Differences between Adobe Publish and Adobe DPS
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Differences between Adobe Publish and Adobe DPS

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by Jennifer Smith
Differences between Adobe Publish and Adobe DPS

Adobe Publish and Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) have very similar names, yet there are significant differences between them. As both DPS and Publish share content on digital devices, the differences may appear superficial. Adobe DPS is more like an app or an ebook that works off-line. You can download it and it works on a train or airplane, and the content remains consistent. Adobe Publish also supports offline reading, but articles and stories can be refreshed and updated.

The original Adobe DPS was created to share content similar to the way a magazine is published. The content is created one time and then shared. Adobe Publish is more similar to publishing a web page, where the content can be modified, updated, and re-used.

Adobe Publish puts publishing front-and-center, at the core of its capabilities. It is a tool for sharing content such as news stories, articles, and images across different layouts, platforms, and devices. As articles are created, and new images are available, they can be shared. The publishing process is via web-based controls. Adobe Publish does not require the skills of InDesign to share content to a digital device.

Both formats support interactivity, and allow for layouts to be created without programming. Yet once a DPS folio is published, the content remains consistent. While an app shared via Adobe Publish can have content that is able to be updated and revised. Another significant difference is that Adobe Publish supports content from multiple sources within the same publication. Stories can be imported into a layout from a WordPress site or Drupal CMS. With Adobe DPS, documents start their layout as InDesign documents. With Adobe DPS, all articles are published using InDesign, requiring skills for the layout and publication. Alternatively, with Adobe Publish, the InDesign tools are used for creating the layout, but all content publishing occurs from a web-based interface.

The skills required to created layouts for either of these formats start with InDesign training. Once you know how to define a layout, you can use the additional InDesign tools create digital publications using Adobe Publish or Adobe DPS.

About the author

Christopher Smith is president of American Graphics Institute. He is the co-author of Adobe Creative Cloud for Dummies and more than 10 other books on design and digital publishing. He served as publisher and editor of the Digital Classroom book series, which has sold more than one million books on topics relating to InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere Pro and other Creative Cloud apps. At American Graphics Institute, he provides strategic technology consulting to marketing professionals, publishers designers, and large technology companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and HP. An expert on web analytics and digital marketing, he also delivers Google Analytics classes along with workshops on digital marketing topics. Christopher did his undergraduate studies the at the University of Minnesota, and then worked for Quark, Inc. prior to joining American Graphics Institute where he has worked for more than 20 years.