Changelog

Changelog

What’s new in Flipa.

Every release, newest first. We ship improvements often - here’s the trail.

0.19.2Latest
  • Fix: the Pro version could refuse to activate while the free version was still active, with no error on screen. The plugin simply stayed switched off, which looked as though the button had done nothing. It now activates normally, and the free version steps aside on its own as it always intended to.
  • Fix: a large part of the settings screens could not be translated into any language at all, because those labels were missing from the plugin’s translation template. Everything on the Book, Background, Contents, Display, Extras, Embed and Help tabs is now translatable.
  • New: the settings screens now ship translations for 19 languages instead of one. Where WordPress.org already has a translation for your language it is used first, and the bundled one only fills in what it does not cover. This is the WordPress admin; the reader your visitors see has had all 20 languages since the start.
0.19.1
  • Fix: a flipbook could render as an empty reader, showing no pages and no error, on a site that answers at more than one address. If your site is reachable at both example.com and www.example.com, and the PDF was saved under one form while a visitor arrived on the other, the reader treated its own file as coming from somewhere else and refused it.
  • The file is now served from whichever of your own addresses the visitor is actually using. This also covers WordPress installed in a subdirectory, and a multilingual site that gives each language its own domain.
  • Sites that put each language in a folder, such as /en/ and /es/, were never affected: a folder is not a separate address.
  • Nothing about which files the reader will accept has changed. It still only opens a PDF from your own site, and a web address you pasted from somewhere else is left exactly as you entered it.
0.19.0
  • Scroll reading mode: on a long book, a page you had already read crisply could quietly drop back to the low-resolution version. Pages are now kept by how recently you looked at them, and a page that does get released is rebuilt from the PDF rather than left blurred.
  • Hovering near the outer corner of the cover or the back page no longer lifts a blank sheet that is not really there. Dragging that corner was always correct and is unchanged.
  • Switching the interface language now re-translates the labels inside the More tray and the Zoom menu. They previously stayed in whatever language the book first opened with, both in the editor preview and for a visitor changing the language in the reader itself.
  • The editor live preview now shows the background you actually chose instead of a fixed dark one, with a checkerboard when you pick Transparent.
  • A width or height the plugin cannot read is now reported, with what was used instead, rather than silently replaced by the default.
  • Pro: the shortcode can open a book on a chosen page, resume where each visitor stopped, or keep the page number out of the address, for one placement at a time.
  • The PDF endpoint now redirects through WordPress own safe-redirect helper, and the plugin ships a THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt listing the bundled libraries with links to their sources.
0.18.6
  • Fix: flipbooks placed with a hand-written iframe rather than the shortcode or block stopped showing the book in 0.18.5 and offered an upload box instead. That is fixed, and such embeds work again with no change needed at your end. Apologies if this caught you; if you saw an upload prompt where your book should be, updating is all that is required.
  • The security fix from 0.18.5 is unchanged in effect: the reader will only open a PDF that lives on your own site, so nobody can build a link that displays a document of their choosing inside your address bar. 0.18.5 achieved that by refusing the older address format outright, which was stricter than necessary and broke working pages.
0.18.5
  • Security: the reader would load any PDF address handed to it in its own web address. Because the reader file is public, that meant anyone could build a link that displayed a document of their choosing inside your site’s address bar, which is useful for phishing. The reader no longer accepts an address at all: WordPress passes it a reference to the flipbook, and WordPress decides which file that reader is allowed to have. Reported by an external researcher.
  • The PDF’s own address is no longer written into the page. Please note this does not make the file private: it is still stored in your Media Library and anyone who has its address can still open it, exactly as before. See the FAQ on draft flipbooks.
  • No change to how you use Flipa. Existing flipbooks, shortcodes and blocks keep working with nothing to update.
0.18.4
  • Security: a flipbook that was still a draft, pending or private would render for anyone if its shortcode was placed on a page. The reader now checks that the viewer is allowed to see that flipbook, using WordPress’s own rules, so authors still preview their own drafts and editors still see private books. Reported by an external researcher.
  • Fix: long books looked soft or blocky while you were simply reading them. The reader keeps a light-weight image of every page so that a book of any length stays within memory, and re-renders the page you are looking at from the PDF at full sharpness. That sharp re-render was only happening when you zoomed in or switched to single-page view, so a resting two-page spread showed the light-weight image. It now runs at rest as well. The longer the book, the bigger the difference; a 600-page scanned book is the clearest case.
  • Fix: on the first spread after the front cover, and the last one before the back cover, the page shadow and the page-stack depth vanished during a page turn and came back when it settled. They were being hidden for any turn near the cover, including turns heading away from it.
  • Fix: a dark band along the bottom edge of every page. The page image was rendered onto a canvas a fraction of a pixel taller than the page itself, and that unpainted sliver turned black when the image was compressed, then spread into a visible band. It showed on the covers, on every page in scroll mode, and during a page turn.
  • Fix: the reader canvas reported a rounded-down size to the page-turn engine while its own box kept the fraction. No visible effect was traced to it, but the two numbers now agree.
  • Fix: the loading indicator floated in the middle of the browser window instead of sitting on the reader, and the toolbar started at the top of the frame and jumped to the bottom once the book appeared. Both came from the reading area having no height until the PDF had loaded.
0.18.3
  • Wording: the “Address bar” setting for a book said “Do not show the page number in the address bar”, which read as though unticking it would stop links to a page from working. It now says “Keep the page number out of the address bar” and the hint spells out that ticking it does both things: the address stays clean, and links to a specific page stop working for that book.
  • The feature lists in this readme and in the “Free vs Pro” tab were still describing 0.18.1. They now mention resume reading, the chosen opening page, and links to a specific page.
  • Corrected: the free feature list said the free version could deep-link to a page. That moved to Pro in 0.18.2 and the list had not caught up.
0.18.2
  • New (Pro): the reader can remember where each visitor stopped and reopen the book on that page. Nothing is uploaded; the position is kept in the visitor’s own browser. Turn it on per book under Extras.
  • New (Pro): choose which page a book opens on. Useful when the first page is a cover you would rather skip, or when a book is really a chapter of something longer. Set it under Extras; leave it empty to open on page one.
  • New (Pro): link straight to a page. The address bar now follows the page being read even when the book is embedded in your own page, so a visitor can copy the address and send someone to exactly that page, and the Share button hands out a link to the page on screen rather than the book’s first page.
  • New (Pro): you can switch the page number in the address bar off for a book, under Extras. With it off the book neither writes the page to the address nor accepts a link to one.
  • A link to a specific page always wins over a remembered position and over the opening page, so a link you send someone opens where you meant it to.
  • With more than one book on a page, the one you are reading is the one that controls the address bar, so a book playing by itself elsewhere on the page cannot take it over.
0.18.1
  • Fix: the loading indicator did not appear at all in the default embed mode. The reader showed the toolbar and nothing else while a PDF loaded, because the loading panel had no height to sit in until the book had already been measured. It now shows in every embed mode, so a large PDF no longer looks like nothing is happening.
  • Housekeeping: the free build no longer carries the plugin’s license helper. It was never used there, but it named the paid features and read like feature gating, so it has been removed from the free build entirely. No change to what Free or Pro include.
0.18.0
  • Fix: the Download PDF button is now built the same way as every other optional control. It is off unless a book turns it on, instead of being switched on by the reader and then suppressed. This corrects a coding fault, not a change to what Free and Pro include.
  • Fix: the toolbar no longer draws a background strip behind it. It sits directly on your background, or straight on your page when Transparent is on, instead of the full-width band it used to paint.
  • Fix: the small flipa mark in the reader corner now follows the chosen light or dark theme instead of always using the dark version.
  • Fix: the book’s drop shadow was clipped by the edge of the reader at some sizes, most visibly along the bottom. The shadow has been made lighter and the reader now reserves room for it, so it stays complete in narrow containers as well as wide ones.
  • Fix: the current page number box is now half transparent, in both the light and the dark reader theme, so your background color shows through it like the rest of the toolbar.
  • Fix: the left and right arrow keys now work as soon as the pointer is over the book. Previously, in a page that embeds the reader, you had to click the book first.
0.17.1
  • Fix (Pro): using your own page-turn sound is now an explicit choice in the sound list. Before, a saved sound file quietly overrode whichever built-in sound was selected, so the editor and the reader disagreed about what would play.
  • Fix (Pro): your own sound no longer arrives late. Recorded files often start with a moment of silence, and Flipa now skips straight to the sound so it lands with the page turn.
  • Fix: a single page turn could play the flip sound twice. It was hard to notice with the built-in sounds and obvious with your own.
  • Fix (Pro): a quiet sound file is raised to a usable level automatically, and a loud one is kept in check.
  • New (Pro): the editor checks the sound file you choose and tells you what it found, including leading silence and files longer than a page turn.
0.17.0
  • New: the reader shows a real progress bar with a percentage while your PDF downloads, instead of a spinner that gives no clue how much is left. A large book on a slow connection no longer looks like it has frozen.
  • New (Pro): use your own page-turn sound. Pick any audio file from the Media Library and it replaces the built-in ones. If the file will not play, the reader quietly falls back to a built-in sound, so a bad upload can never stop the book turning.
  • Fix: the block editor’s bundled translations were never loaded, because WordPress was only told to look in the global languages folder and not in the plugin’s own. Hebrew now shows up in the editor as it should.
  • Housekeeping: US spelling used consistently across the reader and the standalone embed package.
0.16.3
  • New: a “Free vs Pro” tab in the flipbook editor, so you can see at a glance what the free version already does and what Pro adds. It is a plain comparison, nothing in the editor is locked or disabled.
  • Fix: the block editor’s own labels and settings were tagged with the wrong text domain, so none of them could be translated. They now translate correctly in every language.
  • Housekeeping: punctuation tidied to plain hyphens across the reader and the editor, in all interface languages. Clearer plugin title in the directory listing.
0.16.2
  • Fixed a 0.16.1 regression: with the default Dark reader theme on a light background color, the toolbar icons were drawn white-on-white and disappeared. The toolbar now always auto-contrasts against a solid background, whichever theme is chosen, restoring the pre-0.16.1 look for light-background books. The same guard protects the Light theme on dark backgrounds. Side panels and popups still follow the chosen theme.
0.16.1
  • Editor live preview overhaul: settings changes now update the running preview instantly. The PDF is only re-rendered when you change the PDF itself or media hotspots. Chapters, bookmarks, display toggles, theme, colors, reading direction, page view, language, vertical scroll and 3D tilt all apply live.
  • Vertical scroll smoothness: page rendering no longer competes with your scrolling, sharp re-renders wait until scrolling pauses, and pages streaming in can no longer nudge the layout.
  • Reader theme (Dark/Light) now themes the whole reader: toolbar, menus and popups. Your chosen background color is always respected; the two settings are independent.
  • Fixed: the “Powered by flipa” credit could not be hidden once shown. It now follows the setting exactly and sits at the reading-start corner (left in LTR, right in RTL), opposite the page-load counter.
  • Fixed: side arrows showed even when disabled; they are now off by default.
  • Fixed: “Hide the first / last (jump) arrows” had no effect in the live preview.
  • Fixed: the single-page view showed a baked-in edge shadow at rest.
  • Fixed: the zoom and More popups were misplaced in right-to-left books.
  • Fixed: the zoom controls were invisible in the Light theme popup.
  • The “More” toolbar button now hides itself when it has nothing to show.
  • Jump to page off now shows the page number as plain text instead of a disabled input.
  • Bundled a full Hebrew translation of the editor; bundled translations now load on all supported WordPress versions.
0.16.0
  • Download PDF, Print, and Autoplay are now Pro features.
  • Refreshed the plugin logo shown in the editor.
  • Display settings labels can now be translated (they were previously always shown in English).
  • Corrected the Free vs Pro help text: in-book search, bookmarks, vertical scroll and 3D tilt are listed under Pro.
  • The editor live preview now updates immediately when you change the background color.
0.15.1
  • The plugin icon now shows correctly on the connect, account and plugins screens. On some installs it was falling back to a generic placeholder.
  • Tidied the zoom menu: removed the redundant “Fit page” option, leaving Automatic Zoom and Actual size.
0.15.0
  • Much sharper reader: pages now render at full device resolution, so text and images stay crisp on high-resolution and Retina screens, both at rest and while flipping.
  • Big books: long PDFs (hundreds of pages) now open reliably without the reader running out of memory.
  • Sharper zoom: zooming in re-renders the page from the PDF at high resolution, so zoomed-in text stays clear.
  • Crisper scroll view: pages sharpen as they scroll into view.
  • Fixed clickable PDF links that could turn the page instead of opening the link in single-page view.
  • New setting: hide the first / last (jump) side arrows, keeping only the previous / next arrows.
0.14.1
  • The reader now adapts to the page background: on a light background the corner logo, the side arrows and the actions menus switch to a matching light style (they stay dark on dark backgrounds).
0.14.0
  • New reader design: a cleaner dark toolbar, a labelled actions menu (icons with text), and minimalist side arrows (previous/next plus jump to start and end) that stay visible while the book sits neatly inset.
  • New zoom menu: Fit plus a live percentage with zoom out and in, replacing the old plus/minus buttons.
  • A small flipa mark now sits in the reader corner (Pro users can hide it).
  • 3D tilt now leans only the book, not the surrounding controls.
  • Shared and embedded flipbooks now carry the full actions menu (search, autoplay, print, 3D tilt, page depth and QR), matching the reader on your own site.
  • The new reader labels are translated across all 20 languages.
0.13.4
  • Fix: in-book text search now indexes text for flipbooks embedded from a URL. Previously the search index only built after flipping through the pages (or when using the Try-your-PDF uploader); it now indexes correctly on load. No other changes.
0.13.3
  • Upgrade smoothness: when moving from the free to the premium version, the free version now deactivates itself automatically instead of both being active at once. No change to any flipbook feature.
0.13.2
  • Maintenance: internal update-mechanism alignment so the free version and the premium upgrade are recognized as the same product. No change to any flipbook feature.
0.13.1
  • Maintenance: updated the bundled Freemius SDK to 2.13.3 (PHP compatibility fixes and account/payment improvements). No change to any flipbook feature.
0.13.0
  • New: In-book text search (Pro). A search box in the reader finds any word across the whole PDF, lists the matching pages with a snippet, jumps straight to a result, and highlights every match on the page. Works in page-flip and vertical-scroll reading modes.
  • Fix: single-page (single-spread) view no longer over-sizes the page in embedded flipbooks; a lone page now matches one page of the two-page spread. Mobile and vertical-scroll are unaffected.
0.12.2
  • WordPress.org compliance: the free version no longer contains any premium feature-gating code. The premium feature settings and the code that turns those features on are now generated only into the Pro build; the free build ships clean, with no disabled or locked controls. No change to the free feature set.
0.11.4
  • Media hotspots temporarily hidden while we finish and stabilize the feature (the Media tab and media rendering are switched off behind a flag; the code remains in place). No effect on any other feature.
0.11.3
  • Media hotspots: drag to position and resize each hotspot directly on the live preview in the editor (no more guessing percentages). New per-video Aspect control (Auto / 16:9 / 9:16 vertical / 1:1 / 4:3) so vertical YouTube Shorts no longer letterbox - the hotspot and the popup now match the video’s shape. Fixed the button hotspot showing as an empty box.
0.11.2
  • Media hotspots overhauled: redesigned Media tab (clear cards - every field visible); a single Size % (height follows the media’s own proportions, no more squashing); self-hosted video (upload an MP4 from the Media Library); per-video muted Autoplay + Loop; the old “link” is now a styled Button (text + text/background colors + shape); video hotspots show a YouTube-style play button over the thumbnail (no more icon hiding image/button hotspots); and hotspots no longer vanish after a page flip.
0.11.1
  • Media hotspots: hotspots now show a real thumbnail (the YouTube video still or the image itself) instead of a transparent box; clicking a hotspot no longer accidentally turns the page; and while you edit a hotspot in the Media tab the live preview jumps to that hotspot’s page so you can see where it lands.
0.11.0
  • New media hotspots (Pro): place clickable spots on any page to play a YouTube/Vimeo video, open an image or gallery, or link out. Each opens as a lightbox or inline; positioned in % of the page from a new Media tab with live preview. Works in page-flip, vertical scroll and 3D tilt modes.
0.10.2
  • WordPress.org / Plugin Check compliance: escaped the admin menu-icon CSS output, unslashed + sanitized all settings inputs on save, and removed the discouraged load_plugin_textdomain() call (translations auto-load on .org).
0.10.1
  • Fix: PDFs now load on HTTPS sites even if the saved PDF URL is http:// - the URL is auto-upgraded to https to avoid the browser’s mixed-content block (the “Could not read this PDF: Failed to fetch” error). Applied both in the renderer and the viewer.
0.10.0
  • Free/premium build split for WordPress.org: the Pro-only integrations (Elementor, WPBakery, WooCommerce, and the bookshelf) now live in __premium_only files inside is__premium_only() guards, so Freemius strips them from the generated free build while the premium build keeps everything. No change for existing Pro customers.
0.9.8
  • 3D tilt: reverted to the clean look - the outer/spine shadows and page-stack depth are hidden while tilted (they showed as detached bands on the rotated book); the book leans with its own built-in fold shading. Shadows and depth still appear in normal flip and scroll modes.
0.9.7
  • 3D tilt: hides the page-stack depth while tilted (it protruded past the rotated book); the outer drop shadow and fold shadow stay. Depth still shows in normal flip and scroll modes.
0.9.6
  • Editor: choosing Vertical scroll now forces Page view to Single and disables the dropdown (they can’t coexist). 3D tilt keeps the outer drop shadow and fold shadow, flattens the page-stack depth so it leans with the book, and uses a gentler angle + GPU hints for sharper edges.
0.9.5
  • 3D tilt polish: hides the fold shadows, page-stack depth and single-page overlay while tilted (they don’t compose in 3D), so the book leans cleanly. Vertical scroll and 3D tilt are now mutually exclusive - turning one on turns the other off (in the viewer and in the editor).
0.9.4
  • New 3D tilt mode (Pro): the book leans toward the reader’s cursor for a lively, three-dimensional feel. Enable a default under the Book tab; readers can toggle it from the toolbar. Disabled automatically while zoomed or in vertical-scroll mode.
0.9.3
  • Renamed the “View toggle” control to “Spread toggle” consistently across the editor’s Display tab and the viewer settings (matching the toolbar tooltip).
0.9.2
  • Vertical scroll now always uses single-page rows (fixes a blank render when a double-spread book was opened in scroll mode); the spread toggle is hidden while scrolling and restored when you switch back to page-flip. Renamed the spread toggle’s tooltip to “Spread toggle”.
0.9.1
  • Vertical scroll mode now sizes each page to the uploaded PDF’s proportions and fits one full page to the viewer height, so the first page shows in full on load and each scroll reveals a complete page. Re-fits on resize.
0.9.0
  • Vertical scroll reading mode (Pro): open a flipbook as a continuous top-to-bottom scroll. Readers can toggle between scroll and page-flip with a new toolbar button; clickable PDF links and zoom work in both modes.
0.8.0
  • Viewer interface expanded to 20 languages (added Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Czech, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, and RTL Persian).
0.7.0
  • Bookmarks (Pro): visitors can save pages (kept in their browser) via a new Bookmarks menu, and you can add publisher bookmarks shown to everyone.
0.6.0
  • Free/Pro licensing (Freemius-ready) with a clear feature split; an optional “Powered by flipa” credit is off by default.
  • Contents: nested two-level table of contents (foldable chapters + sub-chapters), light or dark menu theme, blank-page (label-only) rows.
  • Viewer polish: bundled Poppins UI font, autoplay (auto-advance with loop / autostart), a print button, and a “More” overflow menu to declutter the toolbar.
  • Bundled all libraries locally (no CDN) for WordPress.org compliance.
0.1.0
  • Initial release: PDF→flipbook engine (RTL + 7 languages), CPT + tabbed editor with live preview, TOC with sections, thumbnails, seek, zoom, password, sounds, QR share, clickable PDF links, lightbox, bookshelf, inline/iframe rendering; Gutenberg block, Elementor, WPBakery, Classic-editor button and WooCommerce integrations.
  • Free/Pro split: free includes the core viewer, RTL + 7 languages, lightbox and unlimited books; Pro adds the table of contents, sounds, password, custom background image, clickable PDF links, QR share, page-stack depth, and the WooCommerce/Elementor/WPBakery/bookshelf integrations. An optional “Powered by flipa” credit is off by default for all tiers.

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Good to know

Frequently asked questions

Does my PDF get uploaded to a third-party server?

No. Your PDF is served from your own WordPress site and rendered entirely in the visitor’s browser. Nothing is sent to an external service.

Does it really support right-to-left languages?

Yes - Hebrew, Arabic and Persian are first-class, including correct reading order, mirrored navigation and proper cover/back behavior. RTL is where Flipa stands out.

How do I add a flipbook to a page?

Use the [flipa id="123"] shortcode, the Gutenberg block, the Classic-editor button, or the Elementor / WPBakery widgets. It also drops onto WooCommerce product pages and a [flipa_shelf] bookshelf grid.

What’s the difference between the plans?

The plans differ only by how many sites you can activate on (1 / 5 / unlimited). Every plan includes all Pro features, automatic updates and support. Choose Annual for ongoing updates and the lowest entry price, or Lifetime for a single one-time payment.

Is there a free version?

Yes - a free build is available on the WordPress.org plugin directory with the core viewer, RTL and basic embedding. The paid plans here add the full Pro feature set, auto-updates and priority support.

Can I get a refund?

Yes - every plan is backed by a 14-day money-back guarantee.