Digial Magazines in minutes

Creating dynamic digital editions from press ready PDFs has never been easier. The 3D Issue converter allows you to automate the process and even maximise the output buy allowing you to remove crop marks, generate active links each time urls or emails are detected in the PDF, premit keyword search, convert PDFs of different orientations and enhance the visibility of your flash magazine through search engine optimization.

Selecting PDF to include and defining page order

When creating a new digital editions 3D Issue Converter is launched by clicking the "new" option in 3D Issue Manager.

The users are asked to import the PDFs they wish to include in the new digital magazine edtion.

Once all the pdfs have been imported, they are displayed in the batch process window. Here users can see the file location of each pdf, the number of pages in each pdf and also the pdf's page order number within the digital edition.you can easily move b batches up and down the digital magazine page order by using the "Mouse Up" and "Mouse Down" buttons or simply by clicking and dragging the pdf.

PDF Orientation

You can convert any type of PDF layout into a digital edition. You can select the type of PDF they are converting – portrait, landscape, or a mixture of both. If the PDF is landscape the 3D Issue converter will “splice” the pages. If choosing a landscape PDF, it is important to ensure that the first page in the PDF contains both the front and back cover.

If the PDF is a mix of both, if the first page of the PDF is landscape, it will be converted into pages 1 and 2 of your 3D issue. If this is not what you want, please ensure that the first PDF page is of portrait size.

Setting output destination

Once you are statisfied that the pages are listed in the correct order, you must then identify the output destination. By clicking the browse button you can easily define the folder using the windows explorer tree structure. Once this folder has been correctly defined, you must then insert a the issue id for that publication. This is where all files will be exported to.


Defining the quality and resolution of the digital magazine

Most press quality pdfs are sent to the printers at a resolution of between 200 to 300 dpi. In a digital edition these pages would be unecessary large and therefore would need to be reduced to enhance the end users expereince. By altering the resolution and image image compression ratio you can ensure that there is minimal downloading to view the digital edition. For example, a standard A4 publication is normally outputed at between 120-150 dpi at a compression of 30%.

Removing Crop Marks

Publishers often have PDFs with Crop Marks or Bleeds going around the circumference of their PDF pages. These markings are used by printers to determine where to cut publications when producing print publications. These markings are never displayed in the final publication and therefore we feel that it is important that 3D Issue Manager allows you to easily remove these crop marks / Bleeds.

Simply select the “remove bleed” box. During the conversion process, a window will appear with a page of the PDF and its crop marks. Simply drag the box in the corners of the page inwards to the point where the two lines would intersect and click “apply & exit”.

This will apply the crop mark removal to all pages of the PDF.

Detect and Convert PDF Bookmarks

While PDFs based on print publication traditionally would not have bookmarks, PDF reports will often have a bookmarks that act as index in the PDF. To ensure that you do not have to replicate this menu each time we have added an automatic generator.

The “Check for Bookmarks and add them to the contents menu” checks for bookmarks within the PDF and automatically adds them to the contents menu of your digital edition.

Automatic Email & URL detection

3D Issue Manager Version 3.0 can now automatically detect and add URL’s and e-mail addresses to your digital edition.  Simply click on the “Detect and Add check box” and choose which type of links you wish to have added to your pages. 

During the conversion process, each time that a URL or email address is detected, 3D Issue Manager will add a link (whether it be a button or hotspots) onto the page, starting from the bottom right corner. All you have to do is drag them to the correct location and you have live links.

Keyword search functionality

The ability to search through and skip to articles of interest is the most popular reason among end users for using digital magazines. If you wish to add this functionality to your digital magazine you can do so by simply clicking the "Extract Text from PDFs" checkbox. Once selected 3D Issue Convert will automatically extract and store all text in a structured & compatible database & output it to the "3D Issue ID" folder.

Search Engine Optimization

In order to optimise the marketability of your digital editions we have added a new feature to 3D Issue Manager that will market these digital editons search engine friendly.

During the conversion process the text from each PDF page is extracted and added to a unquie htm page. For example page 2 texts is inserted into 2.htm, page 3 to 3.htm and so on.

These pages can be picked up & indexed by search engines and when the user clicks one of those htm pages, the flash magazine is opened automatically at that page.

The added benefit of this is that this would allow you to easily create a search feature on your website that searches all your publications.

Automated Conversion

Once all settings have been defined you can click convert. A process bar will appear to the left, stating the "work complete" percentage. Once complete, simply click on the exit button. You will immediately be brought back to 3D Issue Manager interface. To view the digital publication immediately, simply click on the "Test & Save" tab.

Adding interactivilty to your Digital Magazine

To see how you can add interactivity such as drop down menus, hotspots, preview rollover, digital video or audio; please read the Using 3D Issue Manager tutorial