IGP:Digital Publisher 4.0 Released

IGP:Digital Publisher 4.0 has been released and it has some significant new features for advanced digital content production. More technical details are available in the IGP:Digital Publisher Release Map article.

Major New Features

IGP:Digital Publisher API Implementation

There is now a full set of external RESTful APIs allowing authorized third-party software to request format generation. (See the Release Map article for full API details). This very power feature set was implemented as part of the National Health Service CQC reporting service application. Not only did they require standard PDFs and ebook formats to be available but also for sections of the Care Reports to be published on a number other sites. The content is maintained in a single trustworthy archive (IGP:Digital Publisher) and can be pushed or pulled to other sites as appropriate.

The APIs allow an authorized application to request project and document details and request all standard formats to be generated and delivered. These include online and print PDFs, ePub2, ePub3+2 ePub3 and Kindle 8 ebooks. In addition the FXZIP package can be transferred for another site to selectively process the FX tagged content through to various website CMS applications or for any other purpose.

Frontlist IGP:eIndexer updates

The IGP:eIndexer tool has the following new features:

Multiple Indexes (sections) You can now have more than one Index in your document. Using the core features of the eIndexing tool you can create multiple and comprehensive indexes for a book. This has the tools to make creating multiple indexes on the fly as painless as possible.

Set Index Type: You can also set an index type and this can be used to differentiate the index terms in the actual content. Eg: Name Index, Place Index, etc

Both Print and eBooks formats are updated to handle multiple index sections in the final output that is generated using IGP: Digital Publisher.

Punctuation placeholder Based on the feedback we received from users who are currently using the eIndexer tool, the position of the place holder is now defined basis of the below specificatons.

• There should be no comma (,) after the text of an index entry, however there should be commas between numbers.
• No semi colon after the last reference name of a 'see' and 'see also' entry. However, if there are multiple references there will be a semi-colon between these terms.
• No full stop after the entry word and before the word 'see' or 'see also'.
• The 'see' and 'see also' text will now appear in lowercase.

Set PrinceXML Version

Books typeset with PrinceXML 7.1 have a subtlely different flow when produced with Prince 8.0 or Prince 9.0. We This causes problems if PDFs need to be generated for a reprint run. To address this multiple back versions of PrinceXML can now be run on a DP server.

A book that is typeset using Typography In the Browser (TIB) using a specific Prince version will always use that version for PDF generation unless explicitly changed by an editor or adminstrator.

This allows publishers to move forward and exploit the new features of PrinceXML as versions are released without compromising work that has been carried out except by concious decision.

Format Processing and Generation Features

CSS Packaging, Merging & Reduction A new option named 'Optimize CSS Per Section' is now introduced on the ePub3 Processing options form. Fixed layout books use a lot of ID and page specific CSS. This packager creates per page CSS property files for ePub3 fixed layout. This gives smaller files and faster loading sections for presentation intensive textbooks in particular. It also means CSS Direct Design (CDD) created pages are optimally packaged.

Font Obfuscation Font Obfuscation is now introduced on the ePub3 Processing Options form. This uses the IDPF font obfuscation algorithm and was implemented with test files provided by the Adobe Development team.

Font Subsetting Font Subsetting is now extended to subset OTF as well as TTF fonts. The option If you select this option, both TTF and OTF fonts will be subset, substantially reducing the size of the font files in the generated ePub. You can still convert the subsetted TTF fonts to WOFF to ensure they are valid in an ePub3.

ePub Validation Removed the Epub Preflight process from ePub validation.

Workflow and Operation Improvements

Properties Editor A new properties editor is implemented in IGP:Writer that allows users to edit or insert the lang, class and data attributes of any FX/HTML element. This has been included primarily to allow for the custom modification of advanced interactive education content and to more easily address multi-language content and translation work.

It's available on every element with a Ctrl-Click on the appropriate content. Note this doesn't work on inline elements at present but may be extended in the future if there is a reason or demand.

CSS Editor Search The Search feature in the CSS Editor wass case-insensitive by default. A new checkbox is now made available to turn on the case sensitive search when required.

PDF Generation The Preview PDF in TIB will now use Online images instead of Print images. Additionally the full Composition PDF that is generated from the "Formats On Demand" interface will now use Online images. This reduces the loading time for high image-count PDFs. The final PDF that is generated using the options "Print PDF-Trimmed" and "Print PDF-Crops" will use the original high resolution print images.

Digital Publisher Management(DPM) Interface 1) The field's 'Modified By' and 'Modified Date' on the Document Summary now get updated instantly when a particular user has accessed a document. This update will trigger even if a user simply opens a document and closes the Edit window.  

2) The Project field details is now simplified for the Document Summary on the Projects Interface. It will now simply show the label Project and the name of the Project, colon seperated, without the word Owner mentioned there.

Typography Report Generation extension A new module has been added in Typography Analysis. This now handles the analysis of list items in document. List items are treated similarly to paragraphs for the flow analysis and paragraph numbers.

DPI - Auto generated Table Of Contents updates There was no proper styling and structure applied to the Auto TOC generated using the option “Generate Internal TOC Page”. This now has a tradesman-like.  The TOC generated using the option Generate Internal TOC Page matches the Writer TOC Section which is generated through Document Processors. Only section Numbers and Titles are included in the generated TOC.

This auto generated TOC also supports the advanced processing features. IE: Alternative Number (Alt No.), Alternative Title (Alt Title) available in Section Reorder. Additionally it will exclude a particular section from the TOC when the option 'TOC Exclude' is selected.

Summary

This release of IGP:Digital Publisher introduced new digital content features and continues to move digital content production for publishers into new business areas.

Publisher content covers a wide gammut of complexity from simple novels through to very complex education books. This is further complicated by different delivery and format demands. IGP:Digital Publisher is designed to maintain highly valuable content in a trustworthy and future-ready state.

If you are a publisher with valuable digital content that has future reuse value of any sort then IGP:Digital Publisher is what you need.

Posted by Richard Pipe