San Francisco — Just about a month back, popular designing software maker Adobe Inc., unveiled its Creative Suite 6, Creative Cloud and a new video platform for broadcasters, Adobe has been mighty busy lately and has freshly announced a handful of new features for producing, publishing, and promoting tablet publications created with its Digital Publishing Suite over the weekend, with a little something that could make every digital-magazine designer cry tears of joy.
Major publishers globally employ Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) to craft digital versions of their InDesign print publications for tablets and smartphones. Initially, it all started when Adobe associated with Condé Nast publication Wired to create a digital version of The New Yorker, its magazine for the then brand-new iPad. But soon, many big brands adopted DPS, including multiple Condé titles, National Geographic, and Wenner Media.
The company further stated that the latest version of the suite would bring the addition of Apple handset support through the release of the Content Viewer for iPhone application. The company assess that the tool will open up DPS to some 220 million users who run iPhone and iPod Touch devices.
Designers will be most thrilled about the new Alternative Layout feature, which makes it possible to re-purpose a single InDesign layout for multiple devices without having to start from scratch. To begin with, publishers should now be able to customize their content specifically for the iPhone, just as they can for the iPad, Kindle Fire and Android tablets, or any other screen with a different aspect ratio.
Interestingly, art sections used to working in InDesign can now take a single layout and repurpose it across multiple devices. In addition, DPS is now combined with Adobe Edge, which means publishers can create HTML5 animations and then easily port them over to their digital editions.
Among other cool features that is bundled with this update was the expansion of social networking components for DPS. Social Sharing is exactly what it sounds like: it promises to make it easier for people reading these magazines to share stories using built-in email, Twitter and Facebook functionality.
Moving forward, the company anticipates that the update will help to engage readers more and improve interaction.
“As readers voraciously devour mobile content, they are constantly requesting dynamic, shareable reading experiences across tablet and mobile phones,” said Adobe creative and media solutions vice president and general manager Jim Guerard.
“Adobe’s digital publishing innovations thrusts the industry forward by allowing publishers to reach and monetize an unprecedented number of consumers hungry for dynamic, one-of-a-kind mobile reading experiences,” Guerard added.
Nevertheless, this labor-saving feature arrived just in the nick of time — Adobe also announced that DPS can now publish to the iPhone and iPod touch with its new Content Viewer. Other tweaks to the suite contains improved analytics tools, integration with new CS6 custom-animation tool Edge, and a bevy of new fonts in the Adobe library that publishers can use in tablet publications without dropping money on additional licenses and per-use fees.
Finally, along with the changes, Adobe has landed a big new client, Meredith, which was previously using DPS’s now-neutralized former competitor Woodwing. Meredith, the company that delivers you, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents and Fitness will also begin using the platform to create digital editions. Hold onto your britches, kids.