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nt_flippdf

Turns a PDF into a page-flip edition inside a self-contained directory: page images, thumbnails, a full-text index, a viewer and a file to download.

Once built, an edition is nothing but static files. It keeps working whatever happens to the website around it — after a relaunch, after a TYPO3 upgrade, even with the extension uninstalled.

The viewer with an edition open

A PDF is quickly linked. But whoever clicks it leaves your website, and what happens next you no longer see: no view, no dwell time, no reason to come back.

A page-flip edition keeps the reader on your page. It reads like a booklet, carries a full-text search across all pages, a table of contents, a page overview — and it lies on your server, not with a service that may or may not still exist in three years.

  • Full-text search

    Full-text search with results

    Across the whole edition, with a jump straight to the page the hit is on.

  • Page overview

    Page overview

    Every page as a thumbnail — for readers who know roughly where they were.

What the viewer offers

Page flipping with the arrow keys, the buttons, by dragging a corner with the mouse or by swiping on a touch screen; a page slider with chapter marks; full-text search; table of contents; page overview; zoom; print; download; full screen; opening in its own window; a page-turn sound; and a switch between linked language editions.

At the first and the last page the viewer says so briefly when someone tries to turn further — otherwise nothing at all would happen there.

Getting closer takes a click in the middle of a page, the wheel, two fingers on a touch screen, or the button. Clicks near the outer edges keep flipping — that is where one reaches to turn a page.

Every one of these can be switched off — as a default in the extension configuration, per edition in the backend module, and per content element. The header buttons come spelled out, as icons only, or as both.

Requirements

  • TYPO3 12.4, 13.4 or 14.x, PHP 8.2 or newer
  • Ghostscript (gs) renders the pages
  • ImageMagick (magick or convert) makes the thumbnails
  • pdfinfo and pdftotext from the poppler package are optional; they speed up counting pages and improve the full-text search

The backend module checks for these and says what is missing.

The add-on package

nt_flippdf_pro adds what a gated whitepaper needs: a preview edition beside the full one, an unguessable address for the full edition, splitting double pages, watermark, logo and background images, French and Chinese labels, linked language editions, and counting of views and downloads.

None of it is needed here — this package is complete on its own.

In use

ystral gmbh maschinenbau + processtechnik publishes its whitepapers this way: a preview of the first pages on the landing page, the full edition after the registration.