15 Ways to Publish Digitally with InDesign & in5

in5 lets you create interactive content using InDesign, and without coding.

What kinds of projects can you publish with in5?

Well…

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are several of the wonderful places that you can publish your in5 projects:

1. Web
2. Web App
3. Mobile App
4. WordPress
5. Animated GIF
6. Google Ad
7. Kiosk App
8. Tradeshow Presentation
9. Live Presentation
10. Sales Enablement App
11. LMS
12. Embed in another in5 project
13. Distribute as a local download
14. Part of a membership site
15. Premium publication app

All of these options are described in the following video, and in the article below.

Let’s take a look at these options in detail.

1. Web

Posting your files to a website is the most common and versatile way to share your digital projects.

It usually involves uploading your files (via an FTP application or an online file manager) and then sharing the URL.

You can learn all about this process in our Publishing to the Web article.

Your web content can look like a digital magazine, a scrolling website, or like any of these other customer projects.

2. Web App

If you want an app-like experience without all the hassle of the App Store, then creating a Web App may be the solution for you.

A Web App is really a website, but it can be saved to the Home Screen of an iPad, iPhone, or Android device with a custom icon. So it feels just like an app!

in5 can create a Web App for you when you export. You can learn more about that process in our Web App article.

3. Mobile App

in5 creates HTML5 content from your InDesign file, without any coding on your part. You don’t even have to know that it’s HTML5…except that HTML5 is highly supported across many platforms.

There are even tools that will take your HTML5 content and wrap it into a mobile app. Effectively, this means that you can create a mobile app without coding.

This is a changing landscape, so check out our Mobile App article for up-to-date details.

4. WordPress

in5 makes it incredibly easy to publish to WordPress with our in5 Embed Plugin.

The uploading takes place inside of your WordPress post/page editor, so you don’t have to use an FTP application or worry about URLs.

5. Animated GIF

Do you like the ease of InDesign’s Animation Presets and want to use them to make animated GIFs? No problem.

The in5 GIF Maker extension for Google Chrome can turn your in5 output into an animated GIF.

This is a great way to include animation into marketing emails, since email is otherwise quite limited in what it supports.

6. Google Ad

You can create Google Ads from in5 with a single-click during export. in5 adds all the technical bits to your output that Google requires and wraps it into a zip package so that you can simply upload it to Google.

7. Kiosk App

There are several apps for iOS and Android that can take your in5 output and turn it into a Kiosk app on your device. There are also companies that make kiosk stands for tablets. Check out how Dave Hickey created an awesome DIY Kiosk project.

8. Tradeshow Presentation

You can also create a hands-free, self-running presentation with InDesign and in5. CreativePro has used it between presentations at their events.

Check out Gouarte used a self-running video presentation to attract people to a tradeshow booth.

9. Live Presentation

Need to present? in5’s Presentation Mode lets you create Powerpoint-style presentations, but with InDesign.

I use this for my webinars. For example, this presentation with the InDesign User Group of New Jersey.

10. Sales Enablement App

You can distribute in5 content directly to a sales team (and their tablets or phones), and have it live offline using a Sales Enablement app.

These platforms are also useful for distributing policies and recipes to multiple franchise locations.

11. LMS

While in5 doesn’t export any LMS-specific code as of v3.7, it’s still just HTML (and CSS and JavaScript), so there’s nothing to stop you from packaging and uploading your in5 output to a Learning Management System (LMS).

Several in5 customers have already done so.

12. Embed in another in5 project

InDesign and in5 let you embed HTML in your project, so there’s no reason you can’t embed an in5 project inside of another in5 project.

This has come up for in5 customers who want a slideshow, but instead of the Fade transition that comes with the Slideshow widget, they’d like to use a horizontal sliding animation like the Slider (Horizontal) Page Format in the in5 export dialog.

In this case, we recommend that they export the first (smaller document) as a Slider (Horizontal) document, then use the Web Content widget to embed that output into a larger InDesign document.

This same technique could be applied to embed a Flipbook inside of another document.

13. Distribute as a local download

You can also deliver your content as a downloadable via a USB drive, like this Hal Leonard music project, or via a file sharing service. Just make sure share instructions on how to open the files.

14. Part of a membership site

You always have the option of creating a custom paywall to protect your content and potentially profit from it. WishList Member is one great way to do this with in5 content.

15. Premium publication app

There are also services that can deliver your periodicals (or other content) publicly via an app (as opposed to the Sales Enablement apps, which are designed more for private distribution). Services like Paperlit can provide lots of great features if you want to offer your content as a paid subscription without having to build the system yourself.