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EventsExhibitionsFlipbookGuideOperations

Exhibitor Guide Maker

Turn the exhibitor manual your operations team writes into an interactive flipbook with Flipbooks AI. Upload the PDF and exhibitors get stand build rules, deadline dates, freight instructions, badge details and a zoomable floor plan in one link that works on a laptop at the office and a phone at the loading dock. Built for show organizers, venues and event operations teams. The tool is free from end to end, with no ads, no watermarks, and no ceiling on the number of exhibitor manuals you publish each season.

Exhibitor Guide Maker

How to Build an Exhibitor Manual

1

Upload the Manual PDF

Upload the exhibitor manual your operations team already produces. Flipbooks AI reads the common formats and builds a flipbook preview with real page turns, keeping every diagram and table where you put it.

2

Add Branding and Links

Add the show logo and colors, choose a page turn style, link every deadline row to your exhibitor portal, and set a password if the site plan and access details are for contracted exhibitors only.

3

Send It to Exhibitors

Publish with one click, then put the link in the welcome email, embed it in the exhibitor area of the show site, and print a QR code for the contractor briefing and the loading bay signage.

How to Create an Exhibitor Guide Flipbook

How to Create an Exhibitor Guide Flipbook

Making the flipbook needs no design work and no new system. Start with the exhibitor manual PDF your team already produces, whether it came from InDesign, Word or a template the venue supplied. Upload it and a flipbook preview appears straight away. Choose a page turn style, add the show logo and colors, link the deadline table to your ordering portal, and decide whether the manual is public or password protected for contracted exhibitors. Check it on a phone the way an exhibitor will, publish with one click, and paste the link into the welcome email.

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What Is an Exhibitor Guide?

An exhibitor guide, often called the exhibitor manual or service manual, is the document a show organizer sends to every company taking a stand. It carries the move in and move out times, the stand build rules, the height and rigging limits, the freight and drayage instructions, the badge allocation, the deadline dates for ordering power and furniture, and the floor plan. Flipbooks AI turns that PDF into an interactive flipbook with real page turns, so an exhibitor opens one link instead of hunting through an attachment. Contents entries jump to the right section, deadlines link straight to the ordering portal, and the floor plan zooms to the stand number.

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What Is an Exhibitor Guide?
What Is an Exhibitor Guide?
What Is an Exhibitor Guide?
What Is an Exhibitor Guide?

Not the Same as a Trade Show Catalog

These two documents get confused, and they belong to opposite sides of the aisle. A trade show catalog is made by an exhibitor to show its products to buyers who walk past the stand. An exhibitor guide is made by the show organizer and sent to those exhibitors, and it contains rules rather than products: build heights, fire regulations, freight windows, badge counts, deadline dates. The audience is a stand manager and a contractor, not a buyer, and the goal is a show that opens on time rather than a lead. If you are the company exhibiting, the catalog tool is the one you want.

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Not the Same as a Trade Show Catalog

Trusted by Fortune 500 Companies

Deadlines Exhibitors Cannot Miss

Deadlines Exhibitors Cannot Miss

Half of the operations work on a show is chasing dates: electrics ordered by a Friday, rigging plans approved two weeks out, insurance certificates before move in, catering booked before the venue closes its list. Put that table near the front of the manual and make every row link to the place the exhibitor has to act. A reader who taps the electrics deadline lands on the order form instead of searching their inbox for the supplier name. When a date moves, you change it once and republish, and the link everyone already has shows the new date.

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Why Send the Manual as a Flipbook
Why Send the Manual as a Flipbook
Why Send the Manual as a Flipbook
Why Send the Manual as a Flipbook

Why Send the Manual as a Flipbook

The exhibitor manual is the least read important document in the events business. It arrives as a heavy attachment four months before the show, gets filed, and then the operations inbox fills with questions it already answers. A flipbook changes the shape of that problem. The manual opens in a browser in seconds, the contents page is tappable, and the link is easy to forward to the stand builder and the freight agent who actually need it. When a deadline moves or the venue changes a rule, you republish and the same link carries the new version, so nobody is working from a manual you replaced in March.

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Stand Build Rules and Height Limits

Build rules are where a show either runs smoothly or loses a morning. Shell scheme limits, space only heights, rear wall rules, platform edges, rigging points, banned materials, the distance a structure must sit from a neighbour. These sections are full of diagrams, and diagrams are exactly what a flat attachment ruins on a phone. In a flipbook the contractor pinches to zoom into the drawing on site, follows the page reference to the approval form, and sends the link to the fabricator rather than describing the rule from memory.

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Stand Build Rules and Height Limits

Exhibitor Guide Tool Alternatives

Map Your Show

Map Your Show

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Mobile Ready
  • Clickable Links
  • Instant Updates
  • Reader Analytics
  • Password Protection
  • Zoomable Floor Plan
  • Fast Loading
  • QR Code Sharing
Flipbooks AI

Flipbooks AI

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Mobile Ready
  • Clickable Links
  • Instant Updates
  • Reader Analytics
  • Password Protection
  • Zoomable Floor Plan
  • Fast Loading
  • QR Code Sharing
FlipHTML5

FlipHTML5

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Mobile Ready
  • Clickable Links
  • Instant Updates
  • Reader Analytics
  • Password Protection
  • Zoomable Floor Plan
  • Fast Loading
  • QR Code Sharing
Cvent

Cvent

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • Mobile Ready
  • Clickable Links
  • Instant Updates
  • Reader Analytics
  • Password Protection
  • Zoomable Floor Plan
  • Fast Loading
  • QR Code Sharing
Shipping, Freight and Move In Times

Shipping, Freight and Move In Times

Freight instructions are read by people who are not your exhibitor: a warehouse team, a shipping agent, a driver. Keep the advance warehouse address, the direct to site window, the marshalling yard procedure and the vehicle access times in one section and share the link outward. Embed a short clip of the loading bay so a driver knows what to expect. The pages stay readable on the phone in the cab, which is the only screen that matters at half past six on move in morning.

Create Your Exhibitor Guide

Features for Show Operations Teams

Flipbooks AI gives an operations team the pieces the manual needs. A clickable contents page takes an exhibitor from the front cover to the rigging rules in one tap. Deadline tables link straight to the exhibitor services portal, the freight agent, and the badge registration page. Embed a short video walkthrough of move in at the venue, or a clip showing the loading bay height. Add a downloadable checklist, let exhibitors search for the word carpet instead of scrolling, and keep everything on pages that carry the show branding rather than someone else logo. All of it is included at no cost.

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Features for Show Operations Teams
Features for Show Operations Teams
Features for Show Operations Teams
Features for Show Operations Teams

Badges, Passes and Contractor Access

Badge allocation, contractor wristbands, build passes, and the difference between an exhibitor badge and a working pass cause more front desk queues than anything else on site. Spell out how many badges each stand size includes, when the registration link opens, what a contractor needs to get through the door during build up, and who to email when a name changes. Link each of those to the registration system so the reader acts while they are still thinking about it.

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Badges, Passes and Contractor Access
Put the Floor Plan a Tap Away

Put the Floor Plan a Tap Away

Everyone opens the manual for the floor plan first. Give it a full spread, let readers zoom into their aisle, and put the stand numbering, the entrance points, the catering and the emergency exits on the same page. A link from the plan to the hall rules or the stand build section saves an exhibitor from scrolling back. Keeping the plan inside the manual rather than as a separate attachment means the version an exhibitor is looking at is the version your team last approved.

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Fits Every Size of Show
Fits Every Size of Show
Fits Every Size of Show
Fits Every Size of Show

Fits Every Size of Show

A regional trade fair with forty stands and a national exhibition with a thousand need the same document in different weights. Flipbooks AI handles both. Publish a twelve page manual for a one day expo in a hotel ballroom, or a two hundred page manual for a multi hall show with separate rules for shell scheme and space only. Run one manual per hall, per country edition, or per exhibitor tier, each with its own link, so a first time exhibitor is not reading the rules for custom two storey builds they will never use.

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Link Out to the Exhibitor Portal

Flipbooks AI does not take orders and does not run forms. It is a reading experience, and that is deliberate. Your exhibitor services portal, your registration platform and your freight agent already collect what they need, and none of them wants a second system in the middle. So the manual links out: a tap on the furniture deadline opens the ordering page, a tap on the badge section opens registration, a tap on the rigging rule opens the approval form. The manual explains and the portal collects.

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Link Out to the Exhibitor Portal

Who Publishes Exhibitor Guides

2456+

Show Organizers

6

Event Teams

13

Venues

24

Trade Associations

65

Expo Operators

9

Conference Teams

Safety Rules Stay With the Venue

Safety Rules Stay With the Venue

Nothing in this tool is safety, fire or legal advice, and it does not check whether your manual is correct. The authority sits with the venue, the appointed contractor, your insurer and local regulations, and those are the sources a rule must come from. What Flipbooks AI does is make the rules you were given easy to find, easy to read on site, and easy to correct the day something changes. If the venue updates a height limit in March, republish and the same link carries the new figure to everyone who received it.

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Readable on the Show Floor

The manual gets read at the worst moments: in a taxi to the venue, on a loading dock at seven in the morning, and standing beside a half built stand with a contractor asking about the height limit. Flipbooks AI keeps it usable there. The layout adjusts to the screen, page turns stay smooth on a phone, and anyone can pinch to zoom into the floor plan or the rigging diagram. Everything runs in the browser with nothing to install, so a stand builder who was forwarded the link at midnight can open it immediately.

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Readable on the Show Floor
Readable on the Show Floor
Readable on the Show Floor
Readable on the Show Floor

What This Tool Will Not Do

The edges are worth stating plainly. Flipbooks AI does not write your exhibitor manual, does not design it, and does not check it against venue regulations. It does not sell stand space, allocate badges, process orders for power or furniture, or manage your floor plan as live data. It takes the finished PDF and turns it into a flipbook you can share, protect and measure. Your exhibitor services platform stays where it is, and the manual becomes the front door to it rather than a competitor to it.

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What This Tool Will Not Do
Keep Sponsors and Suppliers Visible

Keep Sponsors and Suppliers Visible

The manual is one of the few documents every exhibitor definitely receives, which makes it valuable to the sponsors and official suppliers who paid to be in front of them. Keep the official contractor pages, the freight partner, the stand builder directory and any sponsor placements exactly as your designer laid them out, and make each one clickable so a reader reaches the supplier in a tap. Analytics then show which of those pages were actually opened, which is a far better conversation with a sponsor than a print run number.

Create Your Exhibitor Guide
A Free Exhibitor Manual Tool With No Watermark
A Free Exhibitor Manual Tool With No Watermark
A Free Exhibitor Manual Tool With No Watermark
A Free Exhibitor Manual Tool With No Watermark

A Free Exhibitor Manual Tool With No Watermark

Flipbooks AI is completely free, and the parts an organizer needs are not held behind an upgrade. There is no watermark across the show branding, no page cap on a long manual, and no charge for password protection or reading analytics. That matters when the manual is a cost centre rather than a product: a show is already paying the venue, the contractor and the registration platform. Publish a manual for every show in the portfolio, refresh it whenever the venue changes a rule, and share it as widely as you like without a subscription.

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Update the Manual Without Resending It

Every show changes between the manual going out and the doors opening. A hall gets renumbered, a deadline shifts, the venue bans a material, catering changes its cutoff. With an attachment, each change means a new email, a new file name, and a fortnight of exhibitors working from whichever version they saved. With a flipbook you edit the file, republish, and the link already in their inbox shows the current rules. Your team stops writing please disregard the previous version emails.

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Update the Manual Without Resending It

What Event Teams Say About the Guide

We run three trade shows a year and the manual was always a forty megabyte attachment nobody opened. Since we started sending a link, the questions we get are about genuine edge cases rather than the move in times. The floor plan page is opened more than anything else, which we would never have known before.

Marketing team
Marketing team

Product catalogs

The venue changed a rigging rule six weeks out. Under the old process that meant a new PDF, a new email and a fortnight of contractors quoting the old figure back at us. This time I fixed the page, republished, and the link everyone already had showed the new limit that afternoon.

Studio owner
Studio owner

Client lookbooks

I look after exhibitor services for an association show. Linking each deadline row to the ordering page moved a real number of orders earlier in the cycle, and our official contractor noticed. The sponsor pages in the manual are now something I can report on rather than guess about.

School office
School office

Newsletters and programmes

Our exhibitors forward the link to their stand builders and shippers, which is exactly what we wanted and never got with an attachment. A contractor standing on site can zoom into the build diagram on a phone. Setting the whole thing up took an afternoon and cost us nothing.

Independent designer
Independent designer

Portfolio flipbooks

Help Overseas Exhibitors Prepare

Help Overseas Exhibitors Prepare

Exhibitors flying in have the least room for a surprise. Customs paperwork, carnets, currency, the hotel and travel notes, and the time zone your office answers in all belong in the manual. Publish a separate edition in another language when a hall is full of exhibitors from one country, each with its own link. Screen reader support, keyboard navigation and readable type help anyone reading in a second language or with tired eyes at the end of a long flight.

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Get the Guide to Every Exhibitor

Once the manual is ready, distribution takes minutes. Put the link in the exhibitor welcome email, in the contract pack, and in every reminder your team sends before a deadline. Embed it in the exhibitor area of the show website so it sits beside the ordering forms. Print a QR code for the stand builder briefing and for the signage at the loading bay. Password protection keeps the manual with contracted exhibitors when the rules and the site plan are not for the public.

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Get the Guide to Every Exhibitor
Get the Guide to Every Exhibitor
Get the Guide to Every Exhibitor
Get the Guide to Every Exhibitor

Keep the Manual Private to Exhibitors

A manual carries the site plan, the access routes, supplier rates and sometimes the security arrangements, none of which belong on the open web. Password protection limits it to the exhibitors you give the code to, and downloading can be switched off when a document should not travel further. Secure hosting keeps the file where you put it. Publish an open version with the general information and a protected version with the operational detail if the two audiences differ.

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Keep the Manual Private to Exhibitors

Compare Exhibitor Manual Options

ApplicationRatingUnlimited CreditsUsage RatingDescription
10/10Yes1

Flipbooks AI turns the exhibitor manual into a free flipbook with real page turns, a tappable contents page, deadline rows that link to your portal, a zoomable floor plan and reading analytics. No watermarks, no page cap, and a republish takes minutes.

Map Your Show

5.2/10No2

Map Your Show is built for exhibition organizers and is strong at the operational side: exhibitor directories, interactive floor plans and the service manual as part of a wider platform. It is a full system to adopt, which is more than a team that only wants a readable manual is looking for.

a2z Events

7.1/10No3

a2z Events, part of Personify, gives organizers exhibitor management, booth sales and an exhibitor service centre in one place. It suits a show that wants its whole operation in a single platform, rather than a team keeping its current tools and improving the manual itself.

Cvent

8.3/10No4

Cvent covers event management broadly, from registration to venue sourcing, and many organizers already run their shows on it. Its documents are handled as attachments and portal pages rather than as a page turning manual with its own reading data.

Expocad

6.4/10No5

Expocad is respected for exhibition floor plans and space sales, and its interactive plans are hard to beat for a large hall. It solves the plan rather than the manual, so the rules, deadlines and freight sections still need somewhere readable to live.

Canva

7.8/10No6

Canva is a practical way to lay the manual out when there is no designer on the team, and its templates keep a document tidy. Its viewing option stays basic, so page turns, link tracking and reading analytics need something else behind it.

Adobe InDesign

6.9/10No7

Adobe InDesign is the right tool for the manual itself, especially one full of diagrams and tables that must stay precise. It produces the PDF and stops there: sharing, protecting and measuring how the manual is read are separate jobs.

FlipHTML5

8.1/10No8

FlipHTML5 converts a PDF into a flipbook and offers a wide set of controls for a regular publisher. Free use carries its branding, and the reporting an operations team would show a show director sits with paid accounts.

Issuu

6.5/10No9

Issuu is a good home for a publication meant to be discovered, with a large reading audience of its own. An exhibitor manual is the opposite case: it is for a known list of companies, and free publishing wraps the show branding in Issuu branding.

Emailed PDF Manual

7.6/10No10

A PDF on an email is what most shows still send, and it costs nothing. It also arrives heavy, gets filed unread, cannot be corrected once it is out, and tells your team nothing about who reached the deadline page.

Reuse the Manual for the Next Show

Reuse the Manual for the Next Show

Most of an exhibitor manual is the same next year, and rewriting it from scratch is how errors creep in. Keep every edition your team has published so the next one starts from the last approved version rather than a file on somebody laptop. New operations staff can read how the previous show handled a rule instead of asking around. A portfolio of shows can run one house style across every manual, so an exhibitor who does three of your events recognises the format each time.

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See Who Read the Deadlines
See Who Read the Deadlines
See Who Read the Deadlines
See Who Read the Deadlines

See Who Read the Deadlines

Analytics turn the manual from a document you sent into information you can act on. Flipbooks AI shows how many exhibitors opened it, which sections held attention, and where readers stopped. If almost nobody reaches the electrics deadline page, your team knows to call before the cutoff rather than after it. If the freight section is read three times more than anything else, that is the section to expand next year. It also gives the operations lead something concrete when a show director asks why the same questions keep arriving.

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Fewer Emails to the Operations Inbox

The measure of a good exhibitor manual is how quiet the inbox stays. When the contents page works on a phone, the deadlines link to the right forms, and the floor plan zooms, most of the routine questions answer themselves. Analytics show you the ones that do not, because a section nobody reaches is a section that will arrive as an email. Fix that page, republish, and your team spends the last fortnight before the show on the problems that actually need a person.

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Fewer Emails to the Operations Inbox

Frequently Asked
Exhibitor Guide Maker

What is an exhibitor guide flipbook?

It is your exhibitor manual turned into a digital book with real page turns. Exhibitors open a link, tap the contents to reach the rules or deadlines they need, zoom into the floor plan, and follow links to your ordering portal, with no app to install.

Is Flipbooks AI free for show organizers?

Yes. It is completely free, with no watermarks and no page limits. Branding, password protection, sharing and reading analytics are all included, so a manual for every show in your portfolio costs nothing.

Can exhibitors order services from the guide?

Not inside the flipbook. Flipbooks AI does not run forms or take orders. Instead every deadline, badge and service row links straight to your exhibitor portal or supplier, so the reader acts in the system that already collects it.

Can I update a deadline after sending the manual?

Yes. Change the date in your file and republish. The link already in every exhibitor inbox shows the new version, so there is nothing to resend and no chance of a contractor working from a manual you replaced.

Does this replace our exhibitor services platform?

No. Your platform keeps handling orders, badges and stand allocation. The flipbook is the manual that explains all of it and links out to the right page, so exhibitors read less and act sooner.

Can we keep the manual private to contracted exhibitors?

Yes. Password protection limits the manual to the exhibitors you give the code to, and downloading can be switched off when the site plan or access details should not travel beyond the show.

Will the floor plan still be readable on a phone?

Yes. Readers pinch to zoom into a plan or a build diagram, which is exactly what a flat attachment makes difficult. It stays sharp on a stand manager phone at the loading bay as well as on a laptop.

How long can the exhibitor manual be?

There is no page limit. A twelve page manual for a one day expo and a two hundred page manual for a multi hall show are handled the same way, and both open quickly on a phone.

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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