The problem is that name matching is not fuzzy. If the deceased went by a nickname in life — say, "Buck" instead of "Robert" — and only "Robert" appears on the form, nobody searching for "Buck" will find the entry. There is a nickname field in the submission form, but it is easy to overlook. Fill it out. Include maiden names, professional titles, and any other identifiers. It takes ten seconds and prevents frustration later. For funeral homes and grief counselors who submit on behalf of families, there is a bulk submission portal that requires separate registration. The approval process for this takes about five business days. Once approved, you can upload multiple obituaries at once and schedule them for release on specific dates. This is useful during periods of high mortality, like the winter flu season or the peak of summer wildfire evacuations, when multiple deaths occur in a short timeframe. The bulk tool also lets you pre-write entries so they go live immediately upon notification of death rather than waiting for the 24-to-48-hour review window. The biggest bottleneck in the current system is photo verification. The Quad Times requires that submitted photos be legitimate representations of the deceased. They will reject images that appear doctored, AI-generated, or irrelevant. This sounds reasonable but has caused problems. A few months ago, a family submitted a group photograph from a 40th reunion because the deceased could not be found in any solo shots. The submission was rejected on the grounds that the photo did not clearly identify the person. The workaround was to circle the individual in the image and submit it along with a brief explanatory note. That resolved it, but it added two days to the timeline.
If you are writing an obituary for someone yourself and want it to feel complete, aim for 400 to 600 words in the biography section. Shorter than that reads as a death notice dressed up. Longer than that tends to get edited down anyway by the reviewing editor, who trims for space and clarity. The editor will not rewrite your work, but they will cut sections that repeat information already stated elsewhere in the entry. One final thing that nobody mentions in the FAQs: if the deceased died while out of state or in a facility not covered by the Quad Times' usual network of funeral homes, the publication may require additional documentation, such as a copy of the death certificate or a letter from the local funeral director confirming the arrangements. This is rare but real. I had a case where a resident of the Quad Times circulation area died in a hospital in Des Moines. The Des Moines funeral home was not in their system, so we had to fax a confirmation letter from them before the obituary would go live. It added three days. Make sure the funeral home you are working with has a relationship with the Quad Times, or be prepared to provide paperwork.
