The new ICEPub platform is based on Altaimage’s Interactive Cloud Environment (ICE) workflow system, launched last year, which uses Dalim and Esprit software.

The system, based on the ICE flatplanner, streamlines the process by which the London-based firm’s clients can prepare and upload content for publishing to digital platforms in app format.

ICEpub uses the same flatplan system but additional software development with German partner Dalim now allows users to take print ready PDFs straight from the flatplan and push them directly into a fixed layout ebook for online sale, rather than having to run separate software programmes to repurpose the content.

The fixed page format, according to Altaimage Managing director Mark Robson, is most suitable for publications with a heavy focus on images because, unlike some other formats, when a reader enlarges the screen images and text are not pushed into columns or forced onto other pages meaning that often text and image do not correspond.

Robson added: "The whole experience can end up being very frustrating and not giving much to the reader. But fixed page stays in its true form. This is particularly important for clients like galleries or museums that are publishing images with artists or historical context underneath.

"If you have a lovely colourful book, whether you are a museum or gallery title or a cookbook where images are paramount, then we can take those fixed page PDFs and easily and cost effectively get your book into the ibook store without spending days reworking files."

Altaimage is offering the ICEpub platform as a free option to clients that order their reprographics with the Canary Wharf-based firm.

Robson said: "We are providing a service that will give book publishers a cost effective solution to get their titles out to a wider audience. This is really catching on and I think it will continue to grow."

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