Guide to iBooks Author Templates

All I have found out so far is that it's kind of easy; You can easily create your own template when you unlock all the attributes on the current template you're working on.

Most of the layout properties from the standard templates are locked.

You can unlock them by going to the top-menu 'Arrange' and click on 'Unlock'. (This allows you to delete all the unneeded images etc..)

As far as I'm concerned it's than simply adding your own graphics, background images and text.

I find it the best to do this before starting on the actual book.

I have written parts for my book on pages, other parts are on my e-mail, and some parts in a standard texteditor... -I just made sure the layout was the way I wanted it to be, before importing all my pieces of content.

The dimensions of the books (chapter) template are +/- 1024 x 768 Px. (This worked for me)

For the front of the book I have made a 770 x 1000 Px cover, which also works fine.

I hope this could get you started a bit 🙂

You're right wickie, anyone can learn how to do this!

It also helps to understand page layout and design and to come up with new design ideas that you can't do out of the box. You are spot on, you need to have a good layout in place although it is possible to create new layouts on the fly. There are a lot of specifics that are kinda vague in the documentation so far though, which is where I hope my new iBook helps others out.

I hope it will be distributed international and not only in the US iTunes store? 😉😉😉

Regards Hans

Is there a way to delete the TOC? I'd like to make a relatively simple book that doesn't need one.

This sounded hopeful but when I go to my templates and click on an element and then Arrange the unlock button is greyed out. Only Lock shows up. I'm just beginning with this and all I wanted to do to start was change the color of the background of the Title page but I cannot seem to be able to do even that. Am I missing something simple?

I think you can now delete the backgrounds, which are images.

Select the background, and hit backspace.

Simply drag in a new image straight from a 'finder' window should take care of that.

Per default the new image in 'on top of the rest', do a right mouseclick on the image which gives a pop-up menu.

Select 'send to back' to use it as a background image.

Hope this works.

Cheers

I'm working with the Craft template. What you suggested worked with the cover but then when I went to the first page which has a green page on the left and there does not seem to be anything to select. Nothing to unlock. So it looks like I cannot change the color of that page. If we're limited to just the 8 templates, that's pretty limited...Thank you for your help. If you have an answer for the inside pages, that would be great.

Steve, looking forward to your ebook. can you ping me when it's up?

chrisdollard@hotmail.com

Thx.

I have a similar problem-

I am trying to create a simple template consisting only a picture and a line of text beneath it on every page.

I made the template sample but when I open it as a new template, it doesn't allow me drag images and swap the

image which appears on my template.

is it possible to save dimensions of an image which will be saved as a template and will resize every picture

I'll put into the duplicated chapter?

thanks!

The ToC will not be included in the ebook if there are no, well, contents in the ToC. You can remo0ve them by going to ToC tab in the Insepctor and remove all the referenced paragraph styles that define the ToC. Ditto with the glossary. If you don;t define any words it will simple not appear in the ebook.

If you do use the ToC, each chapter entry is based on the first page of the Chapter. Whatever image is there will be in the ToC. Navigation is not the same as a book. Play with a mockup a bit and you'll see what I mean.

There are a lot of built in features that make it possible to do things you simply can't do on paper. For example, you can have one image in the corner of a page, but when you clcik it it will grow to become a full page gallery with as many pictures as you wnat to have. And pictures can have captions, which in a way, is what a lot of children's books look like.

Also, FWIW, Sections are sub to Chapters, not the other way around. Wasted some time figuring that one out.

On the other hand, modifying templates is a snap. So creating your own can be done in minutes. iBooks Author is a natural for kids books, me thinks.

I hope someone can help me with this. I am using the Craft template. I can remove the elements and insert my own content into the page so it looks like I want it to look like on my computer. I learned that you can lock in the landscape mode so a picture book can be looked at as a two-page spread. (You hit the document button in the "I inspector.) But when I preview it on my iPad the template element (Chapter I, Untitled, for example) shows up. How can I get rid of it so that what I see is what I get?

Go to the Inspector, then the TOC tab. Select each paragraph style and then remove it with the minus key. When the TOC is empty (no styles) it will not be included.

It works like a charm! My project now looks like it want it to. thanks so much.

Is there any way to removed the ToC altogether? I don't need this as it is a children's picture book.

I'm confused. I though it worked?

If you mean remove it from the sidebar, the answer's no. It'spart of the application.