You can build a  .folio file in ID5.5 without a subscription to the DPS, using numerous  interactivity features that are germain mainly to eMag publishing. This  statement is from the ID5.5 user manual:

With  InDesign, you can create folios and preview them on a tablet device and  on a desktop previewer. However, a subscription to the Digital  Publishing Suite is necessary to build a custom viewer.

The Content Viewer works with .folio files, and you can preview your  content by simply opening the Overlay Creator and clicking the Preview  button. The CV displays your content from a .folio file created at that  time. As the quote above mentions, the chrome is entirely fixed, so you  can't do anything with the outer shell of the viewer, but your content  is now inside a .folio file, and you can make as many of them as you  like without any Adobe subscriptions.

TIP - To make multiple .folio files:

You'll have to copy and rename them.  They're in  C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\<InDesignSessionID>\Local  Store\overlaypreview.folio, which is easy to find if you search for  *.folio on your system drive. This folder and file disappear when ID5.5  closes, so search while it's open! Note that you can't change the name  that appears in the Content Viewer -- it's hard-wired into the .folio  generated by the Preview button.

Unfortunately, the quote also (by omission) implies that a custom viewer is the main thing you might want a DPS subscription for, which of course is misleading -- the CV is just the tip of the DPS iceberg.

Without a DPS subscription, however, the Folio Builder works by  signing in to an existing Adobe Acrobat account -- this activates the  Folio Builder extension in ID 5.5.

A free account on Acrobat.com (which I believe comes with ID) entitles you to just one folio project (paid accounts with more workspaces can create more folios). However, if there's no way to get that .folio  file itself off of Acrobat.com, to use outside a hosted environment,  then I was indeed misleading the reader, and I apologise for the  inaccuracy. (Of course, a folio on Acrobat.com can be shared with guests  to that account.)

I believe that previewing content in the Content Viewer  is supposed to simulate all the features of a .folio file without a  custom viewer shell. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about this; I don't  yet know from experience how accurate the CV really is.) The CV works  outside of ID, and invites you do drop a .folio file onto it for  viewing. One could theoretically send a demo .folio file along with the  CV executable to someone else so they could view the content, but I  haven't tested this yet, or explored IP issues for on the CV itself. (There may be required binaries that are only available when ID has been installed, but I suspect not.)

The Acrobat.com subscriptions, which are very inexpensive ($149/yr  or $390/yr) compared to either of the current commercial DPS  subscriptions ($thousands), provide a way to experiment with folios and  develop the associated skills.

Adobe  could certainly have done a much better job presenting the DPS, and  making the vast majority of ID users more aware of what's what. The user  manual provides about 150 words on the whole concept. Many prospective  users will want to get this kind of information clearly and succinctly  without a lot of digging. Most people I talk to are still very confused  about this new direction in document creation. Myself included!

Allen

To rebuild your magazine as a folio, you could start by just previewing it in the Overlay Manager and then save the generated .folio file. But this would require InDesign 5.5, and some sneaking around on your disc to get the .folio file. Also, the "player" of your folio would be the Content Viewer, and the .folio produced by Preview doesn't support custom chrome or player features. So the title would be "Canned Magazine Title 12345" (I kid you not), and the CV itself is just a simple app frame without frills. However, the interactivity you add in InDesign should all work. You'd have to find a copy of the CV on your destination platform to play it. You could also dig into the .folio file and mess with the contents (change .folio to .zip and hack away). But all this would be a very tall order in 5 days!

To answer your specific questions, though:

Yes, you can view a .folio file with CV, wherever it's installed. No, you do not need to be a DPS client -- CV comes with InDesign 5.5. I'm not sure how you might get it if you have ID5, however.

If you have a free account on Acrobat.com, you can build one real folio production there. I'm not sure if you can then do what you want with the resulting .folio file. For $149/year you can do several .folio projects on Acrobat.com. If you're not actually publishing (protecting, distributing, selling, tracking, etc.), then you don't need DPS.

Don't confuse folios with ePUB. ePUB is an output format that's nearly compatible with Kindle, iBooks, Nook, etc. (with a little arcane tweaking). Folio is an elaborate richly interactive publishing format designed for professional magazines in a dedicated, integrated, Adobe reader app.

I hope this helps,

Allen

Thanks

That's basically it, but I don't think you would have too much trouble locating the .folio file used by the previewer; then you could copy that somewhere else. It would still have to be viewed by a copy of the previewer, of course, but you can copy the previewer app as well.

This approach would be acceptable for a limited number of other computers, but I doubt if Adobe would condone distributing the CV online. (I could be wrong about that -- they might well be OK with that.)

Allen

I'm not sure why the iTunes viewer app isn't working. I haven't testing any of this on an iPhone or iPad yet.

Allen

Sorry -- I misread your subjunctive as past tense!

For the time being, the horsepower required to support the multimedia features of a folio, and the amount of RAM usually involved, would be a strain on most hand-held devices. But I'm sure in the near future shirt-pocket-sized devices will have more than enough power and space.

FWIW, my limited use of the iPhone4/iPod4 has convinced me that a very small display like that, with pixel resolution comparable to a full-sized display, is a very practical solution if the user is willing to hold it very close, possibly with close-up reading glasses. Although this approach looks a little odd ("That that guy is really myopic!"), it isn't any worse than wearing some expensive (and unavailable) eyeglass display, and it gets you a decent view of docs and websites for $19.

Allen