Experience the real Dimensions Magazine onlineWe've been experimenting with converting Dimensions Magazine into a file format that lets you see the magazine online in exactly the same way it looks in print. This is done by "distilling" the actual print files into "pdf" files. This process compresses the print files down into a size that makes them suitable for viewing on the web. The pdf format has many advantages. For example, you can zoom in or out, something you can't do with a regular web page. And even when you are zoomed in to maximum magnification, the text will be razor-sharp. You can even print out a pdf file and get good results.
You do, however, need software called "Acrobat" from Adobe to read those pdf files. You can download Acrobat free from Adobe's website. Acrobat also comes with a "plug-in" for your web browser. Once it is installed, the browser will be able to read pdf files directly, as if they were web pages. If you don't have Acrobe Acrobat 4.0 and the Acrobat plugin, you can download it by clicking here.
Be aware that even heavily compressed pdf files can be quite large, especially if the pages contain a lot of pictures. To give you an idea of what Acrobat could do for Dimensions, I converted a number of pages of the latest issue into pdf format. The files vary in size.
Once it is installed, you can try viewing the following Dimensions pdf files:
- Jun 1998 issue (79) Full Magazine (8.7MB; some pics low-res)
- Aug 1998 issue (80) Full Magazine (10.2MB; some pics low res)
- Feb 2000 issue (84) Pages 1-43 (7.5MB)
- May 2000 issue (85) Full Magazine (7.5MB)
- Spring 2002 issue (88) Full Magazine (12.5MB)
Let me know how this works for you, and what you think of its potential. Obviously, this doesn't mean that we'll be giving away the print magazine for free from now on, but it could be a new way to distribute high quality content to subscribers. The possibilities are endless.
Addendum Feb. 21, 2006: I added a few more PDFs. From issue 84 on we did all pre-press in PDF and thus have high quality files. Earlier issues were still on film, and it'd be hard to fully recreate those issues in PDF because we no longer have all images (in those days hard disk space was at a premium and files no longer needed were discarded or saved onto some long obsolete archive medium).
Conrad