Integration with online magazine print services

[Alfa1]

IMHO the full potential of a online magazine would be reached if it has the functionality to have it printed through an online print service. As there are many printing services like www.lulu.com where you can turn documents into books, brochures, etc., I am sure there must be services that create newspapers or magazines from documents.

What are your thoughts about this?

Please consider connecting vbmagazine to online printing services.

[vBcover]

That will not work, because the kind of resolution that you need for images is differnt from web than print. You would have to upload images with more than 2 to 4 megs and again, after I autocrop them, they loose on their resolution

[Alfa1]

True, but that is easy to get around, by using alternate (full resolution) images for printing.

[vBcover]

Then the magazine will not be "print ready", would it? If you have to work around and start changing pictures :-)

[Alfa1]

No, I mean add a function that when images are autocropped, a high res version is saved as well. Then when sending the article to the printing service, the high res image is used.

Consider what it means to a online community to have a magazine, bulletin or newspaper printed on real paper and send it out to subscribers. Even if you have a big board, then it is you only have a internet forum. But with a printed magazine, this opens up so many opportunities outside the virtual world: attracting new members, advertising, subscription revenue, additional value to members, etc. It would bring the online community into the real world.

In the long run, i think online printed magazines will compete with traditional newspapers, in the same way that online printed books are already competing with traditional books. Mark my words. If you are able to add such functionality, then a mass of community owners will buy your product.

[vBcover]

go there http://www.vbcover.com/magindex.php and on the right navigation menu try clicking on the newsletter link and look in your mailbox. Then tell me if this is what you meant?

[Alfa1]

I do not see a right navigation menu, nor a newsletter link. However; I subscribed to that magazine earlier on today, by clicking 'subscribe to this magazine' in the left navigation menu. (Is this the newsletter function you refer to?) I have not received anything else but an email confirmation of the subscription.

[vBcover]

sorry, I meant "left"

First unsubscribed to magazine, then you will see a new link for testing. This is the one

[Alfa1]

Yes, I see it now. No, what I mean is if it where possible to create a pdf that contains the full magazine issue. Including:

a cover
index
articles
high resolution images
back cover
size and bleed according to printing service its specsI read somewhere that vbmagazine already supports pdf creation. Is that correct?

[vBcover]

Aha! inserting the images in a pdf is no trivial task! Currently we do have a pdf for article in article page, but images had to be left out. It's virtually impossible to position them the right way as the x and y position must be set at pdf creation time, and there is no way for me to know that. All I could do is inserting a logo as this is a fixed position, always