PDF as podcast episodes in itunes?

Question

I have seen this question asked before in forums but with not with an answer.
I want my video podcasts also to have pdfs downloaded as separate aside podcasts. I've seen this done many times especially in language learning podcasts. Can this be achieved using iweb?
Dropping the pdf into a placeholder doesn't work.
Thank you!

Answer 1

I’ve seen .pdf files in iTunes also. I’ve done some investigating as I may be using this feature in the future for lecture suppliments. This is what I’ve found:
As you may know, you can create an ‘enhanced’ podcast in Garageband. This will allow you to place images (any kind – like lecture slides) or even .pdf files as ‘chapter markers.’ There should be a little tutorial (video I think) about how to do this with Garageband. There’s a plus and a minus to adding extra content this way. The plus, is that you can present images to your listeners at any point in the podcast. If they have the latest version of iTunes (or maybe even earlier – I’m not sure) they will see this extra content in the ‘album art’ window. They can click on the content and see it full size in a separate window. In addition, you can give this content a url – meaning that listeners can click on the link and go to a webpage or even a .pdf file (hosted somewhere). The downside is that this embedded content is ‘one dimensional.’ I tried to embed a multipage .pdf file and was only able to access the first page (because the podcast treats this as a chapter marker). All that to say that this ‘enhanced’ podcast is not what you are seeing on iTunes.
The .pdf files that you see in iTunes come from the RSS feed of the subscribed podcast. I found a tip on doing this here:
http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=48529
This seems to be how it works: When a person subscribes to the RSS feed, it’s a simple file on the web somewhere. This file tells iTunes what to go and get, as well as things like content and file type. You can have an RSS feed that tells iTunes to get a podcast and a corresponding .pdf file. It’s actually pretty cool.
But here’s the hang-up: iWeb creates your RSS feed. And like most things in the 1.0 version of iWeb, advanced things require work-arounds. It looks like iWeb creates a RSS feed from your podcast blog structure. I don’t know of anyway of altering the RSS feed (like you would as shown in the link above) except for just ‘getting in there.’ As we know, iWeb has a tendency to create brand new files when performing changes. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if your ‘altered’ RSS feed that includes the .pdf link goes away when you add a new podcast episode (hence creating a new RSS feed). That means a lot of tedious work every time you add a new episode (to re-alter the RSS file to include the .pdf files).
Here’s what I see as the least ‘bang you head against the wall’ solution. Use an enhanced podcast with urls to the pdf files. You can add the file to the main episode page in your podcast or have it hosted on an ‘invisible’ page on your site. Listeners in iTunes will be able to link to the .pdf, and listeners off the iWeb page will also have the .pdf in front of them. iWeb should be OK with this, as the RSS feed isn’t being changed after publishing and the links should be stable. The other solution is to create podcasts and not separate pages for the episodes (just drag the podcast files to a folder on your iDisk under iWeb). This way, you can create an RSS feed that includes the .pdf files. However, this means that people will only be able to listen (and get the .pdf) if they are using iTunes with a subscription to your RSS feed.
Hope this helps
Man I can’t wait for iWeb 2.0 (c’mon March!)
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