A few weeks back I wrote a post with a few ideas for using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite tools without having to pay the high price for a subscription to the complete service. At the time, there were already hints about a lower cost service but nothing specific and no timeline.
Well, I’m very happy to report that Adobe has finally come up with a way for the 98% of the market that’s been left on the outside looking in. Today, during the keynote address at MAX, Adobe introduced Digital Publishing Suite Single Edition. Using this service, anyone with InDesign CS5 or CS5.5 can create a one-off branded app for a one-time fee of $395. Additionally, for those interested in the Professional Edition, Adobe also announced that Digital Publishing Suite, Professional Edition will be available as a monthly subscription at US$495/month.
This is a far cry from the prior requirement of a DPS subscription at a minimum cost of about $6,000/year and $100 less than Quark is charging for a similar service for users of QuarkXPress.
Assuming that you have a working knowledge of the DPS tools and InDesign, the process is pretty straight forward and works almost identically to the high priced subscription service with a few important limitations:
- This is a one-off product. No in-app purchases and no subscriptions.
- The app cannot be updated. Just like a printed piece, if it needs updating you pay.
- While the full DPS service is compatible with Android, Playbook and iPad DPS SE is iPad only at this time. Playbook and Android will roll out in 2012.
- North America only to start. Plans are to roll DPS SE out globally throughout 2012.
So, how’s it work? Besides InDesign CS5 or CS5.5 you’ll need a credit card and an Apple Developer account ($99/year). Windows users won’t want like this part, but you’ll also need a Mac. That requirement is two-fold.
- A Mac is required by Apple to create the certificates needed to generate the app. The keychain utility is used for this and there is no Windows equivalent.
- Adobe has yet to release a Windows version of the viewer builder app needed to package everything up.
Additional benefits
For those who are not ready to publish, there’s more good news. Until now, if you wanted to share folios and only had a free Acrobat.com account, you were limited to one single folio. That limit has been removed and all registered Acrobat.com users will have access to the full folio builder tools by logging into digitalpublishing.acrobat.com.
This will allow you to work on as many projects a you see fit and publish whenever you’re ready.
I’m absolutely thrilled about this. It shows that Adobe does listen to its customers and while it would have been nice to introduced this sooner, I’m happy to file it under “better late than never.” You can read the official Adobe announcement here.
Please use the comments section to let us know what you think.
This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on October 3, 2011
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