Best Way to Display Huge PDF Books in WordPress

All WordPress developers know how much hosting and displaying PDF on WordPress website can impact the performance. Small PDFs (10 to 50 pages) usually are manageable, but hosting books with over 1,000 pages can slow down your website and cause a lot of issues. That’s why external storage solutions like Google Drive, Dropbox, or other cloud services are a much better option.

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However, today, I want to share an amazing platform I recently discovered-FlipHTML5.com. This tool is a great WordPress pdf viewer that allows you to upload your PDFs and generate a beautiful flipbook in your WordPress website. You can then embed it into your WordPress website using an embed code. As a result,  you will have an excellent way to display large PDFs without affecting your site’s performance. 

Keep reading to learn about how I came across the best PDF embedder for WordPress websites and successfully used it.

Why Use FlipHTML5 as a wordpress pdf viewer?

FlipHTML5 provides a PDF embedding solution for WordPress. It allows users to convert PDFs into interactive flipbooks and embed them on WordPress sites. This feature enables to transform static PDFs into dynamic, page-flipping documents which perfectly improves user engagement rates. Here  I will list some of the main advantages of this product for you:

  • Handles Large PDFs Efficiently – You can upload PDFs with 10,000+ pages, and they will display smoothly.
  • No impact on Website Speed – Since the PDFs are hosted externally, they won’t slow down your site.
  • Customizable design – You can fully customize the flipbook’s appearance to match your website’s style.
  • Strong protection features – If you’re a teacher or selling digital content, you can restrict access so that only subscribers or authorized users can view the PDFs.
  • Bookcase & categorization – Organize your books into different bookcases for easy navigation.
  • Download options – You can also download your flipbooks and host them on platforms like GitHub if needed.
  • Highly rated – FlipHTML5 has a 4.8/5 rating on Trustpilot. This  means it is one of the best solutions available among users.

For example, this one I downloaded from FlipHTML5.com and then hosted to my GitHub account, and I display this book by using <iframe>

Here is the iframe code:

<iframe src="https://gagikavagyan.github.io/flipbook/#p=5" 
    width="1000" height="700">
</iframe>

A Use Case: My Experience With FlipHTML5

One of my clients is a math teacher who generates content using Overleaf.com. Since LaTeX formatting doesn’t display well in WordPress, we needed a solution to display the PDF books without losing quality. After trying out different ways, we agreed to do like this:

  1. Generate the PDF in Overleaf
  2. Upload it to FlipHTML5
  3. Use the embed code inside a WordPress shortcode widget

This method is fast, efficient, and requires no extra effort from my client—he doesn’t have to manually create new pages for each document.

Why Not Use a WordPress Plugin?

Before finding FlipHTML5, I had tested multiple WordPress PDF viewer plugins over time, but none of them was good for our case. In the end, all of them had some limitations. These two make it impossible to use plugins.

  • They require you to upload PDFs to your WordPress media library, which slows down the site over time.
  • Many lack customization options compared to FlipHTML5.

That’s why, in my opinion, FlipHTML5 is the best way to display large PDFs in WordPress without a plugin. It has tons of customization options, interactive elements, and seamless integration for embedding content directly on websites​. If you’re dealing with huge PDFs (1,000+ pages), I highly recommend trying FlipHTML5!

And in the end, let me remind you that this post is not sponsored—this is my honest experience and recommendation after testing different solutions.

Summary:

Hosting large PDFs on WordPress can slow down websites, making FlipHTML5 a better alternative. It converts PDFs into interactive flipbooks that can be embedded without performance issues. Unlike WordPress plugins, FlipHTML5 offers customization, external hosting, and smooth display for large documents.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment. I’m here to help! Or, if you’d like more support, you can check out my services.

Check my posts about WordPress Security

F.A.Q

Why not upload PDFs directly to WordPress?

Uploading large PDFs to WordPress can slow down your website and affect performance. External hosting solutions like FlipHTML5 prevent this issue.

How does FlipHTML5 help with large PDFs?

FlipHTML5 converts PDFs into interactive flipbooks, which can be embedded in WordPress without impacting speed.

Is FlipHTML5 free to use?

FlipHTML5 offers both free and paid plans. The free plan has some limitations, while premium plans provide more customization and features.

Can I customize the flipbook’s design?

Yes, FlipHTML5 allows full customization of the flipbook’s appearance to match your website’s style.

Does FlipHTML5 support restricted access?

Yes, you can set access restrictions so only authorized users or subscribers can view the PDFs.

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Gagik
Gagik

I'm Gagik, developer with expertise in WordPress, front-end development, and SEO. With years of experience in building, optimizing, and managing websites, I run WordPressInfo.org to share insights, recommendations, and resources for WordPress users.

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