As catalogs shift away from being print-first/digital-second to primarily digital creations, the way we create PDFs on which our Flipbooks has also changed. Today, you might populate your Flipbook with images and videos automatically, through Enrichment Automation, meaning intentional blank spaces in your base PDF.
While this might work optimally for creating Flipbooks, your visitors might experience a less than optimal looking PDF, when they try to download it.
By using an alternate download location, you can point visitors to a separate, download-friendly PDF if they choose to download your Flipbook. This ensures you can offer both a great online experience, and a user-friendly offline experience.
This guides explains
How to set an alternate download location
Select your Flipbook, then navigate to the Settings pane.
Select the General tab.
Select Interface from the left-hand menu. You'll now be presented with a number of options for customizing the interface for your Flipbook.
At the bottom of the list of options, you will find a checkbox corresponding to Show download icon under the Allow access to PDF checkbox. Toggling this will give visitors the option to download the PDF as it was processed.
To set an alternate download location, check the Set alternate location that is visible once the previous box is checked. Enter the alternate download location in the field.
Don't forget to Save changes!
How to upload an alternate PDF to your Media library
If you're not already hosting your alternate PDF somewhere, consider using your Media Library, available in iPaper. Every file you upload to your Media Library is assigned an absolute URL, which you can use as your alternate download location.
Here's how, in 3 easy steps:
On the Flipbook overview in iPaper, select the Media tab. This will open your Media library as a modal.
Upload the PDF that you'll use as your alternate download file. You can do this by drag-and-dropping the file directly into the Media library, or right-clicking on an existing folder and selecting Upload file.
💡 Remember to organize your files in your Media library so that you can easily find them later. Consider uploading any alternate PDFs in a specific folder labelled so.
Once uploaded, right-click on the file, and select View info. In the modal that opens, simple copy the Absolute URL and paste it into the alternate download location field, mentioned above.
That's it!
The user will be presented with the alternative PDF upon choosing to download. Now you can concentrate on adding enrichments and creating the ultimate online catalog, and still have full control over the offline experience.
Want to know more about how to make an interactive Flipbook using enrichments?
Click here:
Things to consider when offering an alternate PDF for download
When you allow your visitors to download the same PDF from which your Flipbook is made (i.e., not an alternate PDF), iPaper will try to ensure that the browser handles this file as a download.
However, when offering an alternate file for download, as this can in theory be any type of file, iPaper defers to the browsers preferred settings for handling that specific type of file.
This can result in the file being downloaded to the visitor's device, or opened in a new tab within the web browser.
If opened within a new browser tab, however, visitors can download the alternate file to their devices, once opened in the browser.