The advantages of digital magazines.

Faster Publishing and Distribution -Digital magazines reach and engage audiences in a short time. Around 58% of digital magazine readers read their edition the same day it arrives.

Flexibility For Magazine Content-One of the limitations that print publishers have and need to work around is a fixed layout of content, which is drawn out by the number of pages allotted for a magazine. In digital magazines, it is possible to increase the pages of content without changing the layout or having to condense the text to fit in the required format. Also, the publishers will not incur any additional cost for paper and printing by adding pages to the digital magazine as with increasing the size of a print magazine.

Global Audience Reach-Digital publishing has the advantage of reaching readers beyond regional boundaries. It has become a powerful way to keep readers interest and maintain loyalty even when readers have moved to another location – you can still send your magazine to wherever readers are by providing them access to print magazine through your digital edition.

The digital version of Magazine is available on the following platforms

So they have most mobile devices covered

This is the first page of the magazine, as you can see you can read it horizontally as well as vertically and flick through the pages as if you were reading the print version of the magazine. First impressions are not brilliant as it seems to be just a scan front cover of the original version, which is not very pleasing to the eye once on a digital format.

Front Cover

When making an iPad edition of a magazine it is important to think of way in which you can take advantage of the technology in the iPad to enhance the experience of the publication. The iPad edition of the magazine makes use of images and text only despite other digital magazines making use of video and moving images.

The theme carries through to the contents page and even has an advert for the digital version in the digital version.

Text and Images

As this is a magazine it is extremely important that the text and images are easily visible, print magazines are laid out in such a way that the text is easily visible and works in conjunction with the images. This can change when transferred into iPad format. With HELLO! Magazine as it is just a scanned version of the print you have to make use of the iPads pinch to zoom feature in order to read the text. Although this is the case on most websites when using the iPad, it is not ideal. After zooming in on the text you notice that the images are not as high resolution as they could be, but this could be to reduce file size and download time.

Features

This magazine uses a simple PDF as its platform therefore it allows features such as this scrolling viewer to find the page you want quickly.

To take advantage of iPad magazines and to improve usability there are some points to consider..

• File size-The file size is important as users do not want it taking up too much space on their iPad, they want to be able to download using 3G at times, and downloading time is an issue.

• LayoutThe reading space is much smaller than in a full size publication, think about how you can optimize the design and layout for your readers. Consider making articles shorter, text larger, adding highlighted or feature points that stand out on the page. As mobile devices show the publication as a smaller version, optimize the page so that they can read the text without having to zoom in.