This One's A Page Turner

As a communications professional in the publishing industry I have witnessed a number of advancements in technology that have lent themselves to making design, layout and printing more efficient. I am happy to say that I remember and can appreciate the days of scanning photographs, and piecemeal layout. I have even observed the intricacies of typesetting—although it was relatively out of practice well before I would enter the publishing industry. I am thrilled to now be a witness to and user of the improvements of press-optimized, digital art; desktop publishing and layout applications—from PageMaker to Quark to InDesign; computer-to-plate printing solutions; and now PDF workflow systems that put the power of creating press- quality files in the hands of in-house art directors and production managers rather than expensive, third-party pre-press vendors. But perhaps the most revolutionary technology in the publishing industry to date—in the magazine industry, namely—is the digital publishing capability.

The features available in digital publishing interfaces are remarkable to say the least! Most incredible is its page-by-page synchronicity with its tangible counterpart. While many publications offer their content online, few actually match the look and feel of the print form fully. Rather, most online versions mimic the appearance of online news sites—with columns and a mainly two-color appearance with few graphic images; many online versions offer little to match the experience of perusing the print version. Many function as nothing more than a teaser for its print version. With a digital “page-turner” magazine however—if I may use apropos technical lingo—WYSIWYG!

What you see in the print version is what you get in the digital version. From the inside cover advertisement, to the table of contents, to the back cover, and everything in between, an online viewer and/or digital subscriber is not shortchanged. In fact, the experience is enhanced. Advertisements become interactive—animating the artwork and the products featured, and adding active links directly to advertisers’ websites; editorial text can be downloaded to a reader’s iPhone, or it can be converted to audio via the software’s speech application; persons featured in articles can provide audio and visual “how-tos” and other supplements through pod casts.

Like so many industries where technology made production more efficient, many are at risk of losing their job or function. The scenario mentioned earlier—moving third-party operations in-house—has become such a trend that many pre-press operations have all but abandoned their services for magazines, focusing on textbooks and dense reference works instead—publications who are not on the brink of yielding to digital publishing interfaces.

So it can be said that those like me—in the print magazine industry—are in a precarious position. In revolutionizing digital publishing we are butting and possibly deprecating the print industry. In the weeks to come, I will examine digital magazines—the good of them, the bad and the ugly—at a time when so many print magazines are considering the transition to digital. There are countless positions on the matter. While some say that the future of print literature is compromised, there are others that say that no matter the advances made in technology and accessibility to digital communications, nothing compares to portability and the feeling of ink on your fingers and paper between them. Join me in this adventure from the print world into a digital one. What do you think—can print publishing and digital publishing co-exist? Can we have the best of both worlds?