Interactive guide: types and creation with examples and templates
Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine learning something new without a reliable guide. We’re constantly surrounded by tutorials and tips—whether in videos, eBooks, or magazines—which can sometimes feel overwhelming. To truly stand out and capture your audience’s attention, you need to go beyond the basics and create an experience that engages all their senses.
That’s where interactive guides make the difference. Unlike traditional ones, these guides include clickable links, videos, animations, and sounds, making the learning process not only more enjoyable but also far more effective.
In this article, you’ll discover what interactive guides are, how to create them, the different types that exist, and how to use a digital flipbook to publish and share them with ease.
What is an interactive guide?
An interactive guide is a dynamic version of an eBook or website that responds to user actions. Instead of just reading, people can click on hotspots, watch videos, take quizzes, and get instant feedback.
Unlike printed manuals or plain PDFs, interactive content offers a more practical and engaging learning experience. Whether you’re showing how to use a product, guiding someone through a city, or helping them learn a new skill, this format makes everything easier, more fun, and more effective.
Elements of an interactive guide
To truly engage users and help them learn, you need a couple of interactive elements in your guidebook, like:
- Clickable links & hotspots – they let the readers jump between various sections or visit external websites.
- Multimedia – videos, GIFs, and audio explanations.
- Easy navigation – menus, search bars, or tables of contents.
- Interactive quizzes – testing knowledge or able to deliver feedback.
- Animations & effects – draw the reader’s attention to important content.
Publuu lets you add all these elements (and more!) to your PDFs. Take a look below 👇
MAKE YOUR OWN
Types of interactive guides
Brand guide
A brand guide helps companies clearly define their brand identity, including descriptions of logos, iconic colors, fonts, and voice. The interactive version of a brand guide might include a clickable color palette, a gallery of logo variations, or videos showing proper logo usage.
User manual
A user manual is a step-by-step guide that shows people how to use a product. An interactive user guide could include how-to videos, animations, and links to troubleshooting tips.
Employee guide
An employee training manual introduces new hires to company policies, tasks, and culture. You can add maps, welcome videos, or training checklists with interactive features.
Travel guide
Travel guides are ideal for hotels, travel agencies, local governments and museums. With an interactive guide, users could access a city map with clickable landmarks, reserve a hotel, or experience virtual tours.
Check also tips for travel pamphlet
Corporate guide
This could mean a guide to the structure of the corporation, a report, a white book or an executive summary. Enhance them with charts, animations, or pop-up summaries.
Educational guide
Ideal for students of all ages – you can use anything from handbooks to exercise books. Publuu lets you add pronunciation videos, quizzes, and animated explanations.
Related topic: Educational Content
Event guide
A great way to help visitors on conferences or expos. Interactive guides or event brochures can include schedules, maps, interactive updates, speaker bios, and live Q&A links.
Sales guide
This guide supports sales teams, containing catalogues, offers, tips and contact information. Interactive guides might also be integrated with CRM systems, contain product demos, or links to the store.
Features of interactive guide to look for
With Publuu, you can add interactive hotspots, audio, backgrounds, and track analytics—all in a user-friendly format. Here’s what a good interactive guide should have 👇
- Clear and simple content – The guide should be easy to understand, and the user needs to follow it without a hitch. Publuu lets you transfer the functions of a PDF to a HTML-5 website, combining the best parts of traditional books and websites.
- User-friendly navigation – Menus, buttons and links must be visible and transparent.
- Multimedia support – Use videos, animations, photos and sounds to keep the viewer’s attention. Publuu lets you embed them into a PDF.
- Interactive elements – Quizzes, hotspots, forms or links that respond to user actions.
- Responsive design – A good guide should work well on any device – computer, tablet and smartphone. You don’t have to download any PDF – Publuu opens the device in any web browser.
- Fast loading – Even the best guide will lose users if it runs slowly. Publuu flipbooks are fast and easy to share.
- Analytics – Track views, page visits and engagement rates to improve future editions.
Steps to create interactive guide
1. Know your audience
Think about who you are targeting with your guide. Who are your readers? What experience do they have and what do they need? A guide is created to solve specific problems – think about who has that problem and whether there are different groups sharing it or closely related.
For example, when creating a city guide, you can address tourists, young residents and business visitors.
Check also our guide about how to reach your target audience
2. Define the problem
Explain how your guide will help solve the issue. Illustrate it with real-life examples or a short story, which will make the topic easier to understand. Remember to break down the problem into smaller, easy-to-explain parts.
💡 In a city guide you can separate out sections on monuments, individual neighborhoods or public transportation.
3. Choose the right format
Match the eBook format to your audience and topic. For complex topics, use detailed instructions. For travel content, include maps. Publuu lets you embed interactive elements like pop-ups to enhance any format.
4. Keep the language simple
Use simple words and short sentences. When writing, imagine you are talking to a friend, avoiding jargon and long winding sentences. If you can, test the text on real users and ask if everything was clear to them.
💡 When creating a city guide, keep in mind tourists from different countries who are not necessarily familiar with the local history!
5. Use visuals
Insert images, diagrams, videos and animations to better show what you are writing about. Ensure a consistent style of graphics – make everything look neat and uniform.
6. Organize the content
Divide the ebook into chapters and sections. Put a table of contents at the beginning so it’s easy to find the information you need. Use clear headings and divide the text into small sections that are easy to read.
💡 In a city guide, you can describe each neighborhood separately, adding a brief description of the most important places.
7. Add a human touch
Show why each piece of information is important. Explain how each step will help the user achieve a goal. You can also add short success stories or real-life examples.
💡 In a guidebook to the city you can add photos of happy tourists or their recommendations.
8. Test the eBook
Give the eBook to several people to read before publishing. Gather their feedback – what was clear, what was difficult, what is worth improving. Publuu gives you the ability to update PDFs when they are published: you can replace the guide with a new version without changing the link.
9. Upload it to the Publuu cloud
Once you’ve exported your eBook to PDF format, you can upload it to the Publuu website. After uploading the file, you can start personalizing it – set the background, music and prepare interactive hotspots.
💡 You can upload a city guide to the cloud and then place QR codes and links to it in popular tourist attractions.
10. Use Publuu analytics
Publuu’s analytics system allows you to track who opens your eBook, at what times, what pages are most visited. Use this knowledge to improve your eBooks and perfect the next versions.
Want to make your PDFs come alive online? Publuu helps you turn your static PDF into a professional, interactive guidebook you can easily share!
1. Upload a PDF file to Publuu
Save your document as a PDF. Then head over to Publuu, sign in with your email or Google account (or create one if you haven’t yet). Click on “Upload PDF” and pick your file and Publuu will instantly transform your document into an eye-catching flipbook.
2. Customize it
Once the file has uploaded, you can make your adjustments and personalize the flipbook. Change the name and description, add your logo, and choose backgrounds or music that suits the theme.
Add interactive hotspots to help users navigate your guide, along with animations and special effects. You can even protect it with a password if privacy is important.
Once it’s perfect, you have many options to share your guidebook with your audience:
- Simple link – Grab the link Publuu provides and share it via email, social media, or messages.
- Right in an email – Embed the flipbook directly into your email so people can view it right away.
- On your website – Embed your flipbook on your blog or website.
- Social media – Share the link on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms.
- Scan and go (QR Code) – Publuu can automatically generate a QR code. People can scan it with their phone and view your guide instantly!
Tips for creating interactive guides
- Use hotspots and interactivity – Publuu flipbooks let users choose their own learning path (e.g., “Are you a beginner? Start here” vs. “Advanced user? Jump to troubleshooting”). Use hotspots to direct readers to the right sections in a choose-your-own-adventure style.
- Use quizzes to check understanding – Add 1–2 question pop-ups after key sections to reinforce learning. It’s worth doing so in coursebooks and other guidebooks, so that the user browsing your PDF knows what they might have missed.
- Gamify progress – Reward users for completing quizzes or tasks with animations or bonus content. You can embed these rewards using links or interactive galleries in Publuu flipbooks.
- Add demo GIFs – Every instruction – even a simple one – should be supported by a short animation. Embed looping 5–10 second GIFs to demonstrate complex actions (e.g., “How to filter data”).
- Link to sources – Wherever possible, include links directly to your sources. For example, if you reference laws or regulations, link to the full documents to give users additional context. Your guide should act as a reliable gateway to further knowledge.
- Add tooltips and sidenotes – Use Publuu’s galleries and pop-up notes for sidebars, footnotes, or extra explanations. These are perfect for defining technical terms or offering commentary without breaking the flow. You can even include clickable footnotes like “Why we recommend this.”
Interactive guide templates
1. Bold and professional business guide template
This respectable cover template draws the attention and looks stable and sensible.
2. Warm and modern business guide template
This document template combines natural charm with business skills.
3. Versatile geometric guide template
This simple shape-based guidebook template can work for business, education or entertainment.
4. Collage-based marketing guide template
The creative, engaging elements of this template make it work great as a cover for your guide.
5. Blue business guide template
This ebook template is perfect for an eBook, and can be used to create all kinds of guidebook or manual contents.
6. Organic cover guide template
This style of temple works great for cookbooks and other lifestyle-related
7. Simple brown guide template
Nature-inspired themes of this eBook can be replaced, but the composition of this guidebook is very cozy and positive.
8. Modern accents guide template
Strong blue accents of this cover draw the attention of the viewer.
9. Cartoon characters guide template
The friendly cartoon characters on the cover make this guide friendly and approachable.
Inspiring examples of interactive guides
SA Water flipbook
This guidebook to SA Water demonstrates sustainability thanks to photos of users and ease of browsing. You can examine charts and tables on any screen, from a smartphone to a TV.
Home buyers guide
This guide shows step by step how to buy a house and contact the realtor. You can see how it uses photographs to showcase the visuals.
Home buyer guidebook
This home buyer guidebook is simpler and more practical, containing checklists and worksheets.
Interactive guide FAQ
What are the benefits of interactive guides?
There are many benefits of creating these guides: they’re more engaging than static PDFs, easier to understand, and accessible on any device. Publuu lets you add videos, quizzes, and track engagement.
What are the best practices for interactive guides?
- Use clear structure and headings
- Keep interactive elements intuitive
- Design for mobile devices
- Make it easy to search or navigate
Conclusion on interactive guide
Whether you’re onboarding employees, guiding travelers or teaching customers, an interactive guide brings your content to life. Start your flipbook today and share your experiences with us!
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