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
Make a shoppable product catalog from a PDF. Put a hotspot on every product image, link it to the product page, and read which pages drove the orders.
You export the season as a PDF and email it to buyers. They scroll it, zoom on one product, then go to your site and try to find that product by name. Most of them do not arrive, and you never learn which page they were looking at when they gave up. A shoppable catalog is the same document with one difference: every product is one tap from its own product page.
The catalog itself does not change. What changes is that the product photograph is now a tap target. You click the page preview to place a hotspot, choose Open URL as the action, and paste the product URL.
The marker comes in four sizes, 14, 24, 32 and 44 pixels, drawn as a dot carrying one of the built-in icons or set to invisible. Invisible is tempting and it is usually wrong. Readers learn quickly whether taps are rewarded, and a spread where three things look tappable and one actually is teaches them to stop trying. One visible hotspot per product, sitting on the image rather than on the caption, is the version people use.
Print never told anyone what a catalog earned. Append the parameters to every product link before you publish: utm_source=catalog, utm_medium=flipbook, and utm_campaign set to the season, with a distinct campaign value per catalog so autumn and spring stay separable.
Link to the product page itself, never to a category or the homepage, and open every link once before you send. Broken product links in a catalog already sitting in a buyer's inbox is the worst version of this. A month later you can say which catalog produced orders and which page produced them.
One hero product per page suits high-consideration items and looks expensive. Four in a grid suits ranges people compare. Past four, the tap targets crowd each other on a phone, which is where most of the reading happens. Page order is a merchandising decision as well: readership decays through any document, so the highest-margin products belong in the first third.
The heatmaps tab in analytics shows how many times each page was opened and how long it held attention, so you can read views against clicks. Three patterns and what they mean.
If shoppers need to filter by size or availability, if stock moves daily, or if you carry more than roughly eighty items, the catalog is the wrong container. Build the store and send a short seasonal catalog that links into it. The catalog's job is persuasion and reach. The store's job is transaction and search.
A catalog that links to sold-out products converts interest into frustration, so check the links before every send. Replacing the PDF keeps the same URL, which means the link and the QR code already in a buyer's hands show the corrected pages the same morning.
The free plan holds 3 projects and 50 MB of storage, and carries the i3Dify watermark on the viewer. Pro is 3 dollars a month, removes the branding, and is where the click heatmaps live.
Upload the catalog PDF as a flipbook, then add a hotspot on each product image with Open URL as the action and the product page as the target. Publish, and the catalog is one tap from every product.
Append UTM parameters to every product link, with a distinct campaign value per catalog. Your analytics then show the revenue, and the heatmaps tab shows which pages sent the taps.
One to four. A single hero product suits high-consideration items, four in a grid suits ranges people compare. Past four, the tap targets crowd each other on a phone.
No. One clear hotspot per product, with a visible marker rather than an invisible one. Readers stop trying if some taps do nothing, so a few reliable hotspots beat many inconsistent ones.
Replace the page and re-upload. The catalog stays at the same URL, so every link and QR code already sent shows the corrected version. Dead links to sold-out products cost you goodwill.
When shoppers need filtering, when stock changes daily, or past roughly eighty items. Build the store and use a short catalog as the persuasive front end that links into it.
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.
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.
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