The Ultimate Guide on How to Create a Digital Flipbook the Easy Way (Templates Included)

Last updated: March 27th, 2025

Flipbooks have become a must-have powerful digital tool in the last couple of years, for a variety of industries and uses. At the same time, it has never been easier to learn how to make a digital flipbook; regardless of the purpose behind it. 

The history of flipbooks is a rich one, but it’s not all digital like it is today. In fact, the first flipbooks started out as entertaining drawings. The term “flipbook” came from the action taken where you literally “flip” through the book. And watch the images change ever so slightly, from page to page. This would create an illusion of movement and made for some pretty advanced entertainment at the time.

That being said, over time, flipbooks have changed drastically. In the context of this article we’re going to talk about how to create an HTML5 flipbook. Professionals from various industries use digital flip books to share information in an engaging way that is brand-consistent and easy to navigate. Whether you’re a business owner, a marketer, an HR specialist or a product manager, this guide will walk you through an easy process of creating an online flip book. 

How to make a flip book with Flipsnack

When we think about how to make a digital flipbook; we might believe that it’s a complex process. A process with a lot of steps involved in perfecting the final publication. In reality, creating a flipbook animation online is as easy as five steps, when you bring a PDF to Flipsnack.

Step 1: Upload your PDF

There are two options for making a digital flipbook: start from a PDF or create from scratch. If you don’t have a PDF ready, use one of the many free options available for creating a PDF. Alternatively, Flipsnack’s Design Studio helps you create a flipbook from scratch. 

To start, click on the Upload PDF button from your Flipsnack dashboard. From here, you can drag and drop your PDF or select it from your existing files. To upload multiple PDFs at once, click the drop-down menu and select Bulk upload.

Step 2: Customize the PDF flipbook and brand

The next step is to customize your online flipbook with brand elements so that every publication you create reflects it. With Flipsnack you can fully brand your flipbooks. From logo, brand colors, and fonts to custom links for the digital flipbooks you share with the audience.

Upload your brand elements to Flipsnack’s platform to easily access them whenever you make a new flipbook. Customize even the player’s accent color with your brand’s color; so that in every little detail your brand will shine through. Finally, add a background color or an image for your digital flipbook before moving on to the next step.

Step 3: Enhance the digital flipbook with interactivity

Creating a flipbook with video and audio using Flipsnack can enhance the interactivity and engagement of your digital publication. Flipsnack is a versatile platform that allows you to incorporate multimedia elements easily. To make your flipbook interactive, incorporate video and audio as follows:

With Flipsnack’s Design Studio, you can turn static PDFs into interactive, animated flipbooks. Whether it’s a report, catalog, or brochure, simply upload your file and start enhancing it with videos, GIFs, links, and widgets. The drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to update text and visuals without changing the link.

You can tailor interactions based on your content. For real estate listings, add 360° video tours to go with property descriptions. For retail, use product tags to highlight items without cluttering the page. Adding multimedia like video and audio makes your flipbook more engaging and interactive—no technical skills needed.

Step 4: Publish the digital flipbook publicly or privately 

Once you create a PDF flip book, you might wonder how do I publish a flipbook online? You have four publishing options at your disposal. First, there is the public sharing option. This is the default option, making your flipbook available on your public profile and indexed in search engines.

Next, there is – unlisted. This option removes your flipbook from your public profile and prevents it from being indexed. Users can only access an unlisted flipbook via a direct link you send them privately. 

Followed by – password locked. Keep your private documents protected through this publishing option and make sure no authorized access is allowed.

To add an extra layer of security to your documents, publish them privately. This option helps you share your flipbook with specific people only via email. The recipients receive an email notifying them that a flipbook was shared with them. Alternatively, choose to publish through your SSO system, an option offered by Flipsnack’s online flipbook maker. Only people who authenticate through the SSO system can access that specific content.

Step 5: Share your digital flipbook

Sharing a digital flipbook is simple when you use Flipsnack’s online flipbook maker. Want to embed it on your website? Just copy the embed code and place it on your homepage, blog, or online store so it’s instantly viewable. You can also share your flipbook via social media, email, or a direct link—whatever works best for your audience.

Meeting people where they are is key. If your audience isn’t on certain platforms, your content won’t reach them. For businesses, being able to share flipbooks in multiple ways is essential. Need a QR code to share your PDF flipbook? You can generate one for free and use it at trade shows for quick access to digital catalogs.

Wondering “Can flipbooks be downloaded as PDFs?” Yes—they can. You can enable this option before sharing so your audience can download a trackable PDF version. With just a few simple steps, you’ll have a digital flipbook that’s engaging, easy to distribute, and tailored for any type of business. Not to mention it is trackable so you know what happens to your content after you distribute it. 

What are the benefits of a digital flipbook?

Now that we’ve seen how easy it is to make a digital flipbook; we can continue building a strong case for its utility. Be it magazines, brochures, flyers, presentations, and even internal communications documents, there are specific benefits for each case. You might want to share your PDFs safely or make them interactive. Everything is possible with a digital flipbook maker.

1. Support interactive content

The most obvious benefit of digital flipbooks is that they’re extremely engaging. Let me walk you through a business that introduced interactive digital flipbooks in their internal communication strategy.

Alisha VanTiem, from Keywords Studios, looked for alternative solutions to the PDF or PowerPoint format of internal documents. These formats did not render the desired engagement. That’s when she discovered the world of digital flipbooks. 

Once implemented, the statistics showed over 1000 impressions from employees for internal documents shared in the interactive flipbook format. Alisha shares her experience with the different interactive elements you can use to increase audience engagement:

The ability to add video, audio, and pop-ups has provided the HR team with a new and interesting way to share information with our employees.

Alisha VanTiem, Sr. Benefits Administrator

However, there are more interactions you can add using Flipsnack’s Design Studio. For example, you have a property listing with an incredible view, but it really doesn’t show up well in a static image. With a digital flipbook, you can insert a video or embed a virtual tour to really capture the right perspective. 

For product catalogs, create a better buying experience. Instead of customers browsing through a static catalog, taking notes; sending the order details to you, they can create a list right from the catalog. Add product tags, captions, or spotlight images for certain items. At the end, the highly interactive catalog is much more inviting to browse, and create order lists from.

2. Easy to share everywhere

Once you finish making a digital flipbook with interactions, the next advantage comes in sight: multiple sharing options. Whatever option you choose, you can share your electronic flipbooks publicly or privately in a fast, easy and secure way. 

Let’s see what Lars Herzog from Newell Brands has to say about this advantage. Their backstory starts with the need for a more efficient method to share catalogs with their Outdoor brands in the EMEA region. Dealing with the entire EMEA region meant two things: being involved in the tedious process of producing. And shipping printed catalogs all over countries from this region:

An online tool like Flipsnack allows us to reduce costs and the time to market. It allows us to get catalogs in front of our customers fast and easily. So switching over to digital catalogs came as the perfect solution for our needs.

Lars Herzog, Head of Digital & Online Marketing, EMEA region

3. Easy to navigate & update

Digital flipbooks facilitate the updating process of any brochure, presentation, or product catalog. 

Here’s how it works; you simply edit whatever information or image you need to, and then click on share and update. The link will remain the same, without having to resend the flipbook with the new changes to your audience.

More than the ease of updating, think about how much money it costs to reprint a batch of physical copies that have the wrong price or a typo in them. Your audience deserved perfectly designed flipbooks with double-checked information. Continue creating professional designs with a tool that allows you to fix any mistakes that initially go unnoticed.

4. Online flipbooks are SEO-optimized

You know by now that PDFs are not ideal for search engines. If one of your PDF’s objectives is to rank high or to appear on the search engines results page; then there are a couple of things you can do. 

Once you convert a PDF to a digital flipbook, you unlock SEO tactics. Start with adding a title of your publication that includes the main keyword you want to target. That title will be used as a meta title for your publication, so it will appear in SERPs.

A second thing you need to do is come up with a detailed description of your flipbook; where you insert the main keyword, as well as more specific queries. The first part of this description will be used in the meta description. 

Keep in mind a short list of best practices when you need to write meta descriptions:

• make it unique by using long-form keywords
• structure it to be a short summary of your flipbook
• place the most important keywords and information in the first part

By applying these two SEO practices, you offer readers a better experience while aiming to be a top performer with search engines.

5. Offer extensive privacy options

Unlike PDFs, online flipbooks can be protected and kept away from unwanted viewers. When you make a flipbook online, you get to choose who has access to it. Here’s how the same brand we mentioned before, Keywords Studios, took advantage of this important benefit:

Flipsnack has been a great tool for our HR Team’s communication needs. Their range of wonderful security options for our documents was the #1 selling point!

Alisha VanTiem, Sr. Benefits Administrator

They used Flipsnack’s secure web-based platform to share private internal documents exclusively through a password-protected solution. The same solution can be adopted for other documents containing sensitive information such as employee benefits guides, or training manuals.

If you want to go a step further in protecting your documents; choose to set your Flipsnack profile to private, and publish flipbooks as unlisted. This way you ensure that no flipbooks appear on search engine results pages. And the only way someone can access your documents is through a direct link sent by you.

6. Can be easily tracked

Another great benefit of digital flipbooks is direct access to built-in flipbook statistics. Being able to fully track your online share documents is great leverage for your business since it allows you to understand the audience at a deeper level. Jennifer Sarmiento, Commercial Analytics Manager at Melissa & Doug, was positively impressed by how much her colleague checked analytics for their product catalogs:

I’ve seen Tracy become more in love with the data as well because she’s constantly looking at Flipsnack stats and discussing them with me, which is fantastic. Checking statistics is definitely addicting!

Jennifer Sarmiento, Commercial Analytics Manager

Checking statistics is not only addicting, but highly beneficial when it comes to optimizing your content for your audience’s interests. With access to views, clicks, average time spent reading your digital flipbook, the improvements you should do become clearer. Having your readers in mind when creating any type of online flipbook is what gets you closer to reaching any objective.

7. Responsive on any device

And lastly, digital flipbooks are amazing because they maintain their quality and layout. This principle applies regardless of the device you use to read them. Your clients may open your electronic flipbooks on mobile devices and tablets. Therefore, the content needs to look the same as if opened on a laptop. 

When using tablets for in-store product showcasing, the catalogs Electrolux created in Flipsnack had the same visual quality and technicality as the ones opened on a computer. Here is what Fabiola Vidal, Digital Marketing Product Owner, has to say in regards to this benefit:

Flipsnack has a broader offer and a better mobile solution that fits our needs. They offer a good service that is always available and easy to interact with, willing to understand our needs and find solutions to support us.

Fabiola Vidal, Digital Marketing Product Owner

With a fixed layout like the PDF’s, it’s frustrating to constantly make adjustments or zoom in; depending on the device you use to read it. Leave this worry behind knowing that every flipbook you share; with your audience will display the same high-quality you see on your screen.

If these seven benefits of digital flipbooks haven’t convinced you to start using them for your business; then I don’t know what will. Once you implement them in your content strategy creation and distribution, you’ll uncover more and more layers of new benefits. 

Here are 5 digital flipbook templates to get you started

Flipbooks can take the shape of many different publications: catalogs, magazines, brochures, newsletters, and more. If making a flipbook from scratch seems daunting; or if you don’t have a PDF ready to upload, choose one of the following flipbook templates. 

Employee Training Manual Example

This editable employee training manual is a powerful tool for HR professionals and onboarding teams looking to simplify training and boost internal communication. Designed to be both engaging and practical, it features a bold purple and black color scheme with animated backgrounds that grab attention while keeping a polished, professional look.

The manual includes interactive elements like go-to-page navigation buttons, app download links, knowledge quizzes, and photo slideshows that highlight key company metrics. Every section is fully customizable, making it easy to tailor content to your organization’s needs. Whether you’re onboarding new hires or updating existing team members, this template helps you create a streamlined, interactive training experience that leaves a lasting impact.

Wholesale Catalog Flipbook Example

Adopt an easy way to display your wholesale items with the inspiration from this wholesale catalog example. Instead of publishing and printing new catalogs every time you need one; flipbooks can be created, edited, and updated under the same link when they’re digital.

Add product tags, captions for each item, links to helpful content. Or spotlight images to help certain items really stand out, and much more.

Business Presentation Flipbook Example

A really good digital business presentation can be spotted as early as the front cover. Personalize this business presentation template with your brand elements to create professional flipbooks every time. 

Remember that presentations are all about engagement and keeping the attention of the attendees. Flipbooks like the one presented here are the perfect platform for doing just that. Upload some photos, diagrams, charts or important statistics you need to include. This flip book idea is very easily shared privately with specific colleagues; who might request to read it more closely.

Customizable Company Performance Report Template

This company performance report template features a clean, minimalist design in black, white, and grey—perfect for delivering a polished, professional look. Built with business owners, managers, and CEOs in mind, it’s designed to make data presentation both stylish and straightforward. Interactive elements like go-to-page buttons and detailed captions help readers navigate easily and understand key insights at a glance.

With dedicated sections for company-wide metrics and performance indicators, this template is ideal for compiling detailed reports that support strategic planning. Whether you’re sharing quarterly results or presenting annual performance, this tool keeps everything organized, clear, and easy to follow—making it a reliable choice for effective communication and smarter decision-making.

Digital Company Magazine Template

This digital company magazine design is ideal for business journalists, financial analysts, and marketers who want to produce engaging, content-rich publications. With a clean white background and a sleek, modern cover, it’s built to deliver a professional look that suits business and finance topics perfectly. Interactive features like go-to-page buttons, page-flipping effects, GIFs, stickers, and embedded videos make the reading experience dynamic and immersive.

Designed to highlight business leaders, economic data, and industry headlines, this template is a great fit for corporate magazines or financial reports. It also includes built-in stats tracking to monitor reader engagement. Whether you’re creating internal publications or broader market insights, this structured, visually appealing format ensures your content remains clear, impactful, and easy to navigate.

With just a few easy steps, you can create a flipbook from essentially nothing. They are such versatile and powerful tools that have quickly become a staple for many people, business and non-business related. 

Turn your content into a digital flipbook today

Flipbooks have come a long way from their origins as simple animated books. Today, they’re powerful tools businesses use to engage audiences, share information, and present content in a visually appealing way. Whether you’re building a business report, launching a retail catalog, or designing a digital magazine around your passions, flipbooks can adapt to fit your goals.

This guide walks you through everything you need to know to get started. So why stick with static PDFs when you can create something interactive, trackable, and easy to update? With Flipsnack, you can elevate your content, reach more people, and make a lasting impression—without needing design or tech skills. Flipbooks are fast, flexible, and surprisingly fun to make. Big or small, every business can benefit from going digital.

Frequently asked questions about digital flipbooks

Digital flipbooks have been an easy solution for tons of people in a variety of industries. But, if you still have a few questions, then take a look at a few of our FAQs.