Adobe has announced the latest release of the Digital Publishing Suite, Version 20, which brings many long-awaited features and several enhancements to smooth out this quickly expanding product. This release introduces DPS support for InDesign CS6, as well as feature parity for CS5 and CS5.5.

Folio Producer Updates

Folio Details are now available in a panel to the right of a selected folio. The panel contains several buttons for managing folios, including Publish, Notify, Unpublish, and Export. Description and Binding are fields are available, in addition to a thumbnail and resolution detail for the folio.

Publish is now a background operation, so you can continue to work on other things while it’s running.

Publish Requests are now an option under the View drop-down. The default selection in this drop-down is All Folios; Publish Requests is the second option. Use the Publish Requests view to check on the status of the Publish background operation. In the future, we can also expect to see folios on the distribution server in this view.

Viewer Builder Updates

iPhone Viewer creation is now available in Folio Builder, allowing simultaneous viewer creation for both the iPhone and iPad. The iPhone Viewer has rendition support for both classes of iPhone devices—SD and HD—as well as differentiated banner-ad support for Entitlement. All DPS features are supported except bookmarking and social sharing, but these are expected soon. A configurable iPhone welcome screen is an option available to Enterprise customers. The iPhone viewer has been optimized for single-handed use. Back and TOC button are at the bottom left and right, respectively. Browse mode and the Scrubber have been combined into a single slider at the bottom center. Note: Adobe’s Content Viewer for iPhone is awaiting approval by Apple.

Social sharing has been expanded from Facebook support only to now include Twitter, Email, and Copy Link. See the Adobe site for more info on how to use social sharing.

Status icons for all viewer image assets now reflect status colors, with green indicating OK, yellow not optimal, and red not OK. A partial viewer build can be saved and returned to for editing later.

Web Viewer

The long-waited Web Viewer is now available. Here are just a few features to look for:

  • Web Viewer will allow a DPS publication link to be shared and viewed in a browser.
  • Any content published as public can now also be shared as a link.
  • Controls to protect/unprotect articles for public viewing are managed via the Account Admin tools and Folio Producer.
  • Paywall controls allow for thresholds to be set for sharing content.
  • Several options are available for configuring this useful component of DPS. TFP will describe more details about this in a upcoming blog post!

What’s Next: Release 21

Adobe hinted at a few new features we can expect to see in the next version, which will provide desired enhancements in multiple categories:

  • A Save As feature with better DPS version management tools to help keep DPS tools, Folio Builder, Folio Producer, and Viewer Builder in sync.
  • A custom HTML library with tools for creating custom viewers, merchandising, and presentation of content available to the reader.
  • The addition of Hot Zones—definable areas on the left and right edges of pages for swiping.
  • An Open Folio option after downloading, to improve the reader experience.
  • A Folio Producer API release, which will allow publishing system vendors (such as vjoon) to finally link their systems to Folio Producer.

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Posted by: Margot Knorr Mancini

Margot Knorr Mancini
A thought leader in the publishing industry, Margot Knorr Mancini has helped numerous publishers redefine their missions to become nimble content generators with the ability to repurpose content easily and efficiently. As Founder & CEO of Technology for Publishing, her analytical mind allows her to remain a step ahead of the industry, recognizing early trends and developing pivotal best practices.
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