Digital Publishing Company

Many companies have developed Flash applications to create online magazines with page turning effects. They have different levels of styling on the Flash viewer, but the underlying process is the same, namely that .swf images of the pages are created from PDFs and a searchable text layer is added.

Olive works in a different way. It creates XML which then has a number of different uses.

Sending readers a whole-copy digital edition is just one option. You can also send them individual articles, RSS feeds, share articles with aggregators, or combine them to form a library or archive of past issues.

Yes...we too have a Flash viewer, and this is what you might send to readers.

The Bookseller

Secondly they offer readers the opportunity to get the publication via RSS.

The Bookseller Showcase

However, this conversion to XML is exclusive to Olive and patent protected. We can also add any authentication rules you wish, which is something many of the Flash application providers cannot do, and (since every single action is recorded) a full set of statistics.

With Olive you create open source XML and the viewer is entirely independent of the digitisation process. You may not know what you want to do with it now beyond provide whole editions of magazines but you have your material stored in such a way that it can be utilised in any way you wish in the future. So Olive is not only ‘future-proof’, XML is money in the bank.

In short, you get the tools and options available to you that only a technology company can provide. Olive is not only the biggest provider of digitisation technology in the world—it is the only technology company working in this area.

With Flash application providers, what you see is all you get. As a business decision, using their solution for anything other than dispensable short lifespan material makes no sense: you pay to create Flash images which have no use beyond viewing in the provider’s own Flash append since there is nothing you can do with it in the future.

Here is a real-life example of one customer putting this to some use.

Firstly they utilise the single-story level to offer viewers a ‘clippings’ functionality to save stories.

Computing

Secondly they offer readers the opportunity to get the publication via RSS.

IT Week