Publications created through Catalog-on-Demand are 100% automated. This is different than a desktop publishing tool, where you manually lay out the publication and have unlimited control over its appearance. Instead, the idea of Catalog-on-Demand is to automatically lay out an entire publication according to your configuration parameters and design elements. You create your configuration once, and then use it over and over for many different publications. Or you can create multiple configurations to handle different requirements. While this is not as flexible as a manual approach, there are dozens of ways to fine-tune the publication to suit your needs, including:

• Artwork — You provide your own artwork for any of these features that you choose to use: covers, page headers, page footers, category headers, filler ads, interval ads, insert pages, and page background.
• Page layout — For the Ironwood (dynamic layouts), you can choose between half page, full page, or auto layouts. For the Linden (grid layout), you choose the number of rows and columns, as well as the page margins and space between rows and columns. You also choose the type of layout for each cell in the grid.
• Colors —Specify your own colors for the various page elements: product name, description, table headers, etc.
• Attribute sequencing and suppression — Choose which attributes you want to appear, and in what sequence in the SKU tables. You can specify column widths, or have the system compute columns widths for you.
• Data transformation —Plug-Ins allow you to modify the product data in just about any way imaginable. For example, you might want to change the color of an attribute value or insert an icon depending on its value.
• More — There are many more features that give you control over the appearance of your catalog. For an overview, see this list of catalog features. Even better, we recommend you sign up for the free 30 day trial. We’re glad to help you determine if Catalog-on-Demand is a good fit for your print catalog requirements.

We also support custom layouts to accommodate just about any specification.

Most e-commerce sites have zoom images that are least 600px tall or wide. If you want your catalog to be published at 300 dpi, that size will normally work fine. If you want your product images to be larger than 2” (~5 cm) tall, then you will need slightly larger images.

In many cases, you don’t need 300dpi. For example, catalogs that are going to be printed on a desktop printer usually look perfectly acceptable at 150dpi. In that case you will do fine with web images that are only 300px in one dimension.

The PDF-for-Every-Product is the high quality alternative to the print button on your site. Instead of making your visitors print the web page, give them a friendly PDF — including a QR code — that will help sell your products 24×7. Every product page on your site gets its own print-ready PDF.

• Each flyer features one product family (containing multiple colors, sizes, etc.)
• Customize with your own artwork, logo, and colors
• Include your own filler ads for remaining space on the page
• Flyers are Always Fresh® — automatically updated when your data changes

Your customers may spend only a few seconds on a product page. The PDF is a powerful way to get much more of their attention. If your customers print a PDF version of that product page, you can engage them even when they are not on your site. Store owners report that offering a downloadable PDF for every product page on their site helps in the following ways:

• Ensure top of mind — give your customers an easy way to remember your product and your business
• Drive mobile commerce — QR codes make it easy for customers with phones or tablets to visit your site
• Essentials only — the PDF contains core product and business information, and no extraneous clutter
• Your branding — the PDF has your logo, colors and artwork, ensuring that your branding and messaging is front and center
• Vehicle for ads — use filler ads to reinforce messages and communicate ideas about things your customers are not searching for
• No waiting — PDFs are cached for instant download, no need for the browser to make a print version of a web page
• Help high-end sales — provide a tangible stepping stone towards making an expensive purchase

To answer this question, it helps to first understand “on-demand”. On-Demand catalogs and brochures are created for a specific need at a specific time. For example, you might want to create an on-demand catalog for a particular trade show. Once you deliver it, you’re done. In contrast, Always Fresh® catalogs and brochures are meant to be downloaded from your website. They are for visitors who want to return to your site from their mobile phone or tablet. Or perhaps they want your product information when offline. Of course, you want to be sure that any PDF posted on your site is always up-to-date. That is what is great about Always Fresh catalogs and brochures. The Always Fresh publication is automatically updated within 24 hours of a data change.

A catalog typically has more products than a brochure. Catalogs are often created for a particular market segment, or for trade shows, events, seasons, holidays, etc. In contrast, a brochure is a targeted sales publication, often intended for a single customer.

• Both feature the same types of product presentations. There is no difference between catalogs and brochures in this respect.
• A catalog always has a front and back cover. Some brochure styles offer a front cover, and some just offer a “first page header”.
• Catalogs contain a Table of Contents (ToC) and a choice of several types of indexes. Brochures do not have a ToC or indexes.
• Catalogs have category (and sub-category) headers to separate different groups of products. Brochures do not have these category headers.
• The maximum number of product families in a catalog or a brochure is set by your subscription plan.

Yes, Catalog-on-Demand can accommodate just about any specification for special arrangement of page elements, such as titles, images, descriptions, attributes, prices, logos, icons, lines, shading, and static text. Please visit here to read about custom layouts.

You can select products for publishing in the following ways:

• Browsing and searching — Catalog-on-Demand presents you with an easy-to-use hierarchy of your categories and product names. In order to choose which products are included in the publication, you check the boxes next to the names of categories, product families, or SKUs. You can either browse the hierarchical tree, or run product searches based on various criteria.
• List of SKUs — You can make a Flexible Job File (FJF), which lets you specify exactly which SKUs will be included in your publication. This approach is a major time-saver if you know ahead of time which SKUs are to be included, or if you have automated marketing systems that can generate the SKU lists for you. The FJF approach is available only to Catalog Edition Annual plan subscribers.
• SKU filters — This approach lets you include or exclude SKUs based on specific criteria, such as attribute values. The SKU filter is used in conjunction with one of the two above methods. At this time, SKU filters are implemented via a custom Plug-In. This requires a subscription to Catalog Edition Annual plan. Please contact us if you are interested in this functionality.