Free page-turning software for digital editions
by matt @ 11:19 pm. Blogged under Web Technology
This week I’ve discovered a nice cheap solution for hosting a one-off digital edition of a magazine / brochure. By digital edition, I mean an application which lets you browse a magazine online and turn the pages - as if it was there in paper in front of you. I came across a company called Yudu and was guided by their online salesman Ray (via live chat app) to their rather lovely FREE offering www.yudufreedom.com. I’ve seen a few different ‘page-turning software’ offerings over the years and this free solution seems to offer all the same features as better known paid-for solutions like Zinio. They even reassure you that there really are no catches, just thoroughly lovely people making their commercial technology free for one-offs.
To use Yudu Freedom you just have to convert your magazine into a PDF of single pages (i.e. no double page spreads) and then upload it to Yudufreedom.com. There’s no limit on the maximum file size you can load via the browse tool (they disabled the usual 15MB server limit). We put 60MBs through Yudufreedom without any problems and received a nice URL back via email to our digital edition. We have now linked to the Yudu URL via a branded domain redirect to make life easier. For more details I really recommend this tool, and the PDF specifications tell you everything you need to know to get your free digital edition live within minutes!
Technorati Tags: yudu, digital editions, page turning software, free digital PDFs,
Loading ...
July 7th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Hi Matt
Yes, Yudu is nice, but you may want to look into some other solutions of the market. Zmags has done something similar to Yudu, but with focus on enriching the publications.
Powering up the content with video streaming, animations, links or forms really boost reader loyalty. Please check some of these cool digital issues all made with Zmags page turning software:
Silverado Mag from General Motors
SplatXD - online paintball magazine
July 7th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I couldn’t see a permanently free option like on Yudu Joakim (which is what I was mainly after for one off postings of magazine issues) but I can’t deny the streaming video inside the pages is a nice touch, particularly the Splat Girl page:
http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=fgfsg#/page14/
July 7th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Glad you like the girls, Matt
And you are right: Zmags doesn’t offer a permanently free version, but we have free trials of our e-publihsing tool, if you want to create a digital magazine.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Matt, Joakim I love all the features of the splat mag but im guessing that would require a lot of work and programming work to accomplish??
John