Where do I design my book cover in iBooks Author? What dimensions does it need to be?

Must be one of thse sizes: 1024x768, 1024x748, 768x1024, 768x1004 (H x W)

Jimbo,

Design the cover in some other program. Save it as a jpg or png format. In iBooks Author the "Book Title" page is traditional book proportions, taller than wide. So design one to look good there. You can also design a square cover and upload it when you upload your book through iTunes Producer. This is the one that will appear on the book shelf and in the online descriptions. Keep the themes the same between the two, just vary the shapes.

Have fun & good luck,

- Fabe

I need to design the cover for my iBook - which I've created in iBooks Author. Where do I do this? Or do I just create it separately and upload it as an image once the iBook is finished?

The cover is normally generated automatically by the iBooks Author application based on the graphics and/or text boxes used in your "Book Title" (top most) template page in your project. The useable area is 768 px wide by 1004 px high. Graphics and text boxes may fill or partially fill this area but anything scaled beyond the pre-defined page size will, I believe, be cropped. Basically, when the book file is generated, the application will combine whatever graphics and text is used in the predefined area, take a "snapshot" of the entire 768x1004 area, and create an image file named "cover-image.jpg" which is then stored in the "OPS/assets/images" folder within the iBooks document for use when needed. I assume the JPEG image format is used to prevent cover image transparency.

I'm asking as I want to create quite a small square cover.

Sorry, missed your last paragraph.

If the work is for personal use, you can simply add "cover art" in iTunes and it should display on your iPad. If, however, you actually want to embed the file in an iBooks document, you may be able create the file externally, give it the default cover image name, open your document file at the finder level, replace the automatically generated "cover" in your document with the one you created, and re-close the document. This was done by Pages users but I have not personally tried it with an iBooks document.

How does one choose between these?

Also, there appear to be iBooks with covers in other dimensions.

How does one choose between these?

I believe you will find that the list of dimensions mentioned by K T refer to various pre-defined graphic image and maximum screen display dimensions. If you are generating the cover within iBooks Author, it will be 768x1004 no matter what size graphics and text boxes you use. Oversized content will be cropped to those dimentsions and undersized content will have "white" area filler.

Also, there appear to be iBooks with covers in other dimensions.

As previously mentioned, you do not have to create the cover within iBooks Author. You can make your cover using any dimension or aspect ratio you may desire using an external graphic application like Photoshop. While I have not personally tested this specific work flow, it is likely to behave in a manner similar to covers automatically created by Pages which are then "replaced" by manually created covers.

Basically, the covers will appear differently depending on how they are scaled for display. The iPad "Bookshelf" view will try to scale the cover to fit the maximum width allowed on the "Bookshelf." This usually means the display of the book's height will vary compared to other books on the shelf. However, this display also constrains the cover display to "fit within" the defined "Bookshelf" display area. So, if the book is scaled to its maximum height before the width reaches it maximum, then the book will appear narrower than others. List view thumbnails are treated just the opposite. They normally display with a fixed height and varying widths. Similarly, a book's opening sequence animation on the iPad for an iBooks Author volume will likely depend on the cover's aspect ratio which is likely contrained to "fit within" a maximum animation display area.

I was right now searching on this support forum with the same questions.

Answere that you maybe already know:

To know and see the exact dimensions from images used in iBooks Author:

1. View -> Show Inspector

2. Inspector -> Metrics

3. click the image

4. you see the image filename, size, position and rotate

Book title standard size seams to be 768x1024pt.

Pages images, fullscreen standard size seams to be 1024x748pt.

(on a 72 ppi display, 1 point = 1 pixel)

The iPad standard top menu is 20px height, so 748 + 20px = 768px

When i investigate and open the original images in the iBooks Author Contents folder i see that Apple uses always the double size for the original images that they put in iBooks Author.

Original images size: 2048 x 1536 pixels at 72 pixels/inch.

2048 x 1536 pixels at 72 pixels/inch = 1024 x 768 pixels at 144 pixels/inch

iPad screen resolution = 1024 x 768 pixels at 132 pixels/inch (ppi).

That means that you have to make your original images minimum at double size to have best quality?

And the new iPad comes with a resolution at 264 ppi.

Do we have to make the original images now at resolution = 1024 x 768 pixels at 264 pixels/inch (ppi)?

2048 x 1536 pixels at 72 pixels/inch = 1024 x 768 pixels at 144 pixels/inch

You sure you don't have a typo here? It should be

2048 x 1536 pixels at 144 pixels/inch = 1024 x 768 pixels at 72 pixels/inch

Michi.

Maybe, but i will make my original images: 1024 x 768 pixels at 144pixels/inch

What do you use for your iBooks Author projects?

1024 x 768 for full-screen images at 4:3 aspect ratio. Adjust accordingly for images that are narrower on one side or the other.

Michi.

We are little confused here.

1) What dimensions we need in order to upload our images through Producer (cover image and 4 landscape images) when writing a book in iBooks Author?

2) What formats Producer accepts?

Thank you in advance.

Anyone?

Hi Tangrecia,

I tried doing a lot of image sizing, etc. of screen captures in iPhoto in advance of uploading, but it turned out I didn't have to do all that manually.

When I either "published" from iBooks Author or uploaded the .iba book file to iTunes Producer, the cover was automatically generated for me! My memory's a bit hazy as to which step generated the cover (Publish or Upload), as it was midnight, but I think it was the iTunes Producer upload and I know that it magically appeared. I think iTunes Producer saved the cover file (.png) in the same folder as the .itmsp e-book file.

The automatically-generated cover image was much nicer than any of my screen-capture efforts on the iPad (link below will show the cover within the iTunes store).

FYI, I did create my own mini version of the e-book to create the e-book Preview, because I had hyperlinks that might not have worked if I did the auto-preview generation from within iBooks Author on the main e-book file.

Good luck--

Holloway

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/princess-diamond-baseball/id565846315?mt=11&uo= 4

I just noticed that I didn't reply about the sample images for the sales info page. Those I created using screen capture on my daughter's iPad2. If you do the power+home button screen capture I believe the resulting .png images are the correct size (mine were all landscape, too) and file type for uploading as sample images.

The iPad2 screenshots came out at 1024 x 768 (landscape, and an acceptable upload size). I used PhotoStream and iPhoto-->File...Export-->Maximum/Actual Size/.jpeg-->[your filename/desktop] to get them onto my hard drive for uploading. Once you have them you can also use the .jpegs anywhere you want to share e-book images.

The iTunes Producer info says you can trim 20 pixels to remove the iPad top menu bar but, when I tried it in landscape I got 1004 x 768 images that would not upload, so my advice is to use the untrimmed screen captures--I don't think the top menu bar detracts much:

Do you have the "Using iTunes Producer" pdf, available within iTunes Connect? I found it helped me a lot, particularly at the uploading stage. It's also searchable which is useful.

Here's a link if you'red doing paid e-books:

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/docs/UsingiTunesProducerPaidBooks.pdf

For free e-books, use this one:

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/docs/UsingiTunesProducerFreeBooks.pdf

Good luck,

Holloway