Page flip software

[Jenner]

My sales department brought me this one.

Is there a program out there that will take PDF files, and convert them into a stand-alone flash/shockwave executable?

Now for the kicker...

When run, they want the result to have a page-flip style effect.

Example:
I make a 12 page PDF brochure.
I run it through this converter software. It makes me an EXE file.
I run the EXE, and it opens something similar to a full-page acrobat viewer showing pages 1 and 2.
I then grab the edge of page 2, and flip it like a book page to reveal pages 3 and 4... etc.

I've seen this effect on websites animations, but our sales want to burn this onto a CD and send out to suppliers.

Any suggestions?

[dclamp]

If i were you suppliers i would be very annoyed by this. I would rather have the pdf so i can print it out.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

I know what you mean, the marketing people at my work have created a Solution Guide which has a flip page effect, it looks really good actually and is written in Flash.

They also produced a hard copy so i think it went down pretty well with customers.

As for a conversion tool from PDF i have never heard of one, but don't you have any Flash programmers ? or could they not contract someone to create one or are they just looking to do it on the cheap ?

[Jenner]

No, we don't do any of our own web design and hiring a flash programmer is out of the question. This sales brochure gets updated like once a quarter (it's only for our suppliers and has pricing), so manually rebuilding it in flash every time would be a serious PITA.

I'd expect you'd be able to print it as well, but one of the reasons for this move is sales is getting sick of telling people you need to download Acrobat Reader to view these files. They want a "put disk in, computer auto-runs file, info is on screen" type solution (without Acrobat having to be preinstalled... I take it for granted, but you'd be amazed how many calls we get on this)

Man, with the wealth of little conversion programs out there, I kinda find it hard to believe there isn't like 100 of these things out there. I found ONE that sounds like it does it, and another small handful that does it via web-server effects online only. I even found a few hosting services where you upload the files online and you can link to them via their site with the page-flip effect.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

sales is getting sick of telling people you need to download Acrobat Reader to view these files

Really what century do these people live in ? how can they not know that you need Acrobat to read PDF files !!!

I even found a few hosting services where you upload the files online and you can link to them via their site with the page-flip effect.

That sound pretty good actually, you could then just include a Web Short-cut on your CD which linked directly to it !

[Jenner]

Really what century do these people live in ? how can they not know that you need Acrobat to read PDF files !!!



That sound pretty good actually, you could then just include a Web Short-cut on your CD which linked directly to it !

The industrial sector. These are machine shops, processing facilities, etc... you're lucky to find computers made in the last 10 years there. I kid you not, one place I was in had a Commodore 128 running GEOS for their accounting (this was 3 years ago). Many are in other countries as well, so hardware can vary wildly.

The down-side with the web thing is there's also no guarantee these places even have internet access and these host sites like to plaster their ads all over the page where the viewer is open.