Q: Book Proofer App on my Mac Has Stopped Working with My iOS Devices in iOS8

>>Got it to work!

Great.....  ;-(

But what about those who do not have Yosemite.  I am still working with OS 10.7, because I know I will lose a load of software applications and CPU speed, if I upgrade.   I know I should not have upgraded the iPad to IOS 8.2, but I only did that to get rid of the horrendous IOS 7.0. 

But now I have lost Book Proofer.  Is this for good, or is someone still working on it?

R

mdg88 wrote:

 

Sync your ePub proof with your iOS devices: 1. Connect your device to your Mac. 2. Open the iBooks app on your device. 3. Open your ePub proof in iBooks on your Mac. 4. Click Devices and select each device that you want to sync.

It isn't seeing my iPad running IOS8.

I was able to get it to load the proof into iBooks on the Mac, but I had to select the epub file in

/Users/myusername/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBo oks/Books

This is the folder where iBooks stores its files. So I dragged my epub into iBooks. Then I used the

"Add ePub to library as proof..." command.  Both the book and the proof now appear in iBooks. I opened

the proof and clicked the purple "DEVICES" button and no devices appear in the list.

As a sanity check I ran the iBooks Author.app and used its Preview function. That function sees the iPad and knows that iBooks is open on it.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I might try next?

Mac is running Yosemite.

One thing that caught me off guard was the ePub needing to be unzipped. A bit obnoxious if you ask me.

I wrote a little bash script to automate this step:

#!/bin/bash

unzip "$1" -d ebook-to-proof.epub

It always creates an ePub folder named "ebook-to-proof.epub" so it's consistent and doesn't accidentally overwrite anything important.

There is Apple's explanation how to to make ePub selectable:

Get your ePub ready to add as a proof

Before you can create an ePub proof, make sure your ePub is in the right format (a folder, not a flat file). To check this, right-click your ePub and see if Show Package Contents appears in the menu. If so, you're ready to create your ePub proof. If not, follow these steps:

1. Create a new folder on your Desktop or in Finder.
2. Launch Terminal. You can search for it in Spotlight, or go to Applications > Utilites in Finder.
3. In the Terminal window, type cd followed by a space.
4. Drag the folder you created into the Terminal window and press Return.
5. Type unzip followed by a space.
6. Drag your ePub file into the Terminal window and press Return.
7. Right-click the folder you created and choose Get Info.
8. Under Name & Extensions, add .epub to the end of the folder name.

Create an ePub proof and add it to your iBooks library

To create an ePub proof, you need to use the Advanced menu in iBooks for OS X Yosemite. If you don't see the Advanced menu, follow these steps:

1. Go to the iBooks menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click Advanced and select “Enable Advanced menu in menu bar."

When you see the Advanced menu, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Advanced menu and choose “Add ePub to Library as Proof…”
2. Select your ePub file in the dialog that appears.
3. Click Add, then look for your ePub proof in your iBooks library.

Use iBooks to proof your ePub books - Apple Support

I did this. But Oxygen (my XML app) does not recognize ePub files that were unzipped with Terminal... Has anyone got an idea to help me? Whats wrong? Thanks!!!

Don't use Oxygen for this.  You need to use iBooks on your Mac to create a proof (re-read the previous post).  Then, you need to open iBooks on your iOS device and attach it to your computer.

I've gotten that far and have created a proof.  When I open it, I see the Devices menu but neither my iPad nor my iPhone will show up in the menu.

I have to work on the ePub with Oxygen! Oxygen works on flat files not on folders... all was working since upgrading from IOS7 to IOS8 on the iPad!

This upgrading is the last thing I ever should have done

I use Sigil and have the same problem.  None of this is easy now.  After editing, you will need to take your epub file and unzip it to a temp file, then convert that to a preview using iBooks on the Mac, and then open it and transfer it to your iOS devices.  I just can't get my iOS devices to show up in the list for transfer.  Maybe you'll have better luck.

I am in a hurry at the moment but iI will check all through again and write you soon - I got the devices list

Thank you. I created my epub through calibre and although it created a folder with three files in it (epub, jpg, opf). The only file that matters is the epub. I followed your directions above and I can see the folder with the .epub extension in ibooks Add epub to Library as Proof. When I click on my folder containing one or more of my files (epub, jpg, opf) (I've tried it with just the epub and with all three.

Nothing shows up in ibooks. Any ideas?

I'm on the latest iOS and Yosemite

All I can say is it took me less than 30 minutes to establish a new author account and submit my book to Amazon and it is now in pre-order 30 minutes later.

I just figured out how to see the book.

I just opened File->Add To Library

And just selected my one original epub file and there it is.

How simple

hello again, I HAD the devices but they are no more in the list - I dont understand, it is no more not easy, now its impossible !

if ever you find a solution, please give me some news - Ill do the same

You can open a regular EPUB file in Yosemite's iBooks app just by dragging the file to the dock icon. And the representation seems to be pretty good, after choosing Single Page in the View menu. So, with all the obstacles Apple has placed to proofing EPUBs on devices, it might be worth settling for proofing on the Mac.

Yes, proofing on Yosemite is easy, but you still need to proof on an iPhone because of the size.  Layout can get tight there and you need to make sure indentions don't make the text column too narrow.  We can only hope that Apple makes it easier to proof down the road, like it used to be.

@AaronShep  I cannot proof on my iMac only, I also have to do it on other devices to be sure of the results on them

@RGregH  absolutely !

This almost works. I can open iBooks on Mac. I can enable the advanced menu. I can select "add EPUB as proof"  I can navigate to my ePub file. BUT...my EPUB file is greyed out and iBooks will not let me select it.  Is there some other incantation that has to happen before using iBooks on the Mac as a proofing tool?

Thanks!