OpenEFT is a new standard proposed for print and digital publishers to reduce the steep staff and production costs required to produce digital edition content from content also developed for print.
EFT stands for Enhanced for Tablet—a term coined by the Tablet Task Force of the Magazine Media Association (MPA). While there are several proprietary formats for producing tablet editions, digital media standards group IDEAlliance, which developed OpenEFT, describes it as the “first open format specification for the exchange and rendering of interactive magazines on tablets and mobile devices.
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To IDEAlliance, “open format” means that it is “a published, standardized format for the packaging, delivery and display content across a wide range of tablets of different sizes, aspect ratios, resolutions and operating systems.”
The 14 design principles that guided the development OpenEFT were based on a number of things, including other XML-based open industry standards and input from several publishers. Key among those principles, OpenEFT must:
- Be easy to implement without disrupting workflows.
- Accommodate advertising workflows in tablet magazine editions.
- Leverage emerging technologies, such as HTML5.
- Support existing requirements for interactivity.
- Support advertising and analytics.
The first release of the specification was announced on Oct. 1. Additional information can be found through the following resources:
- IDEAlliance Announces 1st OpenEFT Implementations
- An Open Plea for OpenEFT
- Cutting Through the Mire of Tablet Issue Production
- OpenEFT Specification Overview
Posted by: Margot Knorr Mancini
