A-PDF Flipbook Creator 2.5

A-PDF FlipBook Creator is actually a virtual printer that you can select to transform any printable document (Microsoft Office documents, PDF files, etc.) into a Flash-based electronic book with flip page capabilities. It allows you to customize the layout of the resulting book and to use different render engines according to the desired level of quality.

The virtual printer that lies behind A-PDF FlipBook Creator is, in fact, the new version of FlipBuilder’s Flip Printer, and the tool used to actually create the flip book is the one devised by FlipPageMaker for its range of products. Therefore, A-PDF FlipBook Creator does not have an interface of its own – being as it is a mere virtual printer – but it uses these two other application’s proprietary interfaces to let you create your flip books according to your preferences. The Flip Printer Options dialog offers you a large selection of customization settings neatly organized in a series of tabs. Here you can embed an image or text watermark to your books, add page numbers, define the dimensions of the output layout, define the level of quality and the size of the resulting Flash file, or to pick your favorite render engine to be used in the conversion process (SWF, GPL Ghostscrip, or the Inner library).

The choices you make here will apply – by default – to any flip book crated using this virtual printer, though some of these can be changed before the book is actually created. Once the printer has processed the document to be converted into a flip book, the above-mentioned FlipPageMaker interface will pop up and will offer you a new set of options and settings. Among other things, you will be allowed to choose the output format of your book, as it can be saved as a set of files in a ZIP container, as an embedded SWF player in an HTML document, or as a self-executable EXE file. Besides, here you can change some of the page settings, add basic metadata to better identify your book, and embellish the final appearance of your documents applying shadows to the book pages, selecting a background for the SWF player, or changing the colors of the pages, the window, etc.

Whatever your choices are, rest assured that the resulting book will have a professional look and feel that you will not achieve easily with similar tools. However, perfection requires time, and that is why you may find that the “printing” process may take longer than what you expected.