---
name: Page curl
slug: page-curl
category: motion
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: A page turn that lifts and bends the leaf away from the spine as the
  finger drags it, the most literal transition a reader can be given.
aliases:
  - name: page turn animation
    source: community
  - name: curl transition
    source: community
  - name: page flip
    source: community
  - name: book page turn
    source: community
tags:
  - editorial
  - touch
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - card-flip
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - slide-transition
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "MacRumors: re-enable the classic page turning animation in Apple Books"
    url: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/re-enable-page-turning-animation-apple-books/
  - title: Creating a page curl transition in SwiftUI
    url: https://swiftuisnippets.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/creating-a-page-curl-transition-in-swiftui-bridging-uikits-power/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: turning a page should read as paper rather than as a slide
---

A page curl is a page turn that admits the page is made of paper. The leaf lifts off the one beneath
it, bends around a fold that travels across the spread, shows its own back as it goes, and drops
flat on the other side of the spine. It tracks the finger, so a half-hearted drag leaves the page
half turned and lets it fall back, which is the property that separates a curl from an animation
that merely plays. Apple Books shipped the definitive version, and it is the reason most people can
picture the effect without being shown it.

The full version is a piece of geometry, not a piece of CSS. The paper is treated as a cone wrapped
around the fold, which is what produces the crescent-shaped shadow and the slight bulge at the
corner, and it is normally drawn on the GPU with a mesh or a shader. The cheap approximation, which
is what most web implementations and the specimen below actually do, is a reflection: the part of
the leaf past the fold line is mirrored back across it, the remainder is clipped away, and a narrow
gradient at the fold does the work of the bend. Reflect a sheet about a vertical line and the back
of it lands upright rather than mirrored, which is why a real book's turning page stays readable
mid-turn, and the same fact keeps the trick honest. Everything else is a clip path, a translate, and
one strip of light.

The reason to know the term is mostly the reason it lost. The curl was the flagship example of
[skeuomorphism](/skeuomorphism), and it carried the same bill: it is slow, because paper is slow, so
a reader who wants the next page has to wait for a metaphor they already understood; it is heavy to
draw; it is meaningless on a scroll-based reader; and it says nothing a plain crossfade does not
already say. Apple demoted it to an option and then defaulted it off, and the ebook readers that
followed shipped a slide or a fade. What survived is the part that was never decoration: the page
tracking the finger, which is worth keeping in any gesture-driven transition.

It is worth separating from its neighbours. A [flip animation](/flip-animation) rotates a card about
an axis to show a second face, with no bend and no fold travelling across it. A
[reveal animation](/reveal-animation) uncovers something already in place. A curl is neither: it
deforms the surface itself while moving it, and that deformation is the whole reason the effect
costs what it costs.