*** From the Archives ***

This article is from October 25, 2010, and is no longer current.

Adobe's New Digital Publishing Suite Now Public

It’s no secret that the iPad versions of Wired and The New Yorker were created using private, prerelease versions of Adobe software. The prerelease program wasn’t limited to big corporations; CreativePro.com’s sister publication, InDesign Magazine, used the prerelease software for its iPad app, too. But details about the process have been sketchy — until now.
Today, Adobe publicly announced its Digital Publishing Suite, a four-part group of tools for publishers who want to distribute content on mobile devices, including the iPad and other tablets.
Here’s how the suite’s components break down:
1. Create. In InDesign CS5, publishers can layout content and include some interactivity, such as hyperlinks, buttons, and multi-state objects.
2. Produce. In new applications called the Interactive Overlay Creator and the Digital Content Bundler, you add more interactive elements (including panoramas, image pans, audio, video, and scrollable frames) and then join all of those assets from InDesign and the Interactive Overlay Creator. You can test the resulting file and, when satisfied, export it to Adobe’s new fulfillment server.
3. Distribute and Monetize. Once your publication is on the fulfillment server, it can go out to various devices with the cross-platform viewers iOS and Adobe AIR.
4. Analyze and Optimize
Using the number-crunching abilities of Adobe’s Omniture tool, you can gather statistics on your publication and use those stats to improve ad performance and perhaps even influence editorial direction.
Those of you with InDesign CS5 can dive into parts 1 and 2 right now by downloading a preview release from Adobe Labs. Based on my experience with the InDesign Magazine iPad app, these components of the Digital Publishing Suite can evolve quickly. Don’t get too attached to a certain workflow, as it may change radically. But if you’re the adventurous type, you have nothing to lose, since the download is free.
The cover of the InDesign Magazine iPad app.

However, that’s probably the last time you’ll associate the word “free” with the suite. Adobe estimates that it will release the full Digital Publishing Suite sometime between April and July of next year. There will be two versions: Professional and Enterprise. The Professional Edition will be $699 per month, plus a per-issue fee that will vary depending on your volume. The customizable Enterprise Edition will integrate with subscription management, print fulfillment, and other back-end publishing services. Adobe’s not quoting a price range for this edition.
If you don’t want to wait until Q2 2011 to distribute and analyze your publications, you can request to join the existing prerelease program.
The full text of the official Adobe press release is below.
Adobe Announces New Digital Publishing Suite
New Viewer Technologies and Hosted Services Revolutionize the Creation and Deployment of Publications Across Desktops, Tablet Devices and Mobile Marketplaces
Los Angeles, Calif., Oct. 25, 2010 – At MAX, Adobe’s annual worldwide conference, Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, providing publishers a set of turnkey hosted services and viewer technology to create, publish, optimize and sell digital content direct to consumers, through content retailers or leading mobile marketplaces. Built on the foundation of Adobe Creative Suite and Adobe InDesign CS5 software, the Digital Publishing Suite enables the design and delivery of innovative publisher-branded reading experiences, paired with flexible commerce models and support for deep analytics reporting.
Using InDesign CS5, PDF, HTML5 and the Digital Publishing Suite, publishers will be able to efficiently author both fixed and adaptive layouts, natively build new levels of interactivity directly in InDesign, distribute and monetize their digital editions and optimize their editorial and advertising content for a complete end-to-end digital publishing workflow.
“The publishing industry is reinventing itself and a new era of editorial and advertising innovation is upon us as publishers target new mobile hardware platforms,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager for Creative and Interactive Solutions at Adobe. “By leveraging the InDesign CS5 workflow and the services of the Digital Publishing Suite, professional publishers can design and commercialize a new class of innovative digital magazines to create a richer and more dynamic reading experience that will attract high-value subscribers and advertisers.”
Chef Technology Office Kevin Lynch will officially unveil the Digital Publishing Suite duting his Adobe MAX 2010 keynote today at 9:30 AM PT. Sign up for live streaming of the keynotes at the MAX 2010 website at https://www.max.adobe.con/online.
The Digital Publishing Suite includes enterprise level services and viewer technology:
* The Digital Publishing Suite will support the Adobe Content viewer for iOS and Adobe AIR that can be fully publisher branded to support immersive reading experiences on tablet devices, such as the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy, RIM Playbook and other Android-based devices expected to come to market soon. Minimal chrome, innovative navigation features such as the zoomed out “browse mode” and dual axis navigation allow readers to engage with content in new and exciting ways.
* Production Service: Upload articles directly from InDesign CS5 into an intuitive hosted service in which publishers can collaborate on design, assemble final content in the correct order, add issue and article metadata and preview the complete issue as it will appear in final published form on the desktop and tablet devices. The Production Service will support a range of file formats, including PDF and HTML5.
* Distribution Service: Securely store, host and distribute digital content across leading tablet devices and desktops for broad reach and audience access. Publishers can manage content available for fulfillment from within a library content dashboard, including publication metadata and archival as well as seamlessly notify readers within the Content viewer when a new magazine issue is available for purchase or download.
* E-commerce Service: Leverage flexible payment and merchandising models with the ability to monetize content directly, through retailer platforms or leading mobile marketplaces such as the Apple App Store, Android Market or Google Apps Marketplace. Publishers can create high-value merchandising programs such as print and digital content bundles and enable readers to seamlessly purchase content directly from within the magazine application on their device. Direct publisher ecommerce support for interoperability will allow readers to purchase content once and read it on their desktop or tablet devices.
* Analytics Service: Gain valuable customer insights to better optimize editorial content and drive higher advertising monetization using best of class online analytics from Adobe SiteCatalyst, powered by Omniture. Publishers can access prebuilt dashboards directly from within the hosted publishing workflow to view key advertising and subscriber data including total ad views, issue download and purchase metrics and engagement with interactive content such as video.
Valuable viewer profile analytics can supplement traditional offline point-of sale (POS) data to build a more comprehensive understanding of an individual subscriber. Drill down reporting and analytics are available through a separate Adobe goals.
Adobe is already working with the largest publishers in the world such as Condé Nast and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. to create and monetize dynamic digital magazines.
“Our pioneering work with Wired and The New Yorker has enabled Adobe to deliver a set of workfows and tools that will leverage emerging hardware platforms and make our magazines stand-out in the digital format that will attract advertisers and keep readers engaged in new ways,” said Joe Simon, chef technology officer, Condé Nast. “I can’t think of a more exciting time to be involved in the publishing business.”
Gael Towey, Chef Creative and Editorial Director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, stated: “Adobe was attuned to our needs as designers, editors and content creators and was able to meet those needs in a ways that not only distinguishes our forthcoming digital issue of Martha Stewart Living, but will benefit all magazine publishers.”
Additional information about the Digital Publishing Suite is available at https://adobe.com/digitalpublishing and on the Digital Publishing blog at https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing. Follow the team on Twitter at https://twitter.com/adobedigitalpub.
Pricing and Availability
The Digital Publishing Suite is expected to be available in Q2 2011 and offers both a Professional and Enterprise Edition. Pricing for the Professional Edition is expected to be US$699 per month plus a per-issue fee which scales with publisher volume. The Professional Edition price allows publishers to access the Digital Publishing Suite and create applications for all of their titles and publications. The Enterprise Edition is a custom, multi-year platform agreement that includes access to APIs for integration of back-end publishing services such as subscription management, print fulfillment and e-commerce. Adobe also offers professional services to support enterprise level custom engagements.
Professional publishers that would like to deploy and sell commercial applications prior to general availability of the Digit al Publishing Suite are invited to join the Adobe Digital Magazine Publishing Prerelease Program at https://www.adobe.com/beta.
A preview release of the add-on digital publishing technologies for InDesign CS5 is available on Adobe Labs at https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/digitalpublishing.
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

  • Anonymous says:

    *PLUS* a fee per issue??!!!! I guess Adobe doesn’t have the small business inhouse 3-person art department in mind, and would rather rape the large ad firms instead. What about wanting to make a digital brochure for the iPad for our clients to download and use free of charge? FU Adobe. I was so looking forward to learning how to make digital publications for our woodworking manufacturing company and our reps/clients to use. Since it is priced out of our league, now what?

  • Anonymous says:

    If I want to publish my portfolio as a RID using Indesign CS5 + COntent Budler and OC I will have to pay isnt it? SO I will settle just sideloading it :-(

  • Anonymous says:

    Really. I mean it. Honest.
    Normally we skip every other Creative Suite update, because lets face it the improvements are never worth the price otherwise. Now I think we’ll go to skipping every 2 upgrades, just on principle. CS3 is still getting the work done for us no problem, so instead of updating to CS5 in January like we planned, I think we’ll wait until CS6. Unless something better comes along.

  • Anonymous says:

    I am SO on the same page with the above comments here. Steve Jobs is right, there are alternatives to Adobe.

  • Anonymous says:

    1) exporting projects in digital publishing format (.issue?) will be free also after Digital Publishing Suite will be out of beta?
    2) can I export a digital publishing project as an .issue file from ID5 and sell it – or give it for free – outside of Adobe digital publishing e-commerce solution? Or not?
    In other words: is Adobe Digital Publishing Suite the only way to use .issue format or not? I think small publishers and designers will not be able to afford a cost of 699 $/month plus a per issue fee…
    Obviously, just my opinion.

  • Anonymous says:

    I’m not so sure if Jobs is always right…
    I don’t like closed solutions, both by Adobe and by Apple.

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