Review. Adobe DPS


There are more than 80 digital publishing solutions and it is not easy to choose the most suitable. In a next few weeks I’ll tell about the most popular tools (Adobe DPS, Mag+, App Studio…)

Adobe DPS is definitely the most popular digital publishing tool, about 80 % of digital issues and 150M publications built with Adobe DPS. What are pros and cons of DPS? Who are DPS customers? How much does an app cost? And asked the DPS expert David Hicks and art director of Top Gear magazine Owen Norris, what do they think of DPS and what they can advise to new publishers.

Web: adobe.com
Publish on: Tablets, Phones
Supported OS: Mac OS, Windows OS (App Builder only Mac OS)
Software requirements:Adobe InDesign CS6-CC

Customers

About 80% of digital issues consumed on mobile devices made with Adobe DPS more than 150M publications. Large publishing houses, universities,corporations, small design studios and freelancers use Adobe DPS to create digital publications.

TopGear
Bon Appetit
Esquire UK
Martha Stewart Living

You can find more apps built with DPS here: DPS Showcase Gallery and Customer Showcase (Adobe TV).

Pricing options

Adobe offer 4 pricing options:

Adobe, Media Training, DPS Guide

Workflow


Interactive overlays

  • Hyperlinks
  • Slideshow
  • Audio and video
  • Pan & zoom images
  • Scrollable content
  • Image sequences
  • Panoramas
  • Web content overlays

Analytics

The Analytics page of the DPS Dashboard lets track the user data of
a custom viewer app (only Professional or Enterprise) single-folio and multi-folio apps:

  • App Metrics
  • Issue Buy and downloads
  • Publications & Issues
  • Articles and Content
  • Rich Media
  • Visitor Profile
  • Social Media
  • Custom HTML tracking

Pros and Cons

Pros

  1. InDesign based
  2. Very little workflow change for people familiar with the Adobe products already
  3. No coding
  4. Pay when you ready to publish
  5. Lots of tutorials (Adobe TV and Digital Publishing Suite Help), webinars, conferences.
  6. Adobe DPS Forum and Community
  7. Regular updates and realises of new features
  8. Article preview on devices and desktop
  9. Multi-Renditions (diff. folios for diff. resolutions)
  10. Folio sharing
  11. Different subscription plans
  12. Free Article Preview
  13. Updateable issues
  14. Targeted scheduled Push-notification
  15. Lazy-Loading
  16. Streaming Audio and Video
  17. Secure Content
  18. Information Screen (allows DPS customers to present special offers, cross sell related content or display critical information)
  19. Integration with CRM (Enterprise)
  20. Integration of Digital Publishing Suite and Experience Manager
  21. Direct entitlement into DPS application enables existing print subscribers to access content on any supported digital device.

Cons

  1. Although the service is feature-rich, cost could be a factor for budget-conscious organizations.
  2. Download sizes. Size of apps built with Adobe DPS is larger than HTML-based publication.
  3. App Builder is available only for Mac OS.
  4. All articles/folios must be hosted by Adobe when using DPS. There’s no alternative hosting option.
  5. Readers can’t view magazines built with DPS on a computer.
  6. Analytics only for Professional and Enterprise Editions.
  7. Adobe DPS doesn’t support multi-language publications.

Pro’s opinion


What do digital publishing experts think about Adobe DPS? Pros and Cons, alternatives and their advices to new publishers.

David Hicks about Adobe DPS (Digital Publishing Design Consultant)

Owen Norris about Adobe DPS (TopGear Magazine Art Director)