To use that well-known phrase, Yes you can: you can compile content for simultaneous print and digital output. But you need to think carefully before you start.
I used to think optimistically that the advent of digital delivery would change the way forever that publishers compiled content. Sadly, this has proved not to be the case. Often I am asked to fix problems with content that could easily have been avoided if the content had been compiled in the right way from the beginning. Here therefore are a few tips for compiling content that will be used both for digital and for print output. In most cases, the principle is simple but sometimes the means of achieving it can be quite complex. That doesn't mean it's not worth bothering to solve the problems in advance of publication!
1. Think multiple formats
Is this going to be a print title? A Web title? Or both? Make sure you don’t have references such as “see page 245”. There are plenty of ways of eliminating this problem. In a print volume, it is easy to state “in the last article”, or “in the next chapter”, but on the Web there may be neither, or at least organised differently, since chunks are accessed and read independently. Make sure your content does not refer to other sections in this way.
2. Is there a new way of doing things?
Dictionaries of quotations published in the UK are traditionally indexed by the number of the quotation on the page. But there is no usability justification for this practice: users have to search first for a page number, then for a further number on the page itself. It would be no more complicated to organise quotes by author and then the number of quote from that author, or by a single numerical sequence.
3. Only use InDesign at the right moment
Wrapping text around pictures looks very nice, but few publishers have a sufficiently organised workflow to distinguish changes made to get the text to fit around the picture from changes made to get the content publishable. Changes due to the latter should be carried into the digital edition, but changes caused by the former are for the print layout only.
4. Establish a cross-reference policy
You can leave it to the computer, as Wikipedia does, so that every mention of France becomes a link to the "France" entry. Or you can think about when it might be appropriate to link, and when not. The latter approach is more work but produces a better product.
5. Does length matter?
Not in quite the same way as print. Paradoxically, the overall length of a piece of text is less important in digital format, but the first few words and sentences are even more important. If Google finds ten million hits for your search, so much the better, but you are only ever going to look at the first ten or so. Likewise, when reading on screen, the first few words determine the reader’s subsequent behaviour. Is this text to be read completely? Does this text provide the answer I was looking for?
6. Think about rights
Don’t use any content such as images or other multimedia for which you have not cleared permissions for use in all formats. Commission all new content for use “in all formats, print, digital, or to be invented”.
7. Think about SEO
Many page titles are automatically converted to URLs of titles when content is loaded to the Web, for example “how to read a map” becomes something like www.mysite.com/how-to-read-a-map.htm. This process might produce some very cumbersome page titles. Therefore, make sure the headings you use are (a) intelligible, and (b) not too long.
If you are interested to find out more about this, I have also compiled some tips for reference book publishing on the Web.
