RGB PDF

Introduction

Nothing is simple in the world of digital content! Even the Online PDF is a victim of e-retailer channel changes and challenges.

Google Search Inside PDF used to be just that, used for search inside. As long as the text was retrievable a user could make the decision on whether or not to purchase the title. Recently Google have stated they will be selling PDFs as a format and given a list of resolution and PDF bookmark requirements.

This means the print PDF X1A is not going to be suitable for submission to Google for search. No bookmarks and all the images at the wrong resolution.

Of course this only affects the US and some parts of Europe at present. It does not affect most of the world except for outsourcing production facilities.

It means the production standards of the Online PDF with bookmarks and page numbers has to be addressed at the same time as the print PDF is being produced, something few publishers do well.

As long as this is all done at production time there are few issues as all major desktop packages will allow the PDFs to be produced in both "formats". Publishers will inevitably have to provide different ISBNs for the two formats.

Summary

This article is an introductory stub. Future articles will deal with the explicit packaging requirements of Online PDF channels such as Google and Blio, and help you to make the correct decisions at production time.