3D Issue Lite

If you do not require adding hotpots, links or videos to your digital edition and if you are looking for a solution that allows you to convert your PDFs in seconds then 3D Issue Manager Lite is the perfect tool.

Simply add your PDFs, choose your output settings and click convert. That's it. 3D Issue Manager Lite allows you to generate digital editions for viewing online in an intuitive manner.

Creating dynamic digital editions from press ready PDFs has never been easier. The 3D Issue Lite allows you to automate the process and even maximise the output by allowing you to remove crop marks, permit keyword search, convert PDFs of different orientations and enhance the visibility of your flash magazine through search engine optimization.

Below we have listed a step by step guide to converting your publication using 3D Issue Manager Lite.

The first option that you will come across is the publication settings. Each magazine title that you convert will have different settings and perhaps will be hosted at separate domains. 3D Issue Manager Lite remembers all settings that were used the last time that you did a conversion for this magazine. Also each magazine might have separate meta tag information and Google analytics.

In order to optimize the marketability of your digital editions we have added a new feature that will make these digital editions search engine more friendly.

During the conversion process the text from each PDF page is extracted and added to a unique .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 or your website search tool. When the user clicks one of those .htm pages, the flash magazine is opened automatically at that page.

You can also enhance the visibility of your digital editions to search engines by adding meta tags to each of the .htm pages that are generated. Along with the text content of your webpage, one of the primary methods that search engines use to rank the relevance of your website to search queries is to look at the meta tag information of your web pages. To do this it looks at the following meta tags:

- The title of your we page
- The description of the web page
- The relevant keywords of the web page

To add these meta tags, click on the "Edit" button and a popup box appears allowing you to add not only your meta tag information but also your Google analytics script so you can monitor how users are finding your digital editions.

Next we will add our PDFs into the 3D Issue Manager Lite. In the batch process section. Click on "Add". You are then asked to import the PDF(s) that you wish to include in the new digital magazine edition.

Once all the PDFs have been imported, they are displayed in the batch process window. Here you can see the file location of each PDF, the number of pages and also the PDF's page order number within the digital edition. You can easily move the PDFs 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 Layout

Not all pages are designed as Single Page PDFs. Some can be sent to the printer as double page spreads or a mixture of both single and double page layouts. This tool is designed to cater for these layouts and no matter what the configuration of the PDF files, it will convert it into a digital edition that reflects the print edition. All you have to do is state the page layout types. Are they "Single page layouts", "Double page spreads" or a "mixture of both". The converter will do the rest

Page Sizes

It doesn't matter if the publications are A4, A3, A5, broadsheet, tabloid or square. 3D Issue Manager will convert and display the outputted digital magazine accordingly.

Once you are satisfied 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 the issue id for that publication. This is where all files will be exported to.

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 too large and therefore would need to be reduced to enhance the end users experience. By altering the resolution and image compression ratio you can ensure that there is minimal downloading to view the digital edition. For example, a standard A4 publication is normally outputted at between 120-150 dpi at a compression of 30%.

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.

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.

There are a variety of features in 3D Issue Manager Lite that you can choose to enable or disable as you see fit. You can also alter how the user interacts with the digital edition. Listed below are a list of each feature and its purpose.

Stretch to fit page

The initial display of the digital editions can be displayed at two settings.
- Fixed size (max. height 500 pixels)
- Maximum size allowed

The benefit of using the fixed size is that the pages are displayed at a smaller size. This allows the pages to load much faster and allows the user to navigate quickly through the 'iMag'. Deselected the "stretch to fit page" in recommended for publications with hundreds of pages.

End users, who have high screen resolution settings on their monitors may find this initial view a bit small. Also you might like to maximize the impact of your publication by resizing the initial view to the maximum available space. To allow this, click on "Stretch to fit browser".

Enable Printing

This features enabled the print button in the digital edition, allowing the users to select a range of pages that they wish to print. Not all publishers wish to allow end-users to print their pages, due to copyright issues. Therefore we provide the option to disable this feature.

Enable Archiving

This feature enables end-users to jump to previous issues of these online publications. This feature reads in an XML file that is stored on a fixed location on your site. Each time you create a new digital edition and post it online, you must update this file and update it online. A copy of this file, pageflip_archive.xml can be found in the root folder of your 3D Issue Manager Installation folder.

Keyword Searching

During the conversion process all text is extracted and linked to the digital edition for keyword searching. This section allows you to enhance the keyword searching by refining the text layout so search results display the paragraph number of a keyword as well as the page number.

Read Right to Left

This is the newest addition to 3D Issue Manager. While English printed publications are read from left to right, other languages such as Arabic, read from right to left. What English printed publications for example would classify as the “Back Page”, publications in Arabic would classify that page as the “Front Cover”. To cater for these customers we have added a button that when selected, reverses the entire publication to suit that format.

Zooming options

You can also choose whether you want to zoom to a single page at a time or zoom to double page spread mode. By default, the user zooms to a single page. You can also change how the user zooms around the page when they have zoomed in. By default, after you have zoomed in when you move the mouse, the page moves. You can alter this option to "click and drag", ensuring the pages to not move until the user has clicked and dragged the page.

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. This will automatically close the 3D Issue Manager Lite and open the project folder.

All the files that you need to run the digital edition have been outputted into that folder. All you have to do is upload your digital edition onto your website, type in the URL followed by start.htm to begin.

If you have any additional questions please feel free to contact us at any time through support@3dissue.com