The project

Gruppo Simone, a major player in the school publishing sector, needed to replace their digital textbook distribution system with a modern, accessible and high-performance solution across heterogeneous devices. The main challenge was ensuring a smooth reading experience on interactive whiteboards, interactive monitors and Android tablets, where traditional PDF-based readers showed clear usability limitations. The goal was to create a multi-publisher platform capable of managing the entire digital catalog, offering students and teachers consultation, archiving and accessibility tools compliant with GDPR regulations.

We designed and developed Liber360, a React web app in PWA mode that integrates an innovative page-image viewer system, designed to ensure maximum compatibility and visual quality on large screens and touch devices.

The challenge

The heart of the project was building a digital page viewer capable of replacing old PDF readers without compromising display quality. Interactive whiteboards and monitors required high-resolution images and reduced loading times; Android tablets had to handle complex volumes without slowdowns. Additionally, it was necessary to migrate over 12,000 users from the old platform without data loss or service interruptions, ensuring continuity in personal libraries and bookmarks.

A further complexity involved role management: teachers needed access to reserved materials, exercise solutions and exclusive teaching resources, while students only consulted authorized content. All of this had to be manageable independently by the editorial team through an intuitive administration panel, without dependence on external technical support.

The solution

We created Liber360 as a progressive web platform, accessible from browsers without installation, combining a React frontend and Laravel backend to ensure scalability, security and speed. The optimized image viewer allows immediate use on any device, with particular attention to performance on interactive whiteboards and screens.

Key features

Multi-publisher catalog: centralized management of volumes from different group brands, with advanced search and filters by subject, school grade and year
Image-based page viewer: rendering optimized for interactive whiteboards and Android devices, with smooth zoom, quick navigation and consistent graphic quality
ISBN activation: users enter the volume code and automatically add it to their personal library
Personal library: collection of activated volumes, with bookmarks, notes and synchronized last reading position
Reserved teacher area: access to teaching materials, exercise solutions, teacher guides and exclusive resources
Integrated accessibility: text-to-speech and automatic translation to support students with learning disabilities and non-Italian speakers
Administration panel: tools for the editorial team to publish new volumes, manage users, configure permissions and monitor platform usage
GDPR compliance: registration and data management compliant with European regulations, with storage on European cloud servers

Technologies

The platform is based on a modern and scalable architecture. The frontend is developed in React as a Progressive Web App, ensuring installability, offline use and transparent updates. The backend is built with Laravel (PHP), chosen for its robustness in managing complex logic, multi-role authentication and integration with external services. Data is stored on MySQL, while the cloud infrastructure relies on Google Cloud for storage, automatic scalability and geographically distributed backups.

Results

Liber360 is active and used daily by students and teachers throughout Italy. We successfully completed the migration of over 12,000 users from the old platform, transferring all personal libraries, bookmarks and preferences without any data loss. At launch, the platform already contained over 160 digitized and published volumes, ready for consultation.

The new page viewer definitively solved compatibility issues with interactive whiteboards and Android devices, significantly improving the reading experience in the classroom and at home. The editorial team independently manages the publication of new volumes and permission assignment, reducing content activation times and lightening the load on technical support. Accessibility features have made the platform more inclusive, meeting the needs of students with special educational needs.

If you're looking for a solution for digitizing editorial content or need a scalable React web app or custom management software for the educational sector, contact us or request an online quote.