Baller 21

Issuu // Free Digital Publishing

by Chris Harvey on 09/17/09

A few days ago, I was introduced to a website called Issuu. Issuu provides a platform to publish and share your publications for free and embed on websites, blogs, and social networks.

The process is simple // Take any document – Upload to Issuu – Use it anywhere online.

Document format support // PDF, Word, Pages, PowerPoint, Keynote, OpenOffice, RTF, Word Perfect and more (DOC, ODT, WPD, SXW, RTF, ODP, SXI).

Website and Blog support // WordPress, Blogger, Orkut, MySpace, Facebook, Joomla, Typepad, LiveJournal, or just embed HTML into a page or post.

Personally, I was looking for a way to display products and services for Baller Athletics on a new website. I wanted visitors and partners to visually be able to view and interact with our content online without any download or installation interruptions.

Below is only a sample of a league coordinator manual for a basketball league. I created the document in Pages, uploaded a PDF, and then embedded the code provided by Issuu into a post operating WordPress (Use the small arrow on the right to slide through content. By clicking on the publication you can view in full screen and then click X in right corner to return to website page).

There are too many customization features to list and I’m not even using the Pro Version (Plans start at $19 month).

Additionally, if you want to display content in the full screen view without navigating away from your website, there is an option to use Smart Look – automatically replaces all the documents on your website with beautiful online publications (coding experience helpful or a webmaster’s aid for this free feature).

I haven’t tested Smart Look yet, but I plan to, and can see the benefit of keeping the browsing experience at one location. Also, this feature might help page loading time verses using Issuu.com uploading process.

I have also uploaded documents that include posters, brochures, and other manuals that I am thinking of displaying on a services/product page.

What do you think? Useful online experience or not?