Adobe has today announced plans to launch its Digital Publishing Suite, which can be used by publishers to create, preview, publish and distribute digital content for mobile devices.

The announcement follows the use of Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite by Wired and the New Yorker earlier this year to create editions for the iPad using an Adobe-branded reader.

At the time Adobe said the creation of the Wired Reader was "the first in a series of steps for Adobe to enable magazine publishers... to deliver groundbreaking experiences across tablets, smartphones and other devices".

"The publishing industry is reinventing itself and a new era of editorial and advertising innovation is upon us as publishers target new mobile hardware platforms," David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager for Creative and Interactive Solutions at Adobe says in a release today.

"By leveraging the InDesign CS5 [Adobe's InDesign Creative Suite software package] workflow and the services of the Digital Publishing Suite, professional publishers can design and commercialise a new class of innovative digital magazines to create a richer and more dynamic reading experience that will attract high-value subscribers and advertisers." 

The technology enables publishers to create digital publications featuring interactive content, such as videos, which can then be distributed across different tablet and smartphone platforms and adapted for other devices in the mobile market.

The suite includes an ecommerce service, which allows for in-app purchases of single issues and subscriptions to titles, as well as an analytics service for publishers to track advertising and subscriber data.

The suite, which was unveiled at the Adobe MAX conference today, is expected to be publicly available in the second quarter of 2011. Professional publishers who don't want to wait can register for the Digital Magazine Publishing pre-release program, which offers access to beta versions of the digital publishing tools.

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