A clickable catalog your customers can flip through
Turn your catalog or price list PDF into an online flipbook with working product links — embedded right on your store.
A catalogue is the hardest kind of document to publish well online. It is long, it is heavy with photography, it changes every season, and the people reading it are usually deciding whether to buy something. A PDF download fails on all four counts: it is slow, it leaves your site, it goes out of date the moment prices change, and nobody browses a downloaded file the way they browse a catalogue.
What a flipbook changes
Readers stay on your page, turn pages the way they would in print, and reach any product in a few clicks. Three things matter more than the page-turn animation:
- Links to your shop. Any link in your PDF stays clickable. A catalogue where every article number points at its product page is a route to checkout, not a brochure.
- A table of contents. PDF bookmarks become a menu readers can jump around with — by category, by collection, by season.
- Searchable text. If the PDF has a real text layer, readers can look for a product name or article number instead of scrolling.
Preparing a catalogue that reads well
Most of the quality is decided before the file reaches us.
- Design in spreads. On a wide screen readers see two pages side by side, exactly as in print. Pages that are designed as pairs look right; pages designed in isolation fight each other.
- Put the article number near the photo and make it a link. It is the single highest-value thing you can add.
- Keep one page size. A fold-out page in the middle of a catalogue makes the book jump between shapes.
- Add bookmarks per section. Five minutes of work, and it is the difference between a document people browse and one they abandon.
Weight, and why it decides everything
Catalogues are photo-heavy, which makes them the documents most likely to be too big. A print-quality export of a 60-page catalogue can easily pass 80 MB, while the same file exported for screen sits between 5 and 15 MB and looks identical on a display.
The ceiling is 100 MB, but the number that matters is your reader's patience on mobile data. If your catalogue is over 20 MB, spend ten minutes on reducing the file size before publishing. It is the highest-return work in this entire process.
The seasonal problem, solved
This is where the way Toombler works pays off. Your catalogue lives in your own Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive; the flipbook points at it. When the new season arrives, replace the file at the same link and every embed — your homepage, the product pages, the newsletter, the partner site that embedded it — shows the new edition at once.
No re-uploading, no new embed code to send around, no page on your site quietly showing last year's prices because someone forgot it existed. If you also set an expiry date on a sale catalogue, it stops showing itself when the sale ends.
Wholesale and trade catalogues
Price lists for trade buyers need a different setting: put a PIN on the flipbook and share the code with your buyers. The check happens on the server, so the pages cannot be fetched by anyone who skips the screen, even if they find the embed address. The page itself can stay public — only the document is closed.
Where to put it
- Its own page, linked from the main menu, so it can be found and shared.
- On product pages, opened at the relevant section, for shops with a few important lines.
- In email, as a link rather than a 40 MB attachment that bounces.
- As a QR code in the printed edition, the shop window or a trade-fair stand, so the paper version leads to the current one.
Practical guides per platform: Shopify, WordPress, Wix and Squarespace.
Try a live example
A spring catalogue with prices, product codes and the ordering terms on the last page. Change a price at the source and this flipbook shows the new one.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a catalogue be?
There is no page limit. The practical limit is file size: up to 100 MB, and preferably under 15 MB so it opens quickly on mobile data.
Do links to my products keep working?
Yes. Links in the PDF stay clickable in the flipbook, including links to your own product pages, a form or an email address.
How do I publish a new season?
Replace the file at its source while keeping the same share link. Every page that embeds the catalogue shows the new edition immediately.
Can I keep a trade price list private?
Yes. Add a PIN to that flipbook. It is verified on the server, so the pages cannot be loaded by skipping the screen.
Can readers search for an article number?
If the PDF contains real text rather than images of text, yes. A scan without OCR can be read but not searched.
Is a flipbook better than a PDF download for SEO?
A public flipbook has its own page that search engines can index, which a downloaded file on someone's desktop does not. Keep it private and it stays out of search entirely — that choice is yours.