Jump to content

Affinity Publisher Flip book


Recommended Posts

Plugins using PDF are better, the same PDF can be displayed and linked for download, while SWF (for Adobe Flash >  Flashplayer) is an old technology that disappears or is disabled in web sites for security reasons (Adobe plan to stop it in 2020 and release the code).

You can use plugins or third party sites to display PDFs, another way is to embed PDF in your pages (but don't forget a link so people can download them and read them on their smartphones).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Actually right now I would live to have such a export function to share my photo book online without giving the PDF away.

Looking at existing solutions they are all rather expensive for a non-pro and have also a bad UI.

Is there any free / open source solution to convert a PDF or a bunch of JPGs to a HTML5 flip book that I can host on my own server?

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Steps said:

Is there any free / open source solution to convert a PDF or a bunch of JPGs to a HTML5 flip book that I can host on my own server?

A quick Google search reveals one that looks like it requires a small amount of HTML coding:

http://www.turnjs.com/

 

Note that I haven't tried it - that just came up in a quick search, but if there is one, there may be others...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, fde101 said:

A quick Google search reveals one that looks like it requires a small amount of HTML coding:

http://www.turnjs.com/

 

Note that I haven't tried it - that just came up in a quick search, but if there is one, there may be others...

Thanks. I will take a look into that.

I tried stuff you find immediatly like FlipHtml5 and others first. The tool looks awful and there are many similar ones that look identical. I guess it's from the same chinese manufactor. Reminds me a bit of Wondershare which also goes identical under some others brands.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The solution with the open source lib TurnJS works good.*

They deliver a suitable sample called "double-page" in the download that can be easily adjusted for the use case of a really simple HTML5 flip book.

One day I may try out how powerful macros in Affinity are and write one for that.

Basicly you export all pages to JPGs in a resolution with height set to 800px and add "pages"-divs for every page you have. Done.

Involves some modifying the HTML sample, but no real programming. So it's not so much work that I would subscribe to an flip book service.

However: This would be a nice native feature. But very low priority of course.

*: It lacks support for responsive webpages and it's an abandoned project. But it works and does cost nothing for non-commercial use.

Edited by Steps

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I take it back. I just viewed my TurnJS solution on my mobile phone (Android) and it really sucks. Totally broken.

The project is not maintained anymore for years.

It just looks good on desktop with a fixed resolution. Attempts of the community to fix that found on Stackoverflow failed.

Having googled for some time it looks like there are no maintained HTML5 solutions for free anymore and best price I found was a tool with 25$ for each created flipbook.

Most tools are subscription based and expensive.

And if they have a free plan it's limited to 10 pages and of course they want to host it. As if I would give my private personal photo book away.

If Serif would add a HTML5 flipbook creator to Publisher this would be a huge gift as it looks like to me that even a 50$ stand-alone tool would be an bargain.

Heck, I even see some of those flipbock creators going out of business then.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice. 

Yes, flash is really outdated, but I'm not surprised Adobe sticks to it. It's embarassing.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff
7 minutes ago, Steps said:

Yes, flash is really outdated, but I'm not surprised Adobe sticks to it. It's embarassing.

Some outdated things make beautiful results though

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@fde101 The thing they left out to show in Quark video is the actual fliping/ turning effect that gives the name to it. :D

I found some flipbook services that lack it, too. And one was so bad it nearly killed my browser.

TurnJS does it beautiful on desktop. It's the only thing in this framework that works.

I guess it must be quite a challenge to implement. :35_thinking:

I'm not a web developer. I really don't know.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Steps said:

@fde101 The thing they left out to show in Quark video is the actual fliping/ turning effect that gives the name to it. :D

Several Q users have requested page turning and I suspect it will happen.

I think that with years and years of page turning PDF - TYPE and so-called HTML5 solutions that I find the effect past its prime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, MikeW said:

There is a plug-in for ID named In5 that exports HTML5. It is well worth the cost for ID users.

It's a subscription like all the others. :|

I don't want a cloud or paying a monthly fee. Why a fee that in no way relates to hosting costs? Wow.

Just give me a good tool that works offline and generates some files I can put on my private server.

Maybe Pubisher will get this export one day. I have a use case for that.

Of course it is a low priority.

But Serif could certainly kill a whole industry with that.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, MikeW said:

If someone is using a halfway current version of ID, then subscription is moot.

You make your money with this. So you don't care. 

This applies not to me. What I pay is gone.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Steps said:

You make your money with this. So you don't care. 

This applies not to me. What I pay is gone.

Excuse me? I care greatly about the money I spend.

None of what I wrote initially was directed to you. I offered information. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, MikeW said:

Excuse me? I care greatly about the money I spend.

None of what I wrote initially was directed to you. I offered information. 

Oh, okay, got it.

You meant since it's an InDesign Plugin and InDesign itself has a expensive subscription people who are paying for that don't mind to pay also for plugins.

And the point was that there actually is a HTML5 flipbook ecport from InDesign - just not from Adobe itself.

Sorry, I missunderstood that.

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
On 1/18/2019 at 12:25 AM, Steps said:

Nice. 

Yes, flash is really outdated, but I'm not surprised Adobe sticks to it. It's embarassing.

From Wikipedia:

"In July 2017, Adobe announced[15] that it would end support for Flash Player at the end of 2020, and continued to encourage the use of open HTML5 standards in place of Flash.[16][17] The announcement was coordinated with Apple,[18] Facebook,[19] Google,[20] Microsoft,[21] and Mozilla.[22]"

MacStudio: M1 Max | 64 GB RAM |32 cores GPU

Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Back to the topic: I used Flip PDF for some projects. The software UX is not that great, but the HTML5 export is really good. It works even fine in mobile browsers.

It would be a dream if Affinity Publisher could export such a thing. ^^

Windows 10 Pro x64 (1903). Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB memory, NVidia RTX 2080
Affinity Photo 1.7.2.471, Affinity Designer 1.7.2.471, Affinity Publisher 1.7.2.471

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Steps said:

Back to the topic: I used Flip PDF for some projects. The software UX is not that great, but the HTML5 export is really good. It works even fine in mobile browsers.

It would be a dream if Affinity Publisher could export such a thing. ^^

I used the Pro version for several years. Yep, the interface is, well, different. But like you write, the output is good for the various devices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.