What Is A Flip Book?

One phrase that keeps coming up in conversations about digital publishing is "flip book". Many people are left wondering just what this is.

According to its original definition, a flip book is a stack of pages that contain drawings that are slightly different from one another. When the pages are flipped, the drawings seem to move. This was the first form of animation. Surprisingly, this does have some relevance to digital publishing.

When creating digital books or magazines, one creates each page separately using desktop publishing software. When the material is ready for publication, software is applied that binds the pages together. At the same time, functionality is added so that when someone drags the right hand page to the left, it appears that the page is actually turning, like in a printed book. It also works the other way from left to right, making it possible to flip back and forth through the pages.

Many digital publications are incorporating this technology to make their content more interactive and aesthetically pleasing than simply scrolling down a line of pages. It makes the layout more like the printed versions and helps the digital editions to look and feel more familiar. The software adds the animation that gives the appearance of a page turning.