Online Tool Testing

This blog post will detail the online tool testing that I did as part of my Major Project.

One of the tools that I will be using is Lucidpress, which is an online program that can create all sorts of prints such as magazines, brochures, flyers, etc., and can even make them in a digital format. I used Lucidpress to create an online magazine article for my film review of "Isn't it Romantic?"

The above image is a test sample of an online magazine format that I used labelled "Afficionado" using a draft of my film review. When I started I had a hard time choosing what to use as many of the templates are available to premium users. I picked "Afficionado" because it looked more convenient that the other two available online magazine choices. The layout of the editing tools in Lucidpress was very extensive and reminded me of the advanced tools of Photoshop, but with text. Because of its extensiveness, I had a hard time understanding the basics and their placement on the drop-down menus.

Another snag that I caught while making this was that when I copied and pasted my review onto the text boxes, some words would stick together and I had to separate them. This can be resolved by simply searching for the stuck words. The experience creating this was alright and not as frustrating as using Photoshop for the first time.

The second tool I tested out is Yumpu, which is used to make PDFs into a flipbook format. I have tested this before two terms ago when I initially looked for flipbook apps, and I enjoyed how quick the process is.

I converted the test PDF of my review pages and successfully turned it into a flipbook.

Above is the review's 2nd and 3rd pages in the Yumpu flipbook. The format of Yumpu is much better then other free flipbook tools as it can display two pages at one time and there are no ads between pages. The tricky thing was that I did not know how to embed a Yumpu flipbook into my website, but I will try to do so for my review and my previous projects if successful.