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Tue, 19 Jun 2007 Adobe ships Digital Editions application

New software boom for electronic publishing

Jonny Evans

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Adobe Systems has released Adobe Digital Editions 1.0, its new application for getting, managing and reading digital publications.

The software is available as a free download for the Mac and also for Windows systems.

Welcoming the release of the new software, Random House vice president of digital Matt Shatz said: “Adobe Digital Editions delivers a superior reading experience for downloadable content that users can enjoy without being connected to the internet."

Publishers can exploit the built-in export feature in order to create new Adobe Digital Editions-ready content. Versions of the software for mobile platforms and reading devices are also planned - Sony will embed the technology into its portable reader products.

“Adobe Digital Editions will revolutionize how publishers deliver eBooks and other digital content and how consumers experience it,” said Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president, corporate development at Adobe.

The software provides native support for Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML-based publications, and already works with 150,000 commercially published titles, Adobe claims.

In use, readers can expect content to automatically re-flow, adapting to different screen sizes. Built-in support for Flash may herald a wave of digital publications that include rich audio and video.

The public beta of Adobe Digital Editions generated more than 300,000 downloads in less than six months, the company said.

The user interface now offers better zooming, while the application supports the new IDPF Open Publication Standard (OPS) for XHTML-based re-flowable eBooks.

Feedback gathered during the trial period led Adobe to add the ability to annotate content through bookmarks, highlights and text notes. A library view lets readers organise their collections into multiple bookshelves.

Adobe Digital Editions also supports a new content protection technology for publishers called Adobe Digital Editions Protection Technology (ADEPT), a hosted content protection service to guard publisher’s rights while remaining easy-to-use.

Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 will be unveiled at the O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference on June 19.

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