Create unique digital publications in 3 steps

In PUBLISHING
8 July 2021
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Not all publications on Calaméo are the same, and that’s a good thing! You surely already know, but in communication, and more generally in marketing, you must know how to differentiate yourself while still being recognizable right away.

To help you create excellent publications, the entire Calaméo team got together to list their best tips for unique digital publications, and here is the result:

Step 1: Before importing your document on Calaméo

For a unique and recognizable publication, it starts with the writing (on your word processor) and the design (on your layout software).

Tone

The way you speak is an integral part of your brand’s identity. The tone you use is unique and should reflect your values: it can be funny, serious, informative – or any other adjective – it all depends on you and the character you want to give your brand. Find and adopt a tone that is specific to your business and use it in all your communications.

Document design

Design is a very important element in making you stand out. Having a strong brand style guide or graphic charter that you will use in all your communications – including your digital publications – is essential.

Remember to follow your brand style guide when using:

  • colors
  • typefaces
  • images and illustrations
  • your logos

And while it’s necessary to stand out, keep the user experience in mind: your content must be understandable and readable. Don’t lose the meaning of your message because of a layout that is too complex.

💡 TIP: Think of your document and its format according to the purpose it will have: will it be printed? Will it be downloaded? Or only viewed online? You should adjust your document accordingly (ex: no image for printing, etc.)

Step 2: When importing your document on Calaméo

When publishing your document on Calaméo, just before uploading it, you will have the opportunity to start working on the design of the viewer to offer a unique experience to your readers.

Choice of display mode

You can choose how the pages of your document will flow: scroll up, or a slideshow, or a flipbook with pages that turn like a magazine. Think carefully about how you want your publication to be displayed because each mode offers a different reading experience and comfort level.

Sound atmosphere

So far we’ve only talked about visuals, but with digital publishing you can also import audio elements. With a Premium or Platinum Calaméo account, you can add background music to your publication, as well as a sound effect each time the page turns to create a unique reading environment!

Personalizing the viewer

Another advantage reserved for Premium and Platinum users: you can add your logo and a customized background to the viewer. Of course, you should respect your graphic charter so that all your publications reflect your brand. For example: you can choose to create a single background that you will use for all your publications or you can create color variations that correspond to your charter.

Step 3: Once your document is posted on Calaméo

Once your document is posted on Calaméo, it becomes a publication. To make your publication unique and recognizable, you can use several of our personalization tools that will operate directly on your publication or on the viewer.

Adding interactivity

Thanks to our Editor tool, you can add all sorts of interactive elements to embellish your publications. You can add:

  • external links: send your readers to your site, to your sources or any other URL.

💡 TIP: thanks to the “Overlay” option (reserved for Platinum users) of the external link integration tool, you can also add forms that open directly in your publication

  • internal links: redirect to a page inside your document. You can make an interactive table of contents for example.
  • shopping links: link directly to the product information. For example, you can insert a shopping link over a photo of a product in your publication.
  • videos: for example, you can create personalized videos and insert them in each one of your digital publications, like a vlog, to give your content more personality.
  • audio tracks: add music that will accompany your readers on a single page or throughout the publication. You could also add music at a convenient time to create a specific mood: joy, fear, relaxation, etc.
  • media: think of all formats. You can add photos, images, animated GIFs, etc. Feel free to experiment!
  • zoom zones: created to improve visual comfort. You could also insert elements that are only readable with the help of this zoom zone like a small hidden QR code for example.

Thanks to the elements you can add with the Editor tool, you will be able to create an atmosphere specific to your brand: bring movement and energy by adding animated GIFs, recall the environment of your stores by adding a recognizable audio track, imagine unique experiences for contests etc.

💡 TIP: Learn how to use our Editor tool  

Personalizing the viewer (continued)

Thanks to our Elements tool (reserved for Platinum accounts), you can create custom themes and change the appearance of the viewer however you like. Change all the elements directly in the code: the social network buttons can change color, the navigation arrows can be a different size, etc.

💡 TIP: Explore the Elements tool and make your publication stand out with customization

The possibilities for customization are infinite with the digital publishing tools that allow you to create personalized content that is unique to you and your brand!

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PUBLISHING

Innovation in publishing: a brief history

In PUBLISHING
6 October 2022

What comes to mind when you hear the name Gutenberg? If you work on a website, you might think about the blogging platform WordPress and its Gutenberg content editor. If you’re a fan of e-books, you might think of the Project Gutenberg library of free titles. And if you’re a fan of the Police Academy movies, you might think of Steve Guttenberg.

But only one Gutenberg was the original tech mogul who disrupted the publishing industry. In 1439, this German inventor developed a kind of press that made it possible to print text in multiple copies. Of course, like many tech icons, Gutenberg was actually the second person to invent his device. Although it wasn’t widely adopted at the time, Bi Sheng created moveable type 400 years earlier in China.

It may seem funny to talk about books like a technology, the same way we talk about smartphones and apps. Despite their low-tech material of paper and ink, books are technology: an object invented to store information. That’s why we’re taking a look at how innovation has shaped the history of publishing, from ancient eras right up to today.

Handmade books

Before Bi Sheng and Gutenberg’s printing inventions, every single book around the world was made by hand. These manuscripts, or hand-written texts, came in two main formats. Scrolls had writing on a single, rolled-up surface. On the other hand, a codex would look much more like a modern book. They had multiple pages inside a pair of wooden boards. But compared to printed books, very few manuscripts existed.

In large part, handmade books were rare because of the time, effort and resources required to create them. Not only did you need someone who knew how to write—not easy to find thousands of years ago—you’d also need something to write on and with. Some common materials included clay and wax tablets, papyrus paper and parchment. Besides quill and ink, styluses and calames were also used to write. And once you gathered the materials and found a scribe, it could take years to copy out a text.

Because books and writing were advanced technologies most people never encountered in the handmade era, cultural information was stored in other ways. For example, the art and decoration on buildings like churches told visual stories to their viewers. Music, folktales and good old memorization were also important forms for sharing knowledge. However, the arrival of the printing press was about to revolutionize books. 

Publishing revolutions

Printing wasn’t special to the printing press, but the concept of moveable type was. For centuries, artists knew to carve a flat image onto a block of wood, cover it with ink and press it against a paper page to make a print. Gutenberg and Bi Sheng’s innovation was to produce images of individual letters, or characters. Then, these letters were arranged into the text of a page and set into a frame for printing.

Although it might not sound like much, this moveable type technology meant that printing a page took minutes instead of weeks. Printing a book of 100 pages took weeks, not years. Plus, making copies was simple. As a result, more and more books entered circulation. Books held more information and, in Europe, more people read them throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Publishers began to print and sell books on a bigger scale than ever.

One reason why the audience for books exploded? Education expanded dramatically in many places across the world. A growing number of people could read and they bought books. History, science, fiction, philosophy, dictionaries, travel guides—publishers offered books in every genre as printing technology advanced. Presses improved, paper became cheaper and by the end of the 20th century, the business of making and selling books had spread into a global industry worth billions of dollars.

Digital experiments

But the story of publishing innovation doesn’t end there. The invention of computers and the Internet created new tools for writing. From the clay tablets and calames to desktops and digital formats, another huge technological shift has been changing publishing over the past several decades. Unlike printing, however, digital publishing has taken lots of different directions as audiences try new experiences.

For example, publishing books on CD-ROM was a major trend in the 1990s. As old-fashioned as that sounds today, CD-ROM publishing let users access a large amount of information easily. In fact, an early digital encyclopedia set was priced 86% cheaper than the equivalent 21 volumes of printed books. And the format could include multimedia audio, video and links.

While CD-ROMs were replacing traditional encyclopedias, more experiments were happening online. Twitter launched in 2006 and by 2008, people were using it to write novels 140 characters at a time. The Kindle launched in 2007 and by 2010, e-books made up an important part of sales. New channels, formats and ideas are still developing and evolving online very quickly. After all, who needs a CD-ROM reference publication when you have Wikipedia?

To be continued

In short, the book is a technology that has been renewed to meet the needs of readers for hundreds and thousands of years. As publishers face digital challenges in the 21st century, there’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future. Handmade, machine-printed or digital: books are always adapting so that more people can access them—and the knowledge inside.

Read this article in our 7th issue of Calaméo Magazine, as well as many others on the theme of renewal and innovation:

And if you haven’t read all the other issues of Calaméo Magazine yet, you can find them right here.

PUBLISHING

How to optimize your documents for digital publishing

In PUBLISHING
9 July 2020

There are many ways to make publishing your documents online easier, faster and smarter with Calaméo. From adding engaging video to developing a social strategy, our tools can help you enrich your publications and reach your audience. But before you start, be sure to check out our tips all about how to optimize your documents for publishing on Calaméo.

Just these five simple steps will get your documents ready to become great digital publications.

Check file type

You already know that digital publishing with Calaméo can help you go beyond the PDF. However, our powerful conversion technology handles many different file types. In addition to PDFs, you can upload text files, Word documents, Powerpoints and Excel files directly to Calaméo. Before you publish, take a moment to make sure that your document is in one our accepted file formats.

Reduce file size

When you work with high-quality images, complex layouts and other data-rich elements, the size of your file sometimes grows quickly. Since BASIC and PREMIUM users can convert files of up to 100 MB on Calaméo, it may be necessary to reduce your file size before upload. Don’t want to worry about limits? Upgrade to PLATINUM and start publishing with a maximum file size of 500 MB.

Format links

Our easy-to-use Editor is a great tool for transforming your documents into interactive digital publications with GIFs, video, audio and more. If you have external links to include in your publication, you can also take advantage of automatic link detection on Calaméo! All you need to do is add the site URL in a clickable zone on your PDF. Once your file is converted, a link will automatically appear in your publication.

Print to PDF 

Most importantly, every part of your document should always look impeccable online. To ensure a flawless conversion on our platform, try printing your file to PDF rather than exporting to PDF. (We especially recommend this for Word documents with images, tables and other layout features.) As well as preventing display errors, you’ll also benefit from a reduced file size by printing to PDF.

Prepare images

Our cutting-edge conversion technology offers vibrant, clear images for publications that are works of art. But for those times that you need ultra-high resolution, consider adding image files to your publication with our Editor. First, make sure that your file (.JPG or .PNG) is hosted securely online. Next, leave a blank space in your original document where you wish to place the image. Finally, insert your image and save. You’ll enjoy perfect quality, even at the highest levels of zoom.

Keep these tips in mind to optimize your documents for digital publishing on Calaméo. By taking a few minutes to prepare your files, you’ll get the best results faster than ever. And if you’d like to learn more about ways to optimize your publications, check out our guides to SEO trends, making a virtual library and more.

Our PLATINUM plan is packed with great professional features. To request your free, two-week trial, visit our Pricing page now!