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Does iBooks support pdf files?

I know I can load any drm free ebooks(in epub format) into iBooks. Will iBooks support drm free pdfs as well?

Posted on Mar 29, 2010 5:54 PM

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48 replies

Apr 2, 2010 7:49 AM in response to ppmm

I'm downloading it now (7:28 A.M. PDT, 2 Apr 10) and will see what I can find out.

OK, under Requirements it says:

"iBooks only supports books published in the ePub electronic book format.
"To add ePub documents from Outside the iBookstore to iBooks, they must be DRM-free and synced to iPad using iTunes 9.1"



Message was edited by: romad

PS it has 73 5-star ratings so far.

Message was edited by: romad

Apr 2, 2010 8:08 PM in response to ppmm

On a possibly related note, I was just advised that an update for my iPhone Kindle app was available. I downloaded it and the app was moved from the "iPhone and iPod Touch" section to the "iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad" section of the Apps Library in iTunes on my Mac. So any Kindle books you may have will run on the iPad.

Apr 3, 2010 11:16 AM in response to Maynard Handley

For your Mac:

http://mekentosj.com/papers/

For your iPhone/iPod Touch:

http://mekentosj.com/papers/iphone/

Which now includes iPad support:

http://mekentosj.com/papers/ipad/

I sync a portion of my Papers library to my iPhone and, although it's not practical to read them there, it's really handy to be able to refer to them. The iPad support addresses this and you don't even need the Mac application. You can sync your papers elsewhere, although I'm unsure of the details.

Apr 3, 2010 2:48 PM in response to romad

ibooks does not support PDF's. I have loaded a bunch of epub's that do not have DRM in them and they all work well. If you try to add PDF's in itunes they show up under music, not the books, and you can not view them on the ipad.

I am very disappointed in this. If I would have known that it was not supported gracefully I probably would have not purchased it until it was fixed.

digid

Apr 3, 2010 6:20 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I just added several dozen unprotected epubs from the Baen free library, at www.baen.com/library. Pretty great stuff.

I, too, would love a built-pdf solution. I currently have my PDFs stored in Google docs, available via safari, and on my iDisk, available via the iphone/ipod iDisk app. Given that the app was not updated for the iPad, I suspect something better is in the works.

Apr 4, 2010 12:16 AM in response to ppmm

I dropped some PDF into iTunes. They end up in the Music section. If you double click them in iTunes, Preview will display them. I made a SmartPlaylist for PDF, and synced that with my iPhone. You can no longer see them, although I believe they did sync across.

While iBooks is probably the wrong application for viewing a PDF, it seems a real pity Apple do not make it easy for one of the PDF viewing apps to display a PDF synced in this manner.

Send feedback to Apple. If enough people ask, they may do a feature enhancement.

Apr 4, 2010 9:47 AM in response to sanhaniffa

i converted ppdf to epub in http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/howto_createepub and upload it to Ibook using itunes! it crashes what the work around?


Try a different way of converting. There is no guarantee that any particular system that converts pdf to epub will create something actually usable. pdf is the very worst format to convert to anything.

Does iBooks support pdf files?

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