Guide to iBooks Author Templates

I am also waiting with baited breath Steve 🙂

did you finished your book???

I did 😉

(But not with iBooks Author)

can you share it with me?

Certainly, it is a PDF you can download. But I was joking (badly). I was doing a book with iBooks Author and gave up, but I still get the updates on this thread, so I reacted. My book is not about iBooks Author but about Enterprise Architecture and in the end I created it with Adobe InDesign. And that is done. But that was not what you were thinking about, I think.

I'm guessing by the almost 10 month lapse on this thread that Mr. Blue's iBooks Author Template book never came to fruition? I searched iTunes and the Mac App Store using various keywords from this discussion and nothing seems to reveal itself. I even tried looking him up in LA + occupation + name and emailing Steve at his old website address: steveblue@iuseapple.com but that is "undeliverable". He hasn't posted in 8 months...

https://discussions.apple.com/profile/steveblue

I'm still wildly interested in creating my own templates, but enjoy the ones from: http://www.ibooksauthortemplates.com/ and have wondered how they've become so comprehensive? Might just email them about methods and see if they'll be putting out a how-to book?

IF any of you have other resources/solutions, please let me know. I've tapped into all the existing free templates available on the Mac App Store and watched the recent WWDC13 video, "What's new in iBooks Author" (where they briefly discuss altering an existing template). These are great, but I'd love to know more about this process from scratch.

Much appreciated,

Josh

It is actually quite easy to take the Apple "Basic" template - or any other, and customise it to what you want.

If you select your templete, open it - name and save it.

Slide the "Book" bar on the left down to reveal the "Layouts".

I now assume you will have assembled 1 background image plus any "placeholder" images you want to use.

Basically from now all you need do is - for example - select the background, if you do not see the grab handles, its locked... select ARRANGE top menu, if it say LOCK - you can delete or edit as you will. If it says UNLOCK - click to do it!. The inactive option is greyed out.

Change everything - change text by selecting it and changing font,size,colour etc,. and with styes drawer, you can ( using Body as example) click the down tab and click on the - "REDEFINE STYLE FROM SELECTION".

The body text throught the templete will now change to the parameteres you set.

The images you see in free templates are all in the Public Domain - but in truth they are there simply to look good in the colour scheme.

I use images from the set I will actaully be using as placeholders and set them on a blank page.

Tip - in Templates - simply copy the blank page and paste - it will drop a page "Blank 1" do again and its Blank 2 - which you can rename-select and type over.

Any thing not "working" select and open ARRANGE check to see if its locked or not.

Remember anything you need to change as you work.. like adding images, select the image not the frame and in the Inspector >Layout/Numbering. tick the layout Object box to make editable ( in the working page)

I have about 100 template now - work for idle hands! Its not really difficult - IF you take time to check everything and dont overlay things like background images.. delete teh origianl if there is one and drop or insert your own..send it to the back and start to think in layers which you stack up on the page.

Try doing some basic changes to learn slowly.

I'm Jess from iBooks Author Templates (the site that iJoshmika mentioned above). We did two video tutorials on this topic you can find here: http://bit.ly/13W6mC4

We are planning on creating more in the future and would be open to any suggestions you guys might have! Drop us a line at sales at ibooksauthortemplates. com and we'll see what we can do!

The links does not work.. no video in your profile page!!

Do people still collect or pay for iBA templates or know enought to customise their own?

I have over 100 templates I "doodled" up to practice and they sit doing nothing and creating a templete chooser app is beyound me.

Check the Mac App Store to see what the current offerings are, prices etc.

I know whats being offered and by whom.. as the post a from Jess-iBAT shows..

I have noticed less posts in general and more so asking (not) about templates and customisation.