Tutorial
Canva cannot make a flipbook. Here is what does
Canva exports a static PDF, not a page-turn flipbook. The export setting that keeps your colours, and the upload that gives you a URL that flips.
3 min
Substack blocks iframes in posts. A linked cover image is the block that carries a 3D flipbook, and here is how to build one readers actually tap.
You finish the post, paste the embed code into the Substack editor, and nothing happens. The code lands as plain text, because no block in the composer renders it. Substack has to render the same post as an email, and no mail client runs an iframe, so the editor never accepts one. The 3D flipbook you wanted under the third paragraph has to arrive some other way.
This is not a bug you can route around with a plugin. The composer accepts a fixed set of blocks, and each block has an email equivalent it can degrade into. Anything that needs a live browser to render has no fallback in a mail client, so it never made the list.
On Ghost or Beehiiv, a custom HTML block takes the embed code as it is. On Substack the linked image is the whole toolkit. It is enough.
Build the flipbook first. Upload the PDF, pick the flipbook viewer, set visibility to Unlisted or Public in the Share tab, and copy the public URL. Then screenshot the cover at 1200 by 630, the standard link-preview ratio, and drop that image into the post where the embed would have gone.
Click the image in the editor and paste the flipbook URL as the link target. Add a plain caption under it, something like "tap the cover to open the interactive version". The link styling on an image is subtle, so without that line many readers never learn there is a destination behind it. Readers who tap land on the flipbook in their phone browser, outside the email, where it can actually run.
The tempting shortcut is to paste eight page screenshots into the post and call that the embed. It reads as eight images. What the flipbook adds is the turn: a tap on either side of the book moves it a page, the sheet bends along its spine as it goes over, and the two pages ahead and behind are already loaded so the turn never stalls under a thumb. A reader who has scrolled the pages flat has already spent the attention. Show the cover and keep the rest behind the click.
Substack's paid gate hides the body of a post, not a URL you published somewhere else. So the flipbook needs its own lock. Password protection works on Unlisted and Public projects: set the password in the Share tab, put it in the paid-only section of the post, and free subscribers see the cover and stop there. The password covers the project page, not the direct image URLs, so treat it as a courtesy lock rather than a vault.
Substack reports clicks per link, which tells you the cover did its job. It cannot tell you what happened after the tab opened. Analytics on the i3Dify side is per project: how many times each page was opened and how long it held attention, session duration, device split and referrers. Those breakdowns are a paid-plan feature. Free gives you 3 projects, 50 MB and the i3Dify watermark on the viewer. Pro is 3 dollars a month and takes the branding off.
The flipbook never renders inside the email, and it does not need to. The cover carries the promise, the link carries the reader, and the page views tell you which spread they stopped on.
Turn your PDF into a 3D flipbook.
They open it in a browser tab. No mail client renders interactive 3D content, so the email carries the cover image and the image carries the link to the flipbook URL.
Yes. Set a password on the project, then put the password in the paid-only section of the post. Free subscribers see the cover image and the locked page. The password protects the project page, not the direct image URLs, so it is a courtesy lock.
Full width, from a 1200 by 630 screenshot of the cover. That is the standard link-preview ratio, so the same file reads correctly in the web post and in the email version.
Nothing in it depends on a Substack feature that could be withdrawn: it is an image with a link on it. If Substack ever accepts iframes in posts, the embed code in your Share tab drops straight in and the cover image becomes optional.
Substack gives you click rates per link, including the flipbook URL. i3Dify analytics, on the paid plans, adds what happened after the click: pages viewed, time on each page, session duration, device split and referrer. Reading them together separates a click from a read.
Canva exports a static PDF, not a page-turn flipbook. The export setting that keeps your colours, and the upload that gives you a URL that flips.
Notion's native PDF block is a flat scroller. Paste an i3Dify viewer URL in the same block and visitors get a book they turn by dragging it.
Transform your content into immersive 3D experiences in seconds.