PDF flipbooks have been around for a while now. But when, due to the pandemic, the world had to go completely digital in a short span of time, it resulted in a spike of interest toward the format. Why is that? Well, mostly it’s because people have suddenly realized that according to current digital standards, PDFs no longer cut it.
Because what is anticipated from a digital product in 2025? If you are, more or less, an avid Internet user, you will probably agree that simplicity and interactivity are among the most obvious requirements. Whether it’s an app, an online tool, or a website, users expect it to be intuitive, easy-to-use, with a really low learning curve, as well as eye-catching and interactive. Most web platforms fit these criteria, especially those who try to keep up with the times or even set trends—from a streaming service you prefer to your favorite social network. And in a way, that influences how we see document distribution, too.
Despite still remaining the standard format for digital documentation, PDFs can be very hard to deal with especially where customization and sharing are involved. Have you tried to share a large PDF with someone who has a really slow Internet connection? That alone is not simple. As for the gimmicks and aesthetics part, “interactive” and “eye-catching” are also not the words that spring to mind when you think of PDF.
Online flipbooks, on the other hand, are the alternative that allows you to use PDF as a foundation for your future digital document and then build upon it, enhance it, upgrade it by converting it to an interactive HTML5 publication. In this article, we’ll tell you how you can do that and what else the flipbook* format has to offer.
*Here and further by flipbooks we mean flipbooks made via FlippingBook only. We don’t vouch for any other PDF to flip book converters other than FlippingBook or guarantee that any other converter has all the features and perks we cover in this article.
What Is a PDF Flipbook
An online flipbook is a digital publication created from PDF via a simple conversion process. Unlike PDF, it is easy to customize, share, and track. Plus, it retains the look and feel of a printed publication, thus giving viewers a much more authentic reading experience. See for yourself:
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How to Convert PDF to Flipbook
Actually, it’s really simple. All you need is a ready PDF at hand. You upload it to our PDF to flipbook converter and your HTML5 is ready in 1-2 minutes, depending on the size of the original PDF.
What else you can do with your flipbook:
- Customize & brand it: choose the background and color scheme to highlight your publication, add your company’s logo to it, and a favicon, too. You can even brand the direct link to your flipbook by getting a custom domain.
- Add interactivity: bring in everything that can make your flipbook more engaging and entertaining—videos, GIFs, external links, pop-up image galleries, forms and quizzes, you name it. You can also create an interactive clickable table of contents to help readers easily navigate around even large documents. Check out our flipbook with reasons to make a PDF interactive in 2025 and see for yourself. There are engaging videos, GIFs, and pop-up images inside!
6 Reasons to Make a PDF Interactive
- Enable lead generation: add a lead capture form to any page of your flipbook PDF and you’ll be able to collect leads from right within the document. The form itself is customizable: you can add up to 7 fields, thus collecting all the info you might need. According to our research, 90% of emails submitted through the FlippingBook Online lead capture form are valid. Thus, you get high-quality leads right from your flipbook!
- Protect the document: customize sharing, printing, and downloading settings for your flipbook or even set password protection. This way, you can be certain that your content won’t fall into the wrong hands.
- Finally, share it: simply get the link and send it to a client or share it on social media. No bulky attachments, just a short link to copy and paste. Moreover, you can share a particular page or even a certain paragraph via a link, if you need to.
In the end, what your client will see instead of a static PDF document is a beautiful online publication with sharp vector graphics and a smooth page flip effect.
Extra Flip Book PDF Perks
Judging by how great flipbooks look, you would think that the format’s prime purpose is just that, looks. But that’s not true. The flipbook format is far more practical and utility-oriented than you would think.
If you plan on using flipbooks in marketing or sales, these are just some of the things that PDF flipbooks can help you with.
Easy updates
If your digital document is a product catalog or a menu, it’s vital for you that it always stays up-to-date. With PDFs, you would need to re-send the document every time a new item is added or an error is found and fixed. With flipbooks, you can just… update it in a click and the new version will be instantly available under the same link.
Content analytics
You don’t have to guess how your content performs. For every flipbook you send, you can see how many people have opened it, how many times, what pages have caught their eye, and more. And if you create an individual link and send it to a lead, you can actually track their personal activity with the document and even get notifications when they open or download your PDF flipbook.
QR codes
QR code is a safe, touch-free way of giving access to your digital document offline. Generate a QR code to your flipbook and put it anywhere where people can scan it and read your document on their device. It’s particularly handy for digital menus in restaurants or e-catalogs provided in-store.
Embedding
Your sharing options online are not limited to sending out links or QR codes. If you want to make your publication a part of your website, you can easily do that by embedding the flipbook right into a webpage—like that:
PDFs but Mobile-Friendly
Another rule of 2025—everything digital has to be mobile, or there is no point to it. Studies show that mobile traffic accounts for roughly 50% of all web traffic worldwide. So your digital document solution has to be mobile-friendly before anything else, really. And online flipbooks are! Unlike PDFs, they don’t require downloading so your clients’ mobile data usage won’t suffer. And they are adaptive which means they look awesome on any screen and any device.
All in all, if you’ve never had any thoughts of quitting PDF before, we hope that this article has just helped you to widen your digital horizons and, maybe, consider other options instead of the obvious, but old-fashioned one. And if you are already looking for a way to convert PDF to booklet online, we encourage you to pause your research and give FlippingBook a try.
We needed a solution that could handle big files, structure them, download quickly, and still look good. And we found FlippingBook.
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