A friend recently asked for help designing leaflets for her new business and I happily volunteered. Little did I know how hard it would be to find software to design a professional-looking Leaflet for free. I asked myself “How to make a Leaflet?” and headed to the forums for some inspiration and read dozens of replies. One name stood out above the rest – Yumpu Publishing! I had been trying to get my friend to take his business marketing more seriously for ages! Nothing I said seemed to inspire him to want to do things differently. Then last week he called me up and asked me for help. Another friend had suggested that he get some leaflets going and he didn’t know where to start. Happy to finally see some moves in a new direction, I agreed to help him out. I agreed straight away thinking I’d just head off onto my computer and find a program that created state-of-the-art marketing material for free. Let’s just say that’s not exactly how things unfolded. I was doing a favor for a friend and wanted to spend as little money as possible, which meant I needed something that was free.
How to make a leaflet?
I resorted to Google and typed literally that into the search bar. The results were in the thousands. I knew there was no way I was going to go sift through all that information just to learn how to make a leaflet, so I headed to the most recent forum that I found. There, people were throwing around leaflet making ideas and the names of some websites that offered leaflet samples and templates.
Most people just wanted to design and print their leaflets and be one their way. I didn’t want to go the traditional route that always seemed to entail handing out leaflets people usually just tossed in the trash. I wanted to create something interactive that would catch people by surprise as they were scrolling down their social media timelines for the latest news and gossip. I wasn’t interested in creating something they would just look at for a couple seconds and keep on scrolling either. The final result needed to be something that excited people. Something they could relate to.
By a process of elimination, I crossed off my list the applications that were too expensive, the ones that looked too complicated, and the one’s that just seemed too cumbersome. The more research I did the more suggestions got checked off the list. I didn’t want to work with any faulty free software, neither was I interested in spending my time trying to make do with an application that left little room for creativity. I couldn’t believe the number of free leaflet making applications that turned out not to be leaflet making applications at all!
I had all but given up when I found this software. A simple recommendation from someone who’d tried it read:
“This is the one. I needed leaflets in a hurry that didn’t look like I’d created them in a hurry, and this software delivered!”
That sounded like just what I needed! I logged onto the website and created a free account. The next step was uploading a PDF onto the server. I followed the instructions and watched as my PDF was transformed into a beautiful image on the website’s digital viewer. I was already getting excited. This would be my trial publication. If it worked, I would ask my friend to send his material and I would design his leaflet right away.
Then it was onto the next step. I noticed immediately that even with the free version there were tons of really good templates to choose from. I started sifting through them and it seemed as though the creators had known exactly what I would be looking for before I did.
Using the hotspot editor, I uploaded sounds, videos, links, and slide shows to my publication. It was easy to add sounds, videos, and slides directly through the website eliminating the need to do so through mediums like Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, and Flickr. There was no limit to the number of images that could be added to your slide show.
I was impressed!
I played around with the application’s features and designed my free leaflet in no time. I called up my friend to share my success and designed his leaflet the very next day. Needless to say, he was over the moon thrilled with the result. We both now recommend the free leaflet creator we found on Yumpu Publishing to everyone we meet. Give it a go, what have you got to lose?
I need google analytics. Can I also test it for free?
If you wanna use Google analytics, you need to sign in for the adfree plan. The free plan doesn’t provide this service. Anyways, you can still test adfree for 30 days for free.
I would like to change the design of the leaflet. Plus I wanna insert our company logo. Where can I do that?
Hey! If you are using the free plan right now you need to change to another plan – the adfree plan. There you are able to change background, color, logo – everything you need for your own corporate design.
Hey Oliver!
What file types are allowed for the ePaper conversion?
To create an ePaper, you have to use a PDF file with a max. file size of 600 Mb. Other file types are not supported and need to be converted into the PDF format.
I wanna produce a quarterly leaflet for my clients. What happens if I need to do updates in that leaflet?
Hey Caro – That’s no problem as long as you work with every other plan than the free plan.
Use the ‘refresh’ function to replace an existing leaflet with a new PDF. It’s acutally really easy and well described.
I wanna insert more images on my leaflet. Like a slideshow. Is that possible? If yes, how do I do it? Thank you.
Yes sure, that’s no problem at all. And it’s pretty easy as well:
Open up the Hotspot Editor by clicking on “Edit pages”
Choose the Slideshow Hotspot. Then click into the magazine and drag the hotspot as big as you need it.
Choose “Yumpu” as the source. Then click on “Select Media”
Choose “Upload Files” and then “Select Files”. Select the images you want to upload.
Now choose the images you just uploaded and click on “Create Gallery”. Then click on “Insert”. That’s it!
Your blog post got me sooo motivated. I haven’t been that excited for marketing reasons before. Thanks for the great Tipp Oliver.
I wanna try to make a leaflet with sound effects and video sequences!! I never did that before. Hope it works!!! 😀
Please help me Oliver!! How Can I add videos from Vimeo to my leaflet? Thank you thank you.
Hey Barbora!
Go to “My Magazines”
Click on “Edit pages”
Click on the Video icon. You can now add the Hotspot to the page by clicking and holding down the left mouse button while dragging the element as big as you want it.
In the Hotspot detail window choose Vimeo as the source, give the hotspot a name and enter the Vimeo video ID.
Click on “Save”.
Online leaflets?! No thanks. I prefer the old school way – face2face and something you can take home with you.
Hey hey Oliver. I was wondering what possibilities I have as a free user?
Hello Oleg! That’s what you will get:
Yumpu.com is FREE
You can convert as many PDFs as you like
No matter how many pages your PDF document has
Your ePaper stays online as long as you wish
If you wish to take your ePaper down again, you can delete it and it won’t be available on Yumpu.com anylonger
I do both – sharing my leaflets online and sharing them at community events where we meet up once in a month. For me that’s the perfect marketing combo.
“This is the one. I needed leaflets in a hurry that didn’t look like I’d created them in a hurry,…“ – I TOTALLY AGREE!
WOW this is awesome. Haven’t thought about that option before.
I’m really glad I found your blog. I would just give up again on the long and tiring search for a publishing software. Thank you!!!!
If I wanted to give my magazine away to somebody that sign-up in my website, what is the process for them to be able to download the magazine. I realise you give an embedded code, but can I copy that embedded code in an email, and the customer paste it on their browser to access it. How does it work exactly?
That leaflet is a dynamic Object – so you can send the link in an e-Mail but not the whole item.
In order to have traffic on your own site, you can create a blogpost or website page and embed the magazine there.
Then you’ll link the users to that specific page.
Using the Webkiosk you can generate prospecting leads for your content.
Hey Oliver, how many pages are common if – let’s say- you wanna promote a charity event?