Description
TNC FlipBook 3D transforms your PDFs and images into beautiful, interactive 3D flipbooks with realistic page-turning physics powered by WebGL and Three.js.
TNC FlipBook 3D includes PDF links, text search, and a dark/light theme toggle.
Live Preview
See TNC FlipBook 3D in action: open the live demo.
Features
- Realistic 3D WebGL page flip with physics
- 2D CSS fallback for older devices
- PDF and image sources
- Clickable PDF hyperlinks (internal + external)
- PDF text search with highlighting
- Table of contents / PDF outline
- Thumbnail navigation panel
- 4 viewing modes: 3D, vertical scroll, horizontal scroll, reading mode
- Dark and light theme toggle with 7 color schemes
- Print, download, social sharing
- Autoplay with speed control
- Fullscreen mode
- Lightbox popup mode
- Deep linking (shareable page URLs via #page/N)
- RTL support for Arabic, Hebrew, and more
- 20 languages included
- Gutenberg blocks + shortcodes
- Per-flipbook toolbar customization
- Keyboard navigation
- Responsive design
- Unlimited flipbooks, unlimited pages
- No watermark, no branding
Use cases
Turn a PDF you already have into something readers tap, explore, and act on. A few popular ways to use it:
Free:
- Digital magazines and newsletters – publish each issue as a real page-turning read with a contents list, search, and shareable links to any page.
- Restaurant and cafe menus – put your menu online as a book that looks right on phones. Swap the PDF and it updates everywhere.
- Course materials and workbooks – give students textbooks and handouts they can read, search, and flip through on any device.
- Portfolios and lookbooks – photographers, designers, and studios show their work as a clean flip-through instead of a plain download.
- Annual reports and company profiles – turn a long report into an easy, on-brand reading experience.
- Travel guides and brochures – let visitors browse your destination guide like a printed booklet.
With Pro:
- Shoppable catalogs – add clickable spots to any product in your catalog so a shopper taps an item and goes straight to the product page or their cart. Your print catalog starts selling.
- Real estate brochures – mark rooms, units, or plots right on the page, and let buyers tap for details or send an inquiry without leaving the flipbook.
- Lead magnets and gated guides – offer a free guide, lookbook, or whitepaper and ask for an email before the reader unlocks it, so every download grows your list.
- Sell ebooks and premium PDFs – lock a FlipBook behind a WooCommerce product so only buyers can read it. Great for ebooks, reports, back issues, and course packs.
TNC FlipBook 3D Pro
Need more? The Pro version adds:
- More interface languages
- All color schemes plus brand and hardcover colors
- Merge multiple PDFs with named chapters
- Interactive hotspots (links, media, and products)
- AI read-aloud with premium voices
- Content protection and watermarks
- WooCommerce page gating
- Google Analytics 4 tracking
- Export and import flipbooks
- Page video overlays
- PDF form viewer
- User bookmarks and notes
- Priority support
Free Add-ons
Extend TNC FlipBook 3D with free companion add-ons:
- Page builder elements for Elementor, WPBakery, Avada, Beaver Builder, Bricks, and Breakdance
- Bookshelf – display your FlipBooks as a browsable shelf
Why TNC FlipBook 3D?
- PDF links and search included — both work out of the box
- WebGL 3D rendering — page flip with paper-bend physics
- Smart fallback — uses a lightweight 2D mode when WebGL is unavailable
- Modern admin — Clean wizard-based setup, no confusing settings
- Developer friendly — Clean code, no jQuery dependency on frontend, REST API proxy for secure file serving
Embedding Options
- Shortcode (inline):
[flipbook id="123"] - Shortcode (popup link):
[flipbook_link id="123"]Click to read[/flipbook_link] - Gutenberg Embed Block: Search “Flipbook” in the block inserter
- Gutenberg Link Block: Insert a clickable link that opens a flipbook popup
- Direct URL: Each flipbook has its own permalink at
/flipbook/your-book/
Source Code
All of this plugin’s own JavaScript and CSS is shipped unminified and
human-readable – there is no separate build or compile step for it. The 3D
viewer engine lives in assets/flipbook/tnc-flipbook.js and
assets/flipbook/tnc-flipbook.css.
The bundled third-party libraries are included in assets/lib/:
- Three.js (MIT) – https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js
- PDF.js (Apache-2.0) – https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js
The PDF.js data assets shipped alongside it are also part of that distribution:
- assets/lib/cmaps/ – character maps for CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) text
- assets/lib/standard_fonts/ – the 14 standard PDF font programs (fallback for
PDFs that do not embed their fonts) - assets/lib/wasm/openjpeg_nowasm_fallback.js – a JavaScript build of the
OpenJPEG JPEG 2000 decoder, used to display JPEG 2000 images. The underlying
decoder source is OpenJPEG (BSD-2-Clause) – https://github.com/uclouvain/openjpeg
Screenshots
Blocks
This plugin provides 3 blocks.
- TNC FlipBook 3D Image Link An image that opens a TNC FlipBook 3D in a popup, new tab, or same tab.
- TNC FlipBook 3D Link A text link that opens a TNC FlipBook 3D in a popup, new tab, or same tab.
- TNC FlipBook 3D Embed Embed a TNC FlipBook 3D directly in the page.
Installation
- Upload the plugin files to
/wp-content/plugins/tnc-flipbook-3d-lite/or install via Plugins > Add New - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen
- Go to TNC FlipBook 3D > Add New
- Upload a PDF or select images from the Media Library
- Click Publish and copy the shortcode
FAQ
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Does it work with any PDF?
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Yes. TNC FlipBook 3D renders PDFs using PDF.js and works with any standard PDF file, including those with links, bookmarks, and text layers.
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Does it work on mobile?
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Yes. The plugin auto-detects device capability and falls back to a lightweight 2D CSS-based mode on older or less powerful devices.
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Can I customize the toolbar?
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Yes. You can choose which toolbar items appear and pick a toolbar layout for each FlipBook.
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Is it accessible?
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Yes. It includes full WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility — keyboard navigation and shortcuts, screen reader announcements, skip links, focus indicators, high-contrast mode, and reduced-motion support.
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Can I use it with page builders?
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Yes. It includes Gutenberg blocks and shortcodes that work with any page builder.
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My FlipBook area is blank (the browser console shows a “MIME type” error)
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The viewer loads its PDF engine from JavaScript module files (.mjs). A few web servers do not serve .mjs files as JavaScript by default, which stops the engine from loading. If the FlipBook stays blank and the browser console shows a message like “Failed to load module script … MIME type of ‘text/plain’”, apply the fix for your server, clear any caches, and reload.
On Apache or LiteSpeed, add this line to your site’s .htaccess file:
AddType text/javascript .mjsOn Nginx, add mjs to the JavaScript line in your mime.types file so it reads:
text/javascript js mjs;Most hosts already serve .mjs correctly, so this is only needed on a few servers. If you are not comfortable editing these files, your hosting provider’s support can add the rule for you.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“TNC FlipBook 3D – PDF Flipbook, 3D Flipbook, PDF Viewer, PDF Embedder” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.1.0
- New: PDFs that contain JPEG 2000 images (common in print-ready and InDesign exports) now display those images instead of blank areas.
- New: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text now renders correctly in PDFs that rely on external character maps.
- New: PDFs that do not embed their fonts now fall back to the standard PDF fonts instead of a browser default.
- Improved: if your server is not set up to serve the viewer’s engine files correctly, the FlipBook now shows a clear on-screen message with the exact fix instead of staying blank.
1.0.1
- Refreshed the plugin listing (title and keywords) and added companion add-on information to the description.
- No functional changes to the plugin.
1.0.0
First public release on WordPress.org.
- 3D WebGL page-flip rendering, with a 2D CSS fallback when WebGL is unavailable
- PDF and image sources
- Automatic PDF links, text search, and table of contents (outline)
- 7 color schemes (Slate, Paper, Midnight, Ocean, Forest, Glass, Sepia) with a dark/light theme toggle
- 20 interface languages with automatic right-to-left support
- Toolbar customization with selectable toolbar layouts
- Reading mode, vertical and horizontal scroll viewers, single-page mode, and lightbox popup
- Deep linking to a specific page (#page/N)
- Gutenberg blocks (embed, link, image-link) and shortcodes
- Full WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility (keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, focus indicators)
- Responsive design