They're especially poor on mobile devices. Unfortunately, embedded PDFs - and PDF files in general - make for a terrible digital user experience. The result is often a flip-book style copy of a print magazine, or a link to a PDF file. There are a range of services that allow PDFs to be embedded in a website, and organisations in a rush to create a 'digital' version of their magazine often use this method first. We've all experienced clicking through to an online magazine and seeing - with a sigh - that it has been published as an embedded PDF. The model you choose will depend your readership, budget, marketing strategy, and business model. Today, there are five main methods for creating a digital magazine. A great example comes from Imperial College, London.Īfter nine months of publishing digital stories, Imperial saw 142% higher average unique pageviews and 50% higher average time on page.ĭigital magazines have been around since the dawn of 'digital' itself, and have passed through a range of stages since that point, from floppy discs to Flash (RIP). They’re a far cry from the all-too-familiar ‘web PDF’ feel of many digital magazines. These teams are focusing on building immersive reading experiences natively on the web. Publishing and marketing teams are increasingly investing in high quality content, which has helped drive a resurgence in digital magazine publishing. You can learn more about the rise of digital magazine platforms in our guide. Usually, digital magazines read like a print magazine, but worse. Many digital magazines feel like a poorly implemented afterthought, and are hard to find, clunky to read, and visually uninteresting.
For many years, digital magazines have represented some of the worst aspects of digital publishing. To most readers, this might sound strange.