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Auction Catalog Maker

Turn your auction catalog into an interactive flipbook bidders browse on a phone with Flipbooks AI. Lot numbers, photographs, condition notes, and estimates keep the order and the look of your printed catalog, while a reader can zoom into a hallmark, tap through to register, or find lot 214 without scrolling past the other two hundred. Made for auction houses, estate sales, and charity galas. It costs nothing: no ads, no watermarks, and no limit on the number of sales you catalog.

Auction Catalog Maker

How to Build a Catalog in Three Steps

1

Upload the Catalog PDF

Upload the catalog you already produce for the sale. Flipbooks AI turns it into an interactive flipbook preview in the same lot order, with real page turns and photographs a bidder can zoom into.

2

Brand It and Link the Lots

Add your saleroom logo and colors, put the viewing times and terms up front, and link lots through to registration, a condition report request, or the platform running your online bidding.

3

Publish Before the Viewing

Publish in one click, email the link to your bidder list, embed it on the sale page, and print a QR code for the viewing room. Withdraw a lot later and the same link shows the corrected order.

How to Create an Auction Catalog Flipbook

How to Create an Auction Catalog Flipbook

Building the catalog takes minutes and no design work. Start from the catalog PDF you already produce for print or for email. Upload it and Flipbooks AI creates an interactive preview at once, in the same lot order. Choose a page turn style, add your saleroom logo and colors, link lots through to your bidding platform or a condition report form, add the viewing times up front, and decide whether the catalog is open or restricted to invited clients. Check it on a phone the way a bidder will, then publish. The link is ready to send to your entire list.

Create Your Auction Catalog

What Is an Auction Catalog?

An auction catalog is the running order of a sale. Each lot gets a number, one or more photographs, a description with maker, date, dimensions, provenance and condition where it applies, and an estimate. At the front sit the viewing times, the terms of sale, the buyer premium, and how to bid in the room, on the phone, or by absentee form. Flipbooks AI takes that catalog as a PDF and turns it into a flipbook with pages that turn in order, exactly as a bidder expects to work through a sale. Nothing about the sequence changes, and the catalog reaches people wherever the link does.

Create Your Auction Catalog
What Is an Auction Catalog?
What Is an Auction Catalog?
What Is an Auction Catalog?
What Is an Auction Catalog?

What Every Lot Entry Should Carry

Good lot entries answer the questions a bidder would otherwise have to ask. The lot number, a title that names the object plainly, maker or artist and date where known, dimensions, materials, provenance if it adds anything, condition in the words your house uses, and the estimate. A photograph that shows the object and a second that shows the detail people will care about, whether that is a signature, a hallmark, a spine, or an engine bay. In a flipbook you can add the images that never fit the printed page by linking a lot out to a fuller gallery.

Create Your Auction Catalog
What Every Lot Entry Should Carry

Trusted by Fortune 500 Companies

Photography That Survives a Small Screen

Photography That Survives a Small Screen

Most catalog photography is judged on a phone now, which is a harsher test than a printed page. Shoot on a plain ground with even light, fill the frame, and take the detail shots a specialist would look for. Flipbooks AI keeps those images crisp when a bidder zooms in, so a mark on a base or a repair to a rim is visible rather than a smear of pixels. Keep the crops consistent across the sale, because a catalog where every lot is framed the same way is far easier to read quickly than one assembled from whatever each shot happened to be.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Why Bidders Prefer a Flipbook Catalog
Why Bidders Prefer a Flipbook Catalog
Why Bidders Prefer a Flipbook Catalog
Why Bidders Prefer a Flipbook Catalog

Why Bidders Prefer a Flipbook Catalog

Bidders do their homework before the sale, usually in the evening and usually on a phone. A large PDF is a poor place to do that: it opens slowly, the pages arrive at the wrong size, and finding the group of lots they came for means scrolling through everything else. A flipbook opens on the first tap in the browser, turns page by page the way the printed catalog does, and lets a reader zoom into a photograph to check a rim or a signature. On sale day the same link is in their pocket, so they can follow the running order from the back of the room without carrying a printed copy.

Create Your Auction Catalog

Help Collectors Find the Sale Online

Collectors search for the maker, the marque, the artist, or the category long before they look at a saleroom calendar. A catalog embedded on your sale page gives those searches something to land on. Give it a title that names the sale and its date, use the terms your buyers actually type, and keep past sales online so the names in them keep bringing people to the site. A visitor who arrives for one lot often stays to look through the rest of the catalog, which is exactly the behaviour a sale page is supposed to encourage.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Help Collectors Find the Sale Online

Auction Catalog Maker Alternatives

Publuu

Publuu

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Zoomable Photos
  • Lot Level Links
  • Mobile Ready
  • Bidder Analytics
  • Fast Loading
  • Last Minute Edits
  • Password Access
  • Secure Hosting
Flipbooks AI

Flipbooks AI

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Zoomable Photos
  • Lot Level Links
  • Mobile Ready
  • Bidder Analytics
  • Fast Loading
  • Last Minute Edits
  • Password Access
  • Secure Hosting
FlipHTML5

FlipHTML5

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Zoomable Photos
  • Lot Level Links
  • Mobile Ready
  • Bidder Analytics
  • Fast Loading
  • Last Minute Edits
  • Password Access
  • Secure Hosting
Issuu

Issuu

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Zoomable Photos
  • Lot Level Links
  • Mobile Ready
  • Bidder Analytics
  • Fast Loading
  • Last Minute Edits
  • Password Access
  • Secure Hosting
Links That Turn a Browser Into a Bidder

Links That Turn a Browser Into a Bidder

The gap between reading a catalog and registering to bid is where most interest is lost. Close it inside the pages. Put a register to bid link on the front matter and again at the end. Let any lot open a condition report request, an absentee bid form, or its own listing on the platform running your online bidding. Link the viewing times to a map. Add a phone bid request that reaches your office directly. Someone reading at eleven at night can act while the object is still in front of them rather than making a note to call in the morning and then not calling.

Create Your Auction Catalog

Features Built for Auction Houses

Flipbooks AI gives a saleroom what a catalog actually needs. Photographs stay sharp when a bidder pinches into them, which matters when the difference between two estimates is a mark on the base. Any lot can link out to your bidding platform, a condition report request, or an extra gallery of images that would never fit on a printed page. A contents page jumps to a category, so the jewellery buyers do not scroll through the furniture. Add the viewing times and the terms up front, embed a short video of a clock running or an engine turning over, and keep your own branding on every page.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Features Built for Auction Houses
Features Built for Auction Houses
Features Built for Auction Houses
Features Built for Auction Houses

One Catalog Per Sale, All Year

A saleroom publishes constantly, and the tool should not slow that down. Publish a separate flipbook for every sale, each with its own link and its own analytics, all sharing your house design. A specialist sale, a general weekly, a timed online auction and a charity evening can run side by side without anything being overwritten. Withdraw a lot the day before the sale, republish the corrected catalog, and every link you have already sent shows the amended running order rather than the one that went out last week.

Create Your Auction Catalog
One Catalog Per Sale, All Year
Get the Catalog Checked Before It Goes Out

Get the Catalog Checked Before It Goes Out

Catalogs are checked by more than one person: the specialist who wrote the entries, whoever proofs the estimates, and the person who has to answer for the terms of sale. Flipbooks AI fits that routine. Send a preview link so everyone reviews the real catalog on the device a bidder will use, rather than a PDF that has been emailed round three times. Corrections come back against a lot number. Keep the current version live until the amended one is approved, then swap it on the same link so nothing already circulating breaks.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Works for Every Kind of Sale
Works for Every Kind of Sale
Works for Every Kind of Sale
Works for Every Kind of Sale

Works for Every Kind of Sale

A forty lot charity gala and a six hundred lot fine art sale are the same job for this tool. Upload the catalog PDF and the flipbook is ready in minutes. House sales, estate clearances, classic car auctions, wine sales, book and manuscript sales, machinery disposals and silent auctions at a fundraiser all work the same way. Run a separate catalog for every sale in the calendar, each with its own link, and keep them all live afterwards. There is no page ceiling, so a catalog with three hundred illustrated lots costs exactly what a twelve page one does.

Create Your Auction Catalog

Print Fewer Catalogs Without Losing Any

Printing a full catalog for every sale is one of the larger fixed costs a saleroom carries, and much of the run goes to people who look at it once. A flipbook lets you print for the clients who genuinely want paper and send everybody else a link. Late changes stop being expensive: a withdrawn lot or a corrected estimate is republished the same hour instead of being announced from the rostrum. Overseas bidders receive the catalog immediately rather than a week after it was posted, which is often the difference between a bid and an apology.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Print Fewer Catalogs Without Losing Any

Who Uses Auction Catalogs

2456+

Auction Houses

6

Estate Sales

13

Charity Galas

24

Fundraisers

65

Car Auctions

9

Art Dealers

Readable for Every Bidder

Readable for Every Bidder

Salerooms have long standing clients who need larger text, use a screen reader, or cannot manage a mouse comfortably. Flipbooks AI covers the basics so the catalog is not closed to them. Screen reader support reads the lot entries aloud. Keyboard navigation moves through the pages. Clear contrast and unfussy layouts help everyone read a dense page of descriptions. For a business built on long relationships with collectors, keeping the catalog usable for the whole of that list is worth the small amount of attention it takes.

Create Your Auction Catalog

Made for the Phone in the Saleroom

On the day, the catalog lives in a hand, not on a desk. Flipbooks AI keeps it usable there. The layout adapts to the screen, the page turns stay quick, and a bidder can zoom into a photograph and back out without losing their place in the running order. Links stay tappable while somebody is standing up. Everything runs in the browser, so nothing has to be installed by a bidder who registered ten minutes ago, and the same link works on a tablet on the rostrum, a phone in the room, and a laptop on the other side of the world.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Made for the Phone in the Saleroom
Made for the Phone in the Saleroom
Made for the Phone in the Saleroom
Made for the Phone in the Saleroom

Loads Fast in a Crowded Saleroom

Signal in a saleroom is usually poor, and a bidder who cannot open the catalog while lot 30 is being sold gives up on it. Flipbooks AI keeps every catalog light. Compression keeps the photography sharp while the file stays small, and the first pages appear while the rest arrives behind them. That matters most in the room, on a network shared with two hundred other phones, and it matters again for an overseas bidder on a connection that would never manage a hundred megabyte PDF.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Loads Fast in a Crowded Saleroom
Sits Beside the Tools You Already Use

Sits Beside the Tools You Already Use

Nothing here asks a saleroom to change how it works. Export the catalog from InDesign, from your auction management system, or from Canva, and upload the PDF. Point the links at whichever platform runs your online bidding, at your condition report form, or at your registration page. Drop the embed code onto the sale page of your website. Your cataloguers keep their usual process, the catalog still gets printed if you print, and the flipbook is simply the version that reaches everyone else.

Create Your Auction Catalog
A Free Catalog Tool With No Watermark
A Free Catalog Tool With No Watermark
A Free Catalog Tool With No Watermark
A Free Catalog Tool With No Watermark

A Free Catalog Tool With No Watermark

Flipbooks AI is completely free, and no part of the catalog is held back. Other tools will build the flipbook and then place their own mark across pages you photographed and wrote yourself, cap the page count so a large sale needs an upgrade, or keep the reading data on a paid tier. Here you get unlimited catalogs, unlimited lots, your branding alone, and full analytics at no cost. For a saleroom running fortnightly sales, or a charity that catalogs one gala a year, the arithmetic works out the same way: nothing to pay either way.

Create Your Auction Catalog

An Archive of Past Sales

Old catalogs are working documents in this trade. A consignor asks what a comparable piece was estimated at, a specialist checks how a maker was described last spring, a researcher wants the provenance you printed three years ago. Keep every sale published and organized by date, so all of it is a link away instead of a shelf of paper in the back office. It also gives collectors a reason to keep visiting your site between sales, which is a quiet benefit of leaving them up.

Create Your Auction Catalog
An Archive of Past Sales

What Salerooms Say About the Catalog Maker

We run a general sale every fortnight and used to print two hundred catalogs for people who mostly looked once. Now the link goes out with the sale announcement and we print for the clients who ask. Withdrawing a lot the night before stopped being a problem we had to announce from the rostrum.

Marketing team
Marketing team

Product catalogs

Our bidders look at the catalog on a phone, and the zoom is what changed things for us. A specialist in another country can check a hallmark themselves instead of emailing for a detail shot, and the condition report requests we do get are much more specific than they used to be.

Studio owner
Studio owner

Client lookbooks

I organize a charity gala with about forty silent auction lots. Guests browse the catalog at the table before bidding opens, which we never managed with a printed sheet. Two donated lots arrived on the afternoon of the event and I added them an hour before doors.

School office
School office

Newsletters and programmes

For an estate sale we photographed everything in the house on the Tuesday and had a catalog out to our list on the Wednesday. Seeing which pages people came back to told us how to order the day, and the consignor could see that the interest was real before the sale started.

Independent designer
Independent designer

Portfolio flipbooks

Private Sales and Restricted Viewing

Private Sales and Restricted Viewing

Not every catalog is meant for everyone. A private treaty list, a preview shown to a few clients before the sale is announced, a single owner collection under an embargo. Flipbooks AI protects a catalog with a password so only invited clients can open it, and downloading can be switched off so the images and estimates do not travel further. Secure hosting keeps the file where you put it, and the public catalog for the same sale can be published separately when the embargo lifts.

Create Your Auction Catalog

Get the Catalog to Bidders Before the Sale

A catalog is only useful if it reaches people while they can still plan to bid. Publishing gives you a link that goes anywhere. Email it to your bidder list the moment the sale is announced. Embed it on the sale page of your website so a visitor starts browsing lots instead of downloading a file. Post it to the collectors groups where your buyers already talk. Print a QR code on the viewing room sign and on the paddle card so anyone in the building can open the running order. Password protection is there for a private sale or a preview shown to invited clients first.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Get the Catalog to Bidders Before the Sale
Get the Catalog to Bidders Before the Sale
Get the Catalog to Bidders Before the Sale
Get the Catalog to Bidders Before the Sale

Details That Keep People Turning Pages

A bidder who works through the whole catalog finds lots they did not come for, and those are often the ones that surprise everyone on the day. A few things help. A contents page that jumps to a category respects the specialist who only wants the clocks. Sharing buttons let somebody send a lot to the friend who collects them. A short video of a musical box playing or a car starting does what a still photograph cannot. A closing page with the viewing times, the terms, and the register link catches the reader while they are still interested.

Create Your Auction Catalog
Details That Keep People Turning Pages

Compare Auction Catalog Tools

ApplicationRatingUnlimited CreditsUsage RatingDescription
10/10Yes1

Flipbooks AI publishes unlimited auction catalogs free, with your saleroom branding, photographs that stay sharp when a bidder zooms in, links from any lot to registration or a condition report, bidder analytics, and corrections that republish to the same link before the sale.

FlipHTML5

5.2/10No2

FlipHTML5 has handled PDF conversion for a long time and gives you plenty of control over the viewer if you want to sit and configure one. Free catalogs carry its branding, which is an odd thing to hand a consignor who is paying you commission on the sale.

Issuu

7.1/10No3

Issuu hosts long illustrated documents reliably and has an audience browsing it, which occasionally brings a stranger to a sale. Free publications sit inside its own navigation, so the catalog reads as an Issuu page rather than as your saleroom.

Heyzine

8.3/10No4

Heyzine gets a good looking flipbook out of a PDF fast, which suits a small house with a sale next Tuesday. The free tier limits how many books you keep, so a saleroom running a catalog every fortnight is choosing which sales to delete by spring.

Flipsnack

6.4/10No5

Flipsnack is aimed at teams publishing on a regular schedule and its editor is comfortable to work in. The unbranded pages and the detailed engagement figures a saleroom would want to show a consignor belong to a paid plan billed by seat.

Publuu

7.8/10No6

Publuu produces a clean flipbook and tracks individual links well, which is handy when sending a catalog to a shortlist of clients. Longer documents and the fuller reporting sit on paid tiers, and a large illustrated sale is exactly the kind of document that runs past the free limits.

Canva

6.9/10No7

Canva is a reasonable place to lay out a short gala catalog when nobody in the room is a designer, and its templates keep the result tidy. Its presentation view is not a page turning catalog, and it gives you nothing on which lots were looked at.

Adobe InDesign

8.1/10No8

InDesign is what most printed catalogs are typeset in, and its data merge handles hundreds of lot entries better than anything else. It ends at the PDF though, with no hosted link for bidders, no zoom experience on a phone, and no way to correct a withdrawn lot after the file has been emailed.

Bidding Platforms

6.5/10No9

Online bidding platforms list your lots and take the bids, which is the part that has to work on the day. Their lot pages are a searchable list rather than a catalog, so the browsing experience your printed book gave a collector is not really replaced by them.

Printed Catalog

7.6/10No10

A printed catalog still matters to serious collectors and looks right on the viewing room table. It is also fixed the day it goes to press, expensive for a run that is mostly read once, slow to reach an overseas bidder, and silent about which lots drew interest.

Catalogs for Charity Galas and Estate Sales

Catalogs for Charity Galas and Estate Sales

Not every catalog comes from a saleroom. A charity gala with thirty silent auction lots needs the same thing on the night: a running order guests can browse on a phone at the table, with photographs, descriptions and a starting bid on each. An estate sale needs a catalog put together quickly from photographs taken in the house. Both work here, both cost nothing, and both can be corrected an hour before doors open when a donated lot arrives late or a piece turns out not to be sold after all.

Create Your Auction Catalog
See Which Lots Are Drawing Attention
See Which Lots Are Drawing Attention
See Which Lots Are Drawing Attention
See Which Lots Are Drawing Attention

See Which Lots Are Drawing Attention

Before this the only signal you had before a sale was the number of condition reports requested. Flipbooks AI shows how many people opened the catalog, which pages they lingered on, which lots they came back to, and where they stopped reading. That is useful for the sale itself, for advising a consignor about interest in their property, and for planning the next catalog. If the run of silver is being read three times as often as the ceramics, that tells you something about the order of the next sale and about which images earned their space.

Create Your Auction Catalog

A Catalog Tool That Keeps Working

Salerooms plan their calendar a year ahead, so the tools around them should be dull and dependable. Flipbooks AI keeps pace with current web standards and the phones bidders use, and updates arrive without any work from your office. Catalogs published for last autumn keep opening on the same links, which matters when past sales are part of your archive. Everything is hosted, so there is nothing to install on the office machines and nothing that has to be rebuilt before the next season begins.

Create Your Auction Catalog
A Catalog Tool That Keeps Working

Frequently Asked
Auction Catalog Maker

What is an auction catalog flipbook?

It is your catalog PDF presented as an interactive booklet with real page turns, in the same lot order. Flipbooks AI does it free, so bidders browse lot numbers, photographs, descriptions and estimates in the browser with nothing to download.

Is Flipbooks AI really free for auction catalogs?

Yes. It is completely free, with no watermarks, no page limits, and no cap on how many sales you catalog. Branding, password protection, sharing and analytics are all included, so a six hundred lot sale costs exactly what a gala list does.

Can bidders zoom into the lot photographs?

Yes. Images stay sharp when a reader pinches into them, so a hallmark, a signature, a chip on a rim, or a detail of an engine bay is actually visible on a phone rather than dissolving into a blur.

Can a lot link through to my bidding platform?

Yes. Any lot can carry a link to your online bidding page, a condition report request, an absentee bid form, or an extra gallery of images. The reader acts while the object is in front of them instead of making a note to call later.

Can I withdraw a lot after sending the catalog out?

Yes. Correct the PDF and republish. The link stays the same, so the amended running order appears everywhere you have already sent it, including the QR code on the viewing room sign and the email to your bidder list.

Will the catalog work on a phone in the saleroom?

Yes. Every catalog is responsive and runs in the browser, so it opens on a phone or tablet with nothing to install, keeps the page turns smooth, and lets a bidder move through the running order while standing in the room.

How many lots can one catalog hold?

There is no page limit, so a catalog can run to as many lots as the sale has. A thirty lot charity auction and a six hundred lot specialist sale are both published the same way and neither needs an upgrade.

Can I keep a private sale catalog invitation only?

Yes. Protect the catalog with a password so only invited clients can open it, and switch off downloading so images and estimates do not circulate further. A public version of the same sale can be published separately later.

Have more questions?

If you still have questions or want to explore more details about our features, limitations, and usage, we invite you to visit our full FAQ page.

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