Jan 31 2010
Online book and document publishing tools
There are a few tools around for embedding books and documents into websites. I have historically always been a fan of Scribd where I can upload my docs and pdfs for embedding into my wikis. Recently I have found another couple of options and am now trying to figure out which I would use. I have looked at three below and embedded a version of the same document from each one to show their differences.
I like the large Scribd community and the fact that when I embed docs into Scribd, they are easy to read at full size with the ability to scroll down them. I also like the stats I get about how many views and downloads the document has had. The embedded objects also autofit themselves to the space available whereever I embed them which is handy. It can be a pain that people have to sign up for a Scribd account to be able to download the documents I share.
Youblisher is a new one I’ve just started playing with (thanks Allanah for the post that alerted me to this one). I like the page turning effects and the overall look but am not sure that I like the way it takes you out of your site to view it or the fact that you have to zoom in to be able to easily read standard sized text. I do like the fact that it looks neat and tidy on the page when embedded and that it is super easy for people to download by clicking the down arrow beneath the embed. It is interesting that I can’t seem to find where to get the embed code when looking at other people’s books – I only seem to be able to access it when I create my own books.

Today I also signed up for Issuu which is another self-publishing platform. This one is very customisable with different ways to embed the document and three different views: one called magazine style with the two pages, presentation style with one page at a time, and paper style with pages that you can scroll down through (like Scribd). I like the fact that you can view an embedded book in full screen mode and then change between the viewing styles using the options that appear when you run your mouse over the top centre of the book space. You also get very good statistics for the document. You do still need an account to download the document though like Scribd.
Magazine Style
Paper style
So what do you think? Which one do you like the best and why?




One of these features is the ability to create folders and nest pages within them. While my Christmas wiki isn’t big enough to need this function, I could see that this would be very useful for one of my bigger wikis such as educational software where I have created index pages for different sections – the folders would then help to keep my pages organised and easy to navigate with people able to use the navigation panel on the wiki to move around the folders and access the pages within them.















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