Adobe asked me to speak at the Adobe MAX conference a couple of weeks ago on the topic of Beyond Print: Digital Content from InDesign (PDF, EPUB, DPS, and HTML). The session was an overview of the industry, in order to give people a sense for what file formats and workflows you might or might not want to use when creating content in InDesign for viewing on a desktop or tablet screen.
In some ways I was lucky that PEPCON was the week before MAX, because I was able to glean information from awesome presenters such as James Fritz, Keith Gilbert, Diane Burns, Colin Fleming, Bart Van de Wiele, and others. My job, I decided, was to gather all the pros and cons of each format (PDF, EPUB, DPS, etc.), distill them, and present them to the audience in Los Angeles.
I admit that the result is not always inspiring. I know that many people wanted “The Answer” — the solution that gives them all the features they want in one place. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Each format, each solution, has good points and bad points, which usually come down to ease-of-use, distribution issues, and cost.
As it turns out, the one-hour session at MAX was recorded (I didn’t know they were going to do that!) and is available online here at AdobeTV. It’s not a video of me, but rather of my slides, with my voice speaking over it.
If you find the information useful, you can also download a PDF of my slide deck here.
You can also find even more MAX 2013 sessions listed here.
This article was last modified on July 25, 2019
This article was first published on May 21, 2013
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