FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
After installing the software & doing a conversion, i try going to the preview window in Manager to view the work so far but I can't view or run the Preview ?
Running flash files outside your browser requires that you have Flash Standalone Player installed on your machine. Our flash magazine technology requires that you have the Flash 8 player or above installed on your machine. If you cannot see or run the preview in 3D Issue Manager it means that you do not have the standalone version running on your machine. You can download from here :
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html
I just downloaded and installed the 3Dissue demo on my Windows Vista machine. When I attempted to open the application
It gave me this message: Error (A-1) Please contact technical support for further details!!"
Why is this occurring ?
Unlike previous versions of windows, Vista implements UAC (User Account Control) so that user, even administrators, cannot perform basic registry operations. Our software uses COM DLL's that needs to be registered in the Windows operating system. To bypass this issue, we suggest you to:
- Click on "Start Menu/Program Files/3D Issue Manager 3/"
- Right Click on "3D Issue
Manager 3", and select "Run As administrator"
If these doesn't work
- Right click on “Command Prompt” in the Accessories menu and click “Run as
Administrator”
- Type in: regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\3D Issue Manager 3\LicProtector260.dll" in the command window.
Note if you have installed the software in a different location than above, please change accordingly.
What type of hosting do i require ?
The digital magazines will run on any type of hosting service as the outputted files are supported by all hosting servers, mainly SWF, XML, HTML, JPEGS.
There is only one feature in the digital edition requires dynamic scripts. That is the send-to-friend feature. For this we provide you with both ASP and PHP version of the scripts. During the building of your digital edition you are asked to state whether your hosting supports ASP or PHP. Once you have selected an option the correct scripts are added to the project folder ready for uploading.
Will my software run on a PHP configured server?
Yes. It will run on ASP and PHP supported sites.
What type of internet connection is needed to view these digital magazines?
Although a DSL / Broadband connection is desirable.
What version of flash player is needed to view the digital magazines?
Flash Player 9 is needed to run the 3D digital magazine software. If you do not have this plug in then click here to install
| Using the 3D Issue converter |
Do i have to add publication as single page PDFs or add one PDF containing all the pages?
It doesn't matter. The conversion tool allows you to add PDF in either format. when you are adding a group of PDF's, whether they are single pages or blocks of pages you will see that the pages are added in order and numbered depending on the quantity of pages in each PDF. Please ensure that all pages are listed in the right order before converting as that list is used to order the pages in the digital edition.
What page dimensions does the converter support ?
3D Issue Manager is designed to convert any publication dimensions and represent the digital edition as a true reflection of its print counter part. It does matter if your publication is a tabloid magazine, broadsheet newspaper, square, A3, A4 or A5. What ever its shape, 3D Issue Manager will interpret and convert.
Do i have to keep the suggested project folder name ?
No, these are simply suggestions. You can output your publications wherever you want. In fact the converter will remember the settings you have chosen and recommend them the next time you are converting. If these settings are not to remain constant, you can simply click on "Default Settings" button to revert to the factory settings.
I am confused by what you mean by PDF Orientation ?
When publishers design magazines the pages are not always designed as single page layouts. In fact they can often be designed as double page spreads and the PDF can be designed as even a mixture of both single page layouts and double page layouts. So it is important the converter in which layout your publication was designed.
Does this mean that if my pages are in A3 format that i should choose "double page spreads" ?
No, only choose "double page spreads" if your publication was designed to contain 2 individual pages of your magazine in each PDF page. If your publication is in A3 format, choose "single page".
What do you mean by DPI Settings ?
DPI means Dots Per Inch. This is a term used in the design of a publication to determine the resolution of imagery and text content. A PDF for print will have a high resolution (eg: 300 dpi), and PDF created for web distribution will have a low resolution (72 dpi).
The value that you chose here will affect the size of the outputted pages. We generally find that for magazines and tabloids that 150 dpi is a good setting and for broadsheets that 120 dpi is the optimum setting.
It will however vary from publication to publication. Something that must also be considered is the standard monitor resolution of your visitors resolution. If they have a low resolution (say 1024x768) then pages at 150 dpi may be too large when the user szooms in. It is only through testing your publication with your users stats will you know the best setting for you.
I outputted my newspaper at 150 dpi and when i went to preview the magazine the pages were cut off at the bottom. Why?
Flash magazines are only permitted to display images that do not exceed 3000 pixels in height or width. If your publication is been trimmed then it is because your publication is exceeding those limits. This is a common issue which broadsheet publications.
To remedy, lower your resolution from say 150 dpi to 120 dpi.
What do you recommend the best quality compression is ?
Again this is something that only you can answer. Every publication is different. The volume of imagery varies from publication to publication. If your publication is mostly text then you can increase the quality compression ratio, otherwise we suggest you stay at around 50-60% quality compression.
Remember that the larger the setting the larger the outputted pages will be, and this will effect the downloading time. You must judge or measure the quality you want to present versus the time it will take the user to download.
What is the remove bleed feature?
When publishers design magazines for print, they include bleed areas around the circumverance of the magazine to state the points at which the paper should be cut.
These markings are not displayed in the final printed publication and as 3D Issue Manager strives to ensure that the digital edition is a true reflect of its print publication, we included a feature to remove these markings. This saves the publisher the time it would take them to remove the bleed.
I tried the" remove bleed" option but I still see the crop marks. Why ?
There are 3 reasons that this could occur :
1. Not all pages are the same size. This is important that all pages specified are the same size. It doesn't matter if they are single pages or double pages but the pages must be the same size.
2. Crop marks intersection points were not specified correctly. Remember that when you are stating the areas of the page to cut you must drag the box inwards to the point where the trim lines would intersect and not just to the point where the lines end.
3. You only specified one corner. When the bleed removal window appears you must specify the points on all four corners, not just the top left.
I don't understand what you mean by "Extract Bookmarks from PDF" ?
While these are not common in PDFs designed for print, it is common in PDF reports or catalogues.
We want to automate the conversion as much as possible, so to ensure the author does not have to re-enter this information each time the converter will automatically detect this information and add them as a drop down contents menu in final flash magazine.
What is the purpose of the insert meta tags and analytics section ?
The content is automatically search engine optimized. For every page in the PDF publication that you are converting, a .htm page is created and this web-page contains all the text of it’s respective PDF page.
Say for example your digital magazine was hosted :
www.mysite.com.imag/issue2/start.htm
you can access any page by typing in the page number instead of "start" for example
www.mysite.com.imag/issue2/12.htm
This is a great way to link directly to articles from outside the flash magazine.
You then look at the source code of 12.htm (from the browser menu, select view / page source), you will see at the bottom that the source code contains all the text from page 12.
Even though you cannot see this text when the page when it is been displayed, it has an important purpose. This text can be read by the search on your site and by search engine spiders who will index the page.
So when a user does a search on say Google and one of the links appears, when they click on the link, rather than viewing the list of text, it opens the flash magazine at that page.
You can also enter your google analytics so that tracking can be added to your website analytics.
Can i add pages and remove pages at a later date. For example, my catalogue does not change much but i would like to change adverts occasionally. Is that possible?
Not at the moment. Changing a page affects everything in the digital magazine such as: hyperlinks, table of contents, keyword searching, page numbering etc. If you are changing pages you will have to redo the digital editions.
We are however looking adding this ability into 3D Issue Manager version 4.
| Using the 3D Issue Manager |
USING THE 3D ISSUE MANAGER
My publication is 200+ pages, what effect would the "stretch to fit page" have on the flash magazine speed ?
Some publishers will want the initial display of the digital magazine to be maximised to the available width and height of the browser. In order to cater for this you must cater to the largest possible resolution and then shrink the pages to fit that resolution to ensure that it fits everyone's monitors.
So choosing "Stretch to fit pages" will mean that the user is downloading larger versions of the page (pre-zoom). When you are dealing with publications that consist of 200+ pages this can mean a long downloading time for the user.
What we suggest is that you disable that option and go with the fixed pre-zoom size of 500 pixels in height and its relative width. These pages will load five times faster and put less memory constraint on the end-users browser.
I have selected the "Enable archiving tool" but I cannot link to my previous editions. Please help?
The archiving tool allows you to select the "View previous issues" drop down list and jump to other editions of your magazine. This list is populated by an xml file that the flash magazine looks for at a fixed location on your site.
When you received your installation instructions with your software you will have received this file as an attachment and you will also have received information on the URL location on your site where this file needs to be stored.
A copy of this file is also located in the 3D Issue Manager installation folder. Each time you are adding a new publication you should open this file using an editor tool such as notepad.exe and add the issue name and location to the list, save it and update the file at the new URL.
What is the "Read Right to Left" option for?
We traditional read from left to right and consider the front cover of our publication to be page 1. This is not the case for all languages. In Arabic & Hebrew, the first page of their publications would be located at what we would call the back cover, page 2 on the inside back cover" and so on.
So to cater to all these different types of publications we have added a feature to allow the users to automatically reconfigure the flash magazine to suit these settings.
Can i change the name of the "contents" tab that contains the table of contents?
Yes simply double-click on the tab heading to rename all of the headings.
Can I add sub-menus to the table of contents?
Yes, firstly enter the ">" symbol before the label name to denote this label is a sub category.
I entered a heading name in one of the blank tabs but nothing appears. Why?
You must enter values into the menu in order for it to appear. If you only enter the heading name and no label names or links then nothing will appear. You must populate the drop down list.
When I click on the "Preview" option in the 3D Issue Manager, nothing appears?
The "preview" tab allows you to view the work you have done on the digital edition. This is a flash magazine that is encapsulated inside 3D Issue Manager. To view flash files from outside your web browser you must have "Flash Standalone Player" installed on your machine. If you cannot view the preview area this means that you do not have it installed.
Click here to download the Flash Standalone Player
When I click on the click to load the magazine nothing appears?
Flash player 8 is required to use the 3D Issue software. If you do not have the software installed. Click here to download & install the required plug-in now.
Every time I click & drag the page, it never opens, only falls back into place?
The digital magazine acts like a hard copy printed publication. Please ensure that when you are dragging the page that you drag it all the over to the left hand side, otherwise the tool assumes that you no longer wish to change the page.
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