Below is a breakdown of the different target options for your external links:

new window:
This is the default option. The link will open in a new window/tab of the browser

same window:
The link will open in the same window. Once a link is clicked, the user will have to click the 'back' button to return to your digital edition

iFrame popup:
The link will open as an inline iframe modal similar to how the 'email to a friend' popup appears over the flipbook. With this option, you are required to define the height and width (in pixels) of the popup.

hidden (utility):
The link will open in a hidden frame. This is the default for email addresses as the browser will launch the user's email client, but will not reveal the empty new page. Use this option for any utilities you link to that don't produce anything on the screen.

widget iFrame:
The link will open in an iFrame with name="flipbook_widget_iframe". If you plan to use this method, you must ensure to include an iframe in your Title's widget code that has this 'name' attribute. For example:

<iframe name="flipbook_widget_iframe" border="0" width="200" height="500"></iframe>

There is also a code helper function in the widget tab if you are not familiar with html.  Find more here

This option will allow you to integrate , as an example, a shopping cart system to display items clicked on in the flipbook within your widget area.

A link (hyperlink) is a pointer to another document or location.  In terms of digital publishing they can be internal (table of contents links, linking from cover page to article) OR external(linking to a website or email)

You can add links to your PDF in adobe acrobat prior to uploading to the Mygazines system, but what if you have already uploaded your edition? Mygazines has a feature where you can add or update links after you upload and at any time.

• While logged in to your Mygazines account go to your title.  Beside the mini-cover of an issue there is a "tools" dropdown menu.  Click on "add/edit links"

• Once in the tools screen, choose your title, issue and which page you want to insert a link

• Now you can move, resize and place the link area using your mouse.  This gives you the ability to make the link area as large as you want.
• Then choose the link type (internal to another page in your publication, external webpage or email), destination(page, web address or email address), the highlighting style and any "Hover Tip" pop up text you would like to appear when mouse is over the link.

• You can also choose "Link Target" options to determine the action when a link is clicked in your publication. Click HERE to find more information about link target options

• Once you've chosen your link settings, click "Add Link" and the link will show the next time your publication is loaded in the reader

There are none. The more successful your Mygazines publication is for you the more we think you'll want to stay a Mygazines customer.

As long as you remain a client of Mygazines, by maintaining an active account, the links to your publications will remain live.

No. The Mygazines application is 100% web-based.

If you use a desktop computer, your viewer’s browser needs to be Flash-enabled. (98.5% of all desktop browsers are Flash-enabled). Javascript and cookies must also be enabled.

If you use Mygazines Mobile, there's no need to install anything. Our mobile interface works on almost any touch-screened device, including the iPad, iPod Touch and Android phones. Read more here.

Mygazines' analytics module measures, collects and reports the traffic to your issues. It helps you understand how your publication performed within a specific period of time.

To view your publications analytics, navigate to your title and click the little bar-graph icon next to a publications thumbnail image.  You can view page level and issue level statistics.

In order to read the data, you need to know a few concepts. Here are the most important ones:

Page view  is a request to load a single page of your publication. A single user can rack up many page views.

Unique page views are commonly tracked to log the number of different visitors a page receives. For example, if one reader loads the same article 5 times, it will count as 5 page views but only one unique page view.

Average time on page is the amount of time a group of users spend in one of your pages. The more time users spend on your site, the more you can assume they're engaged with your content and your brand.

This list will be expanded as new features are added to the tracking system.

 Mygazines' publishing software it really easy to use. Just follow these four steps:

1. Format your PDF (using Adobe Acrobat ®)

• Create links and bookmarks. Your digital edition will retain all the formatting you put into your PDFs. This includes bookmarks and links. We even support nested bookmarks!
• All the pages must be in one file and all page sizes must be the same
• Embed fonts
• Do not include security settings
• Avoid text as images. Only use "real" text so your digital edition looks sharp and can be found by search engines
• All the layers on each page of the PDF should be merged
• Avoid low quality images by saving in a 150 dpi resolution
• Remember that your file must be saved in Adobe® PDF (up to version 1.6)

You can also check out this extended and illustrative post with the best practices for formatting your PDF

2. Login

Go to www.mygazines.com/login and enter you username and password in the proper fields followed by 

3. Create a Title

The next screen will show the 'Create a new Title' link. Click on it and start specifying the basic settings for all the issues that will be under that title

These Flipbook options let you customize the look and functionality of your digital publications, including features of the flipbook such as downloading, printing, sharing, full-screen mode, archives and page number offset

Then you can upload a logo to be displayed at the left side of your publication's menu bar. We recommend a 24 bit transparent PNG image, no larger than 140 px wide by 22 px high

Choose your image file and an optional website URL. Your logo would link to it

This is an example of how your logo would look like

Another great feature is the ability to set a main color (for menu and tabs) and a background color. Both can be picked visually from the gradient or defined using their respective HTML codes

After you finish customizing your Title, click on 

4. Upload your digital edition

Now you can finally upload your PDF. Go to the 'Manage your Titles' section, pick the Title where the issue is going to be and click on 

On the next screen, enter a name for your issue, select the PDF and press  

The uploading process shouldn't take more that 10 minutes. It depends on the size of your PDF

After uploading your PDF, our system will automatically process it. You will be just one step away from being able to read your digital edition

You can start reading your digital publication by clicking on the      button besides it's thumbnail

Now you can test and enjoy your first digital publication

One last thing. If you'd like your publication to be exposed to thousands of people every month, just place it in the Mygazines' newsstand. On the 'upload issue' screen, tick the newsstand option and then press

You can also do it with existing issues. Go to your Title, then to the digital edition that you want to showcase and click on the Newsstand's settings button: . That will take you to the options for that particular issue. Enter your settings and press 

Other useful posts on how to format your digital editions:

• How to embed rich media into your publication
• What are clippings and how to use them
• Best practices for creating dynamic content for your publications
• Best practices for formatting your PDF
• Can I make changes to my Mygazines publications after uploading?
• How long can I keep my Mygazines digital publications up for?

If you look beside the thumbnail of the Issue you want to embed (in your Mygazines account) you will see the 'embed' options.

Both (cover and mini flipbook) will give you full embed codes that you can place on your website for people to view and click to see the full size version of the publication. Here is a simple tutorial for both:

Cover with link

1) If you press the 'cover with link' option, the HTML code for embedding will automatically pop up.

2) Paste it where you want it to be and a thumbnail that links to your publication will be displayed. It should look like this:

Mini-flipbook

1) If you click on the mini flipbook feature, it will automatically take you to the mini flipbook's settings page. There you can customize how it will be displayed, including background color, size, title, link and loading method.

2) When you're happy with how it looks, press    and get the mini flipbook's HTML code.

3) Copy the code and paste it where you want it to be. This is how it should look like:

When the mini flipbook is clicked, the full-featured flipbook will load.

That's it!

Just like any other page, ads can be dynamic, include multimedia elements (videos and sounds) and even interactive features. The content has to be placed in your digital edition in the same way as rich media. You would have to create your .flv or .swf file, place it on any page, resize it as big as you want (even a whole page), making your publications a truly interactive experience and adding value for your advertisers.

Questions:

I have some questions about your infrastructure. Specifically:

1. Power Failover plan?

2. IP Failover plan?

3. Bandwidth? Pipe?

4. Kind of web servers? How many?

5. Plan B in case network/servers go down?

Thanks in advance if you have any of this.

Answers:

ok here goes:

Power Fail-over:
- all our servers have redundant power, storage and cpu

IP Fail-over:
- we are equipped with redundant load-balancers that balance the load and ensure working status of all web and storage servers

Bandwidth:
- we are on a burstable 100mbit pipe with the ability to upgrade to 1tb on the fly.
- we use Limelight Networks to distribute our media, which is like an infinite pipe-stream across the globe. Limelight serves content for companies like Microsoft who outsource their content distribution.

Web servers:
- we run about 95% Dell Poweredge 2950, 2850 and 1850 servers
- as mentioned, all are equipped with redundant power, cpu and RAID storage

Plan B:
- head for the bomb shelter in the basement: We're hosted out of the central Canadian internet hub at 151 Front st. http://www.151frontstreet.com
- there are about 10 different ISP's interconnected into this world-class facility ensuring redundancy at every level

Hope that answers your questions

Title Authentication

The Title Authentication module is an API that allows you to password protect your titles using your own subscription system. This feature is intended to leverage your existing database of registered members. Rather than give us access to your database, you can setup a simple script on your site, accessible over the web that our system can securely POST information to.

For more detailed explanation of this use visit this post

Email Harvesting

you can manipulate this module to harvest emails and generate leads. Click here to find out how!

Simple pass-phrase

you can now also use this module to setup a single password (pass-phrase) that requires no hosted script on your end - all internal! Click here to find out how.

Clippings are a way for you to index parts of pages that you want to grant your readers easy access to. In the most basic example, a clipping is a great way to make a coupon directly available for print within your application - and at a high resolution suitable for printing (hint: think printable bar-codes).

Rather than making your reader wait while our system "cuts out" a section of a page, by predefining your clippings we'll have those "cut out" areas ready for immediate download and printing so your readers don't have to wait.

Define the area that you want to cut out and create the clipping

Your readers can collect their clippings in one central clipping basket, from which they can print all at once, individually and even email the whole clipping basket to their friends and colleagues!

Readers can collect and print your clippings

Here are some key formatting practices that will ensure you get the best results with your Mygazines publications:

• Add bookmarks and links using Acrobat (up to version 9). You can include internal links to pages as well as external links to websites such as your advertisers - all links will be retained and included in your Mygazines publication!

1) Start by opening your PDF file on Adobe Acrobat Professional and go to the page where you index is.

2) From the main menu, choose  Tools> Advanced Editing> Link Tool.

3) Use your mouse to enclose the section (with an invisible rectangle) where you want to place the link. A window will automatically open up.

4) Choose the appropriate appearance and link action. The link could lead either to a different page from the PDF (bookmark), a file, web page or it could be a custom link, like an e-mail. Click on NEXT and simply follow the rest of the specific instructions for each kind of link.

5) Repeat the process for every other link you wish to include, save your file as a PDF and upload it onto Mygazines. All the links will be retained in your Mygazines publication!

• To index your publication, and create a list of articles/sections, simply create a bookmark for every article/section in your PDF. We even support nested bookmarks!
• Do not include PDF security options

• Embed fonts in your PDF so your digital reader can display them correctly. On Adobe Acrobat, choose Advanced > PDF Optimizer

• All the elements must be merged into one layer
• Avoid low quality images by saving in a resolution at 150dpi
• Also, your PDF colors might be slightly changes. You might want to avoid it by using the right color settings. Here's how you do it:

1) Open the file on Adobe InDesign.
2) Click on 'Save As...', enter the file name and 'Save'. Make sure you choose PDF as the file type.
3) Then the 'Save Adobe PDF' window will pop-up. Click on the 'Output' tab and define the colour settings. Here's a screencap that shows how it should be.

4) Press 'Save PDF' and that's it. The publication colors will now be bright, just how you see them on Acrobat.

• Confirm website links. While Acrobat (all versions) may show some website links as active, make sure the actual links have been created by running the following tool in Acrobat Professional ®. From the main menu, choose  Advanced > Document Processing > Create Links from URLs
• All the pages should be in one file and must have the same size
  
• Your file must be in Adobe® PDF format (up to version 1.6). Save using standard settings

For further instructions on how to edit your PDF file, here are some helpful links:

• Creating Bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat (version 7.0+)
• Create Links in Adobe Acrobat (version 7.0+)
• Adobe Acrobat 9.0 Standard Help File

You can also check out this blog post with other good practices for formatting a PDF.

Here are some general guidelines to ensure you get the most out of your dynamic content.

SWF Animations

• While actionscript is allowed, DO NOT include any scripting that modifies the position or dimension of elements causing those elements to exit the main stage's area
• We use both the stage dimensions and animation dimensions to calculate your content's proportions. For best results, create a box (can be transparent) on any frame on the main stage with the exact same dimensions as your stage
• Keep all movie clips and animations inside a mask that is contained within the stage to ensure your animations stay within your stage
• DO NOT embed FLV videos into your SWF's - upload an FLV file instead
• Your SWF animations should be in AS3 (actionscript 3.0) ONLY - AS2 is not supported as an embeddable SWF.
• If you're still publishing with Flipbook 2.0, your SWF animations should be in AS2 (actionscript 2.0) ONLY. In this case, AS3 is not supported as an embeddable SWF.

FLV Video
FLV is an Adobe Flash video format that works well within Flash documents. If you need help converting your video files to FLV's, here are some useful resources:

• Convert video using the Flash 8 Video Encoder wizard (adobe.com)