As part of my job, I have to read a lot of PDF files. Not only that, I create them often too. PDFs are a typical way to create reading material rich in media, but they have a few drawbacks. My main bugbear is how they don’t have the same innate feeling of holding physical media. This is where a plugin such as the Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer could come in handy.
Here, I’ll take a quick tour around the Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer plugin. Along the way, I’ll reveal how making your PDFs feel ‘real’ could benefit your site’s analytics in a few ways. First though, I’d like to share my thoughts on why I’ve never had a good relationship with PDFs.
Why PDF Files Often Don’t Connect With Readers
I’m a big fan of PDFs. They’re easy to create, portable, and small enough to not take up too much hard drive space. The modern web also makes PDFs cross-platform, in that you can view them on your desktop machine, on your mobile device, add them to your eReader, or even embed them on your site.
However, despite turning to PDFs a lot, Ive never enjoyed reading them. For me, the reading experience feels unnatural. I like to sit with a book or an eReader, flipping between pages at my leisure, adjusting my seating position, and enjoying the freedom to read in a comfortable way.
Instead, with a PDF I have to use macOS’ Preview app, or an in-browser interface. This means sitting with my MacBook in less relative comfort. What’s more, the whole experience feels very digital. You read the file in an atypical way (vertically), and don’t often have the same navigation options as a dedicated eBook or physical book.
While I don’t enjoy reading PDFs, the same is not true for blog posts. I think this is because websites will have custom designs with readable typography and color schemes. In contrast, most PDFs I read use boring layouts, colors, and font choices.
What I need – and what you might need – is a solution to mitigate some of these drawbacks. Let me introduce one to you next.
The Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer Plugin Could Bring Your Digital Documents to Life
WP Mayor covers PDF plugins for WordPress elsewhere, but the Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer plugin deserves special attention. It essentially takes your cold, digital PDF files and brings them closer to a physical medium.
I’ll get into features a little more shortly, but the core concept is that you can flick through pages as you would a magazine – hence the plugin’s name.
This may not seem like a necessary plugin for most websites. However, there are lots of scenarios where this type of functionality will benefit both your site and your readers. My thoughts on this are coming up!
How Using a Dedicated PDF Viewer Could Help Make Readers More Comfortable
As I’ve already outlined, PDFs have a lot to offer: they are compact and straightforward ways to offer content, with the potential to offer rich visuals and presentation. A plugin such as Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer can build on those positives with some of its is own:
- Digital reading is associated with less focus and shorter attention spans. This could be a potential problem for long-form content presented in a typical way using PDFs.
- Even around a decade ago, one in five people had read a digital book according to Pew Research. That number is likely higher now with the proliferation of digital devices now. As such, you’d want to make the online reading experience as typical as possible through introducing ‘real-world’ functionality.
- Speaking of online reading, ePublishing is a huge industry. Having a setup that mimics the ability to open a PDF and flick through it at will could increase your retention and time on site metrics.
This is where Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer can be a valuable plugin. The all-important features and functionality are coming next!
What the Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer Plugin Gives You
The plugin itself is straightforward, which means its feature set is minimalist yet comprehensive enough for what you might need:
- You can create a ‘book’ from a PDF without any conversion steps.
- There are plenty of options within the WordPress dashboard to customize the reading experience.
- You have a choice of four different ways to present your PDFs, including a lightbox as seen below.
- You’re able to view books in a carousel view. With the companion Bookshelf plugin, you can even display them on site.
If you wish, you can also create PDF books within the WordPress dashboard. This could be great for turning blog posts into these reading experiences. The documentation covers how to do this, and gives more detailed information on the other functionality available in the plugin.
Pricing
Unlike many other WordPress plugins, Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer has no subscription cost. Instead, you pay a one-off fee of $30 through Envato’s CodeCanyon. This entitles you to six months of support for the plugin and updates.
Once that period is over, you can pay again to renew your support. There’s also an option at the point of initial purchase to extend your six months support to 12 months.
This might be worth it if you envisage making a lot of support requests or need cutting edge updates as they ship. However, my opinion is that six months will be fine. In any case, the plugin is so straightforward to use, you may not need to contact support anyway.
The Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer Plugin Brings Material Documents to Virtual Spaces
I’m someone who uses a lot of PDFs for various tasks, but has never really liked to read them. Instead, I’d prefer to use a plugin such as Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer because it lets me move between pages as though I were thumbing a magazine.
The plugin does make the reading process feel more natural, and I’d be more inclined to stay onsite to read the whole PDF. Without the plugin, I might just download the file and bounce – which could impact your site analytics in a negative way.
What problems could the Newspaper FlipBook PDF Viewer plugin help you solve? I’d love to hear about it down in the comments section!
Keep reading the article at WP Mayor. The article was originally written by Tom Rankin on 2024-05-15 07:00:00.
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