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Tired of PDFs? Here’s an alternative.

The ubiquity of PDF documents makes them easy to ignore. Using “page turn” publishing can help your company stand out from the crowd by giving your audience a memorable reading experience.

Page turn publishing converts your PDF to an web document that offers a more realistic reading experience -- complete with the illusion of pages turning, and features such as zoom magnification and bookmarks.

Here are a few of the page turn publishers: iPaper from Scribd, PageTurn and Texterity.

Page turn publishing – periodicals
With the popularity of digital e-readers like the Kindle and iPad, there is a good chance that some of your audience will expect a page turn experience. For example, Crain’s New York Business, and The Chronicle of Higher Education now offer page turn versions of their magazines.

Enhanced annual reports
Page turn publishing is not just for magazines -- in fact, we are considering it for an annual report we are working on now. You can see how different these reports from Ford Motor Companies, and the American Chemical Society look and feel from a PDF.

The bottom line
Each program has its strengths and weaknesses. Most are hard to read on small screens, for example. Some of the services have badly designed user interfaces that are cluttered and hard to use. The publication is often hosted on the page turn service's website -- so it may not drive traffic to your website.

Research shows that people read 30% slower online. If you choose page turn publishing, use good web writing practices. Keep sentences and paragraphs short and use images to break up the text.

Cost
As I've mentioned, interfaces and features vary -- and so do prices. Free services give you limited functionality and are usually ad-supported. You can expect to pay $700 to several thousand dollars for sophisticated page turn publishing platforms.

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FACT OF THE MONTH
The United States Census has received thousands of forms in which people have claimed to be a alien race from Star Trek. The most popular race is Vulcan.

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LevinsonBlock News
In partnership with Mistina at Market It Write, our content strategist, we are developing brands for two different security firms.

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About LevinsonBlock
WHO WE ARE: LevinsonBlock LLC is marketing and design firm that has specialized in healthcare, businesses and non profits for over 20 years. We make complex messages simple and simple messages stronger. Visit us here.
WHAT WE DO: brand strategy and branding; persuasive content; print (such as annual reports, event promotion, periodicals); and usability-focused websites. If you have marketing questions or a topic you would like us to address in a future issue, email us here!
 

Thanks for reading!
Peter
LevinsonBlock LLC
718 438-2563
peterl@levinsonblock.com
www.levinsonblock.com
Vist us on LinkedIn
Fact of the Month courtesy Paul Michael Neuman; www.froggypumpkin.com

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