Experiences with Issuu.com
August 9, 2015 11:51 AM Subscribe
What has been your experience with using Issuu.com for hosting a magazine-style document?
If you’ve used Issuu to host a document and share it with your readership, can you tell me whether it has been a good or bad experience? What went wrong and what went right? Did you encounter foreseen or unforeseen problems? Would you recommend it before any comparable service?
I’m particularly interested in experiences with the free version, or with readerships that weren’t digitally–native. Thanks.
If you’ve used Issuu to host a document and share it with your readership, can you tell me whether it has been a good or bad experience? What went wrong and what went right? Did you encounter foreseen or unforeseen problems? Would you recommend it before any comparable service?
I’m particularly interested in experiences with the free version, or with readerships that weren’t digitally–native. Thanks.
It's not accessible for people who use screen readers. I've also found I can't read issu documents on my older mobile device.
posted by jb at 1:02 PM on August 9, 2015
posted by jb at 1:02 PM on August 9, 2015
If you’ve used Issuu to host a document and share it with your readership, can you tell me whether it has been a good or bad experience?
It hasn't been good or bad, it's just been a thing. Sometimes it's a bit slow (uses Flash I think) and the recent upgrades to ISSUU have made it more awkward to use, IMO.
What went wrong and what went right?
There was a hiccup or two when something went wrong on their end. Otherwise, it's a pretty painless process to upload the PDF.
Did you encounter foreseen or unforeseen problems? Would you recommend it before any comparable service?
That depends, what do you want to do? It's nice to offload the data and streaming costs to someone else, but you're offloading your docs to another service and helping them, not your own site or what have you. Can't say I'd recommend it as MUST DO thing, but it's not terrible as another "channel" to put content on.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:28 PM on August 9, 2015
It hasn't been good or bad, it's just been a thing. Sometimes it's a bit slow (uses Flash I think) and the recent upgrades to ISSUU have made it more awkward to use, IMO.
What went wrong and what went right?
There was a hiccup or two when something went wrong on their end. Otherwise, it's a pretty painless process to upload the PDF.
Did you encounter foreseen or unforeseen problems? Would you recommend it before any comparable service?
That depends, what do you want to do? It's nice to offload the data and streaming costs to someone else, but you're offloading your docs to another service and helping them, not your own site or what have you. Can't say I'd recommend it as MUST DO thing, but it's not terrible as another "channel" to put content on.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:28 PM on August 9, 2015
An organisation I worked for used the free version. It sometimes had ads appear which were less than ideal - orgs working in the same arena but with a strongly Christian slant, that sort of thing. However I wasn't directly involved with the issuu side of things so don't know if that was something which could have been fixed.
As a user I encourage having a pdf download link tucked away on the same page - I have at times got bored and navigated away whey waiting for the document to appear, or the UI problems others mention.
posted by tavegyl at 1:40 PM on August 9, 2015
As a user I encourage having a pdf download link tucked away on the same page - I have at times got bored and navigated away whey waiting for the document to appear, or the UI problems others mention.
posted by tavegyl at 1:40 PM on August 9, 2015
I'd much rather just have a PDF. Issuu has a pretty terrible search function (it can't search for a phrase, even just two words in order). If the text is small, the zoom function is very cumbersome. It is really grim on mobile trying to read anything small. And of course, Flash is always an annoyance.
If you want to provide both a PDF and Issuu, that can work, but I'm not really sure what Issuu does better than a PDF in a modern browser, especially if you are trading off against ads.
posted by ssg at 2:03 PM on August 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you want to provide both a PDF and Issuu, that can work, but I'm not really sure what Issuu does better than a PDF in a modern browser, especially if you are trading off against ads.
posted by ssg at 2:03 PM on August 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Like tavegyl, we had a small issue publishing our members' magazine on Issuu where the suggested publications underneath ours included mags with underwear-clad ladies in raunchy poses... stuff that was close to the underwear advert/soft porn divide. I think if we'd paid we could have overcome that, but we only ever had one person mention it and they were observing rather than complaining, so we let it be. (When we tested it, it happened sometimes but not always, and only if you scrolled down a ways from our publication at the top).
posted by penguin pie at 4:12 PM on August 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by penguin pie at 4:12 PM on August 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Reader report: My fonts are so large I sometimes strip text out of PDFs & copy to text editor to read them at all. Issuu is totally hopeless. The user experience is like reading a magazine that's bolted to a low coffee table, and having to use a flexible bamboo stick to turn the pages. I cancelled my subscription.
Do ask about archival issues: will your magazine still be available in a year, or ten?
posted by Jesse the K at 5:04 PM on August 9, 2015
Do ask about archival issues: will your magazine still be available in a year, or ten?
posted by Jesse the K at 5:04 PM on August 9, 2015
In my experience, Issuu (and Flash for that matter) do not play nicely with older computers.
posted by oceano at 1:43 AM on August 10, 2015
posted by oceano at 1:43 AM on August 10, 2015
In case anyone's still around - does anyone know of any other readers that offer better UX than issuu, but aren't just a downloadable pdf? I'd like to find something that's instantly visual (rather than a text hyperlink to a pdf) but which works more smoothly than issuu.
posted by penguin pie at 8:06 AM on November 23, 2015
posted by penguin pie at 8:06 AM on November 23, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by intermod at 12:55 PM on August 9, 2015 [8 favorites]