Bored programmer made an app that turns GIFs into printable flip books

The GIF has gradually cemented its status as the internet counterpart of the good old flip book. But have you ever wanted to take things back to the basics and turn your favorite GIFs into actual flip books? Now there’s an app for that.

A professional time-waster who also happens to code has built a program that basically breaks down GIFs into single frames, turning the animated images into easily printable flip books. All you need to start printing your own animations is a printer, some technical skills and a considerable chunk of your free time.

Here’s how the printing process looks, in case you were wondering:

While the resourceful creator, who goes by the nickname StupotMcDoodlepip, initially shared his crafty invention on Reddit, he has since made the app available on GitHub for anyone to download.

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The recreational coder wrote the program, which he calls Print-A-GIF, in C# and used ImageMagick for image processing. Although he warns the software probably “harbours a few sins,” the app should still be enough to do the job.

Head to the GitHub repository here for more details and instructions on how to install and put Print-A-GIF to use.

And for the Inception-loving memesters, StupotMcDoodlepip also made a flip book of him flipping through a GIF that he printed into a flip book. Check it out in the clip below.