Producing powerful, low-cost dictionaries on CD-ROM or DVD

Electronic versions of dictionaries are now a key product area that every publisher needs to exploit. For online versions of your dictionaries, IDM have a full suite of tools within the PitchLeads product. But there is another way of adding value to your dictionary content: why not produce it as a CD-ROM or DVD-based product?

IDM have unmatched experience in producing CD-ROM editions of dictionaries and can produce these quickly and economically using the XDCC production tools.

Whether you are producing your first CD-ROM dictionary or are deciding how to produce a new edition, contact IDM to find out what XDCC can offer.

What are the sales and marketing advantages of using XDCC for your CD-ROM dictionaries?

Because XDCC brings you all IDM's expertise in CD-ROM development, it will save you development time and budget and most importantly, it will ensure that there is no risk to your publishing schedule. It can help you in these ways:

• By reducing your budget for electronic dictionary projects you can compete more profitably in lower-margin international markets
• By reducing the risk of doing your own electronic development it lets you plan your publishing more confidently
• By using the XDCC conversion methods (and additional copy protection if necessary) it makes your copyrighted content more secure
• By reducing the time to market, XDCC lets you respond quickly to new opportunities and new markets that emerge
• By giving you a lot of control over the content and appearance, you can easily produce differentiated versions of a product for distinct markets and segments such as:
  1. The general consumer market
  2. The professional market
  3. The Educational market
  4. Content syndication, re-branding, bundling with other printed or electronic products
  5. Exclusive distribution channels (eg a version of your product given to subscribers by a phone company or ISP)

What are the editorial advantages of using XDCC for your CD-ROM dictionaries?

The XDCC platform gives publishers a lot of control over the content and look and feel of the products. This has several editorial advantages:

• You can produce cross platform CD-ROM/DVD products for Windows, Mac or Linux
• You can easily differentiate and customise your products through software configuration so it is easy to have several products based on the same underlying data
• Using the XDCC APIs publishers can easily and cheaply integrate electronic dictionaries into other electronic products – for example by using the Flash API to integrate the dictionary into products where other features are implemented in Macromedia Flash.
• XDCC program allows the publisher to use configuration features for making changes to products up to the last minute  - for example, they can control the graphical appearance and change colours or images or they can adjust the data volume in order to fit the product on a CD.
• Re-use and therefore absorb the cost of development of any technological features over a number of different products