In FeedJournal Publisher you now have better control over the headline size.
The headline size is a function of the article length and how it best fits into the page. Until today, the headline size could be 25% smaller and 25% larger than specified by the headline pixel size.
Now, you can set how by how many percent the headline size can be decreased or increased in the newspaper.
One of the most requested features coming from FeedJournal Publisher customers and trial users is advertisement integration in the newspaper. Fact is, both traditional and online 
newspapers make their living from selling ad space. Up till now it has been difficult to use ads in a FeedJournal generated newspaper.
With today’s update, FeedJournal is taking the first step in this direction. By using a feed with only images, and no text, the image will be included without shrinking in size. Also, no meta-information, such as article title, author, or publishing date, is included for articles containing only an image and no text.
This feature also solves another commonly requested feature: cartoons in FeedJournal. For an example see the Dilbert strip in the sidebar image.
I am certain that there are many more interesting use cases for images, beside ads and cartoons. Please share in the comments how you like to use this new feature.
Why not try out the new feature and give feedback on how it is working for you and how you would like to see it evolve. And, perhaps you have some suggestions for great image feeds?
If you are trying out this feature in FeedJournal Reader, make sure that you enable Images both for the image feed (e.g., Dilbert) when you click the Generate Newspaper button.
Users of FeedJournal Publisher is now able to tweak the different text areas 
This let’s you further brand your printable content to the color palette of your corporate profile, or logo.
These sections can now be fully customized by color, as well as font properties:
When URLs became ubiquitous in published texts, the typographical problem of the non-breaking forward slash (/) also became more painful. In web browsers you often see URLs stretching beyond the intended line break, and sometimes rivers of text form (as in FeedJournal) because the slash character does not break the line.
In newspapers, this is a bigger concern because of the narrow columns used. Starting today, FeedJournal defines the forward slash character as a potential line breaker - an improvement that I hope will make it easier for you to read your newspaper. The screenshot below shows you how FeedJournal now breaks URLs.
The move diversifies the competition in a crowded market. Scribd becomes the iPad-friendly HTML5 option; Issuu is the option for an attractive reader; and doXtop is the enterprise option with SharePoint support. I love the move because it will drive innovation in the market. Many people will follow how this move plays out very closely.
But how does it affect FeedJournal, you ask? FeedJournal generates your personal newspaper in PDF format. Readers have so far needed a PDF reader, such as Adobe Reader to read and print the newspaper. Now, this is no longer the case. Now, you can upload the new FeedJournal issue to Scribd and have anyone with a modern web browser (such as in the iPad or for 97% of all PC users) read it or print it. We will soon make it even easier to upload PDF files to Scribd, Issue and doXtop.
For an example of how FeedJournal looks in HTML5, check out the May 6 issue of Liberty Newspost.
I enjoyed the tweet from travisbedard, suggesting FeedJournal can be used when you want to curl up with the Internet. That was exactly the use case that started off FeedJournal in the first place.
As time went by, we discovered so many more uses for the service, such as publishing your own material in PDF format, or going green and reading your material on an iPad or Kindle.
The update of the FeedJournal Reader database is now complete, and we are happy to report that it’s blazing fast. This marks the last step of the server updates, and I hope that you enjoy the performance boost!
FeedJournal is now running on a new host. We have redirected the feedjournal.com domain to point to the new servers so you should all soon run against more powerful machines.
The only thing that still runs against the old server is the FeedJournal Reader database, which will be migrated tomorrow.
All systems are go, and I hope you will enjoy the faster servers!
FeedJournal is currently experiencing intermittent hosting issues, which we are working together with the hosting provider to resolve. Our sincerest apologies for any inconveniences that this are causing you. FeedJournal is also looking into switching providers to find the quickest solution to the problems.
FeedJournal’s hosting provider has upgraded their servers and users are typically reporting a snappier experience now. However, a few clients are experiencing problems to generate newspapers with the Publisher interface.
According to the server logs, there are errors due to some fonts that are no longer available. So, if you have trouble to generate a newspaper, please check that you are using fonts that are available in the dropdown menu for each font.
Up till today, FeedJournal Publisher users was limited to specifying a date, without time, when filtering articles from their feeds. For high-traffic feeds this was not inefficient. Also, when automating newspapers publishing, a hardcoded date is not appropriate.
Now, you can specify how old articles to include in the newspaper by entering an number of hours. For example, to include all feed articles published in the last 24 hours, you enter “–24h”. It’s as simple as that.
One of the most requested features since the inception of FeedJournal has been hyperlink support in the generated PDF newspaper.
Now it is available!
In addition to links inside the article, clicking the headline links to the web page where the full article is published. And in the byline, the feed name links to the web site where the articles are published. Article and feed links are always rendered as normal text, not as HTML links.
In addition to the new links, today’s update also includes better extraction of metadata for Atom feeds.
The new link feature has required large modifications of the code base, and much effort has gone into testing. However, should you run into any feed or articles where you notice abnormalities, please report them to support@feedjournal.com.
A new doXtop press release describes how FeedJournal Publisher let clients generate newspapers that doXtop hosts, distributes and adds social features to.
FeedJournal users can host, embed and collaborate on to their generated newspapers using a plethora of third-party services. DoXtop is a leading and professional provider in this area.
Recently, I’ve had the pleasure to talk to Paul Caspers, creator of doXtop, about how we can go forward and extend our integration to offer an excellent user experience. When the new Publisher interface will be unveiled later this year, you will all be able to see how all the pieces fit together.
Liberty Newsprint, recently featured on this blog, is a prime example of how content providers are using FeedJournal and doXtop. Please have a look at the press release, embedded below using doXtop.
Recent user feedback has helped us to weed out a couple of bugs in the FeedJournal Reader service. Most importantly, a recent update to Internet Explorer, caused the Reader service to fail to generate newspapers.
Another issue caused articles without a publishing date to not be included in the newspaper.
Both of these bugs did not affect the commercial Publisher service. The fixes were deployed earlier today, and are now available to all users.
Change log:
Joel Robinson at Liberty Newsprint kindly set aside some time for me to ask him how he uses FeedJournal to create new print-issues of the aggregated Internet newspaper.
What is Liberty Newsprint?
An experiment in content (news) distribution. I want to see if I can brand a compelling customized newspaper that people would be interested in reading, and eventually, quality content producers interested in contributing to.
What are you using FeedJournal for?
I'm using the FeedJournal application to assemble a variety of daily full-text RSS feeds into the Liberty Newsprint Daily Edition.
How has FeedJournal helped you?
Without FeedJournal it would be impossible to gather daily RSS feeds from the internet in such a readable newspaper format.
How do you plan to use FeedJournal in the future?
Eventually I see using FeedJournal as the application to print anything from the internet on a regular basis. Also, I see it as the application I'll use to customize news and information when I eventually buy an e-reader like the Kindle or any other future e-reader device.
What other ways do you see people using FeedJournal?
Any large to medium sized company that writes newsletters or has a bulletin board from a variety of sources would do well to use FeedJournal Publisher. FeedJournal could definitely help order and manage the flow of institutional information in a much more timely and efficient way. If you work for a large company think of how many e-mails you get about things that you'd rather read in an easy to read, up to date, RSS newsletter. For example, lunches, the company picnic, party, retirement... the list is long.
Thanks to Stuart’s suggestions, it is now possible to disable FeedJournal hosting of PDF files by simply deselecting the check box Host on FeedJournal in the Publisher management interface. This new feature is immediately available to all users of the FeedJournal Publisher service.
How can you use HP’s new computer-less printer to get your FeedJournal newspaper?
HP’s strategy of launching Tabbloid suddenly becomes a little bit more clear, even though they have a long way to go until they will have something similar to FeedJournal’s offering.
HP says in their press release that developers can distribute applications for the printer using HP Apps Studio, but it will not be available until the end of 2009. Attempts to contact HP have been fruitless so far. Hopefully they will offer an early access or beta program soon.
Too bad for HP, since it will give the competing printer companies a chance to catch up with their own web printers and newspaper generating software.
We have rolled out an update to FeedJournal Publisher, adding two new settings in the Member Services configuration interface for Gold members (Thanks, Matthew!):
