Can't open PDF files in iBooks on my iPad

At some point I downloaded an app called "PDF Splicer". When I recently encountered the problem with being unable to open a PDF attached in an email, this was the only app that would open the PDF. PDF Splicer is not a great reader but allows users to work with individual pages in a PDF document to create new user designed PDF documents. Once the PDF is open in PDF Splicer I just select "ALL" of the pages in the document. Using the "EXPORT" function in PDF Splicer it is then possible to "EXPORT" the document to any other app - including iBooks.

This issue is very irritating. Why is a third party app creator able to provide a solution superior to the response by the OS creator? I'm getting discouraged by Apple. It seems they are losing their differentiation on both the software and hardware sides of the game, and without differentiation you lose your market position and basis for price premium. I mean, I can get software integration headaches from Windows, and on a device that costs less.

Finally Apple seems to have fixed the problem of PDF opening issue with iBooks, shamelessly after almost a year of delay!

I downloaded the latest version of iBooks 3 today, and tested the opening PDF function on 2 documents. Both documents seem to be able to open in iBooks without any issue. I no longer need to resort to the frustrating and unproductive method of closing iBooks completely from the background, and repeatedly opening the same document by upto 10+ times before it could be loaded.

Hallelujah!!!! I cringed as I was reading your mention of having to close iBooks from background and try to OPEN IN 10 plus times before opening or finally resorting to the PDF Reader app. I use iBooks to store and read hundreds of PDFs for business and personal use and this bug was killing me. I ended up with some PDFs in iBooks and some in PDF reader and never knew where to looks. This bug may be fixed but I now have a new one. The new icloud purchased books feature does not work on my iPad. It does work on my iPhone. Apparently there are many others in the same boat. I am also very frustrated that Apple did not add icloud sync between devices for PDFs. They have icloud document sync for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, why not iBooks. This is crazy to

me. I just don't get it. Maybe next year.

I share the same horrendous experience. I have hundreds of scientific documents that I read and refer to in iBooks and it is important to me to have all these documents sorted in order. The last thing I ever want is to have them scattered across various apps. That is why I am so desperate to have Apple fixing the problem. But honestly, I have lost my confidence in them I have no idea if they could just reintroduce the bug again in the next update and take another year to address it.

Not sure if you have tried this regarding syncing collection across devices. I think there is an option in the iBooks assessible via Settings that you could turn on for syncing the collection via iclouds. This is how it is supposed to work according to some forum discussions.I have not used this function at all as I have concern if syncing is going to wipe out some of my collections accidentally. Another thing you may want to verify is if this requires iOS 6 to work, if it does and you haven't updated your OS, I suggest to wait it out for next iOS 6 update as there are many bugs in the OS. I regretted updating the OS because now I have to totally shut it down every few days otherwise some of the apps or websites would lose connection to WiFi strangely. But same apps and websites have no problem on my iPhone which is still running iOS 5.

For me, the PDF Splicer app appeared to be the problem.

I had iOS 6.0 and no problem emailing or opening PDFs.

I had downloaded the app and noticed that I couldn't open PDFs anymore (first page shows up in mail messages, but when I press on page, Open In window comes up, I select app to view/edit, and nothing happens).

I tried everything: deleting my Yahoo mail account and re-adding it (testing whether it was a Yahoo attachment problem), resetting iPad, full shut down, but to no avail.

Went to Genius Bar, the guy confirmed a data corruption and told me to go home, restore as new device. I did, readded all apps, but problem remained: can't open PDFs, except for curiously in PDF Splicer.

So, I restored as a new iPad, added all apps again, except for PDF Splicer.. and voila! I can open PDFs no problem.

If any of you have the can't open PDF problems and the PDF Splicer app, try deleting it and see what happens. Worked for me.

Interesting that PDF Splicer seems to be the problem. I hadn't thought of that. I've had PDF Splicer installed for a while, but only started having the problem with opening PDF's from emails more recently. It does make sense because I was unable to open PDF's with any PDF reader "except" PDF Splicer. Maybe it started with an update subsequent to the original installation. That said, the problem seems to have gone away for me without uninstalling any apps or restoring the device. I don't recall what app's have been updated recently, but the problem is gone.

Thanks for the info.

Very basic term in my field of work, KISS(Keep it simple stupid). as per the original post, which most of you completly missed. the litle grey or black circle that resembles the roman numeral II or a pause button, is in fact..a pause button. It means the sync from your itunes, or however you go it onto your ipad is incomplete... so resync, and watch the little message on top of the itunes. I'll bill you later 😉

I feel your pain and agree with you 100% on the iBots. I recently had the MOST frustrating customer 'care' experience I've had in a long time. Their staff are not trained or not allowed to help us in any meaningful way and their fee for assitance is an outrageous concept. They just don't get it. It's insidious and greedy. They don't listen and they don't care about customers after they've made the sale. Most of my friends and colleagues feel the same way now.

My PDFs are visible under the expanded iPad icon in the sidebar view as a list. Only recent additions will show up as images, though.

The iPad 6.1.3 upgrade is not helpful for education. Too many hierarchical menus to slog through. The alleged Apple Wizards need to get off their individual commercial sell-the-songs-and-movies kick and pay attention to those of us who are using iPads in education.

Answers to my other questions about paths to backups were nicely handled by other Community gurus.

Hope this helps you. I also have hundreds of scientific docs on my iPad also and have no use for music or videos other than the ones I make for biomechanics, the KT extinction event controversy or climate change data sets. Here is how I am accessing my iPad PDFs for now. I have iOS 6+ as you will see.

___________

My PDFs are visible under the expanded iPad icon in the sidebar view as a list. Only recent additions will show up as images, though.

The iPad 6.1.3 upgrade is not helpful for education. Too many hierarchical menus to slog through. The alleged Apple Wizards need to get off their individual commercial sell-the-songs-and-movies kick and pay attention to those of us who are using iPads in education.

Answers to my other questions about paths to backups were nicely handled by other Community gurus.

I cant open email attachments in iBooks anymore...

I recently added an app: documents

and now when I go to,open the attached file, the only options for viewing it is thru the Documents app.

I used to have 2 options: iBooks, or Kindledocs...

This is very annoying.....

( I know u r going to say - get rid of the Documents app, right?)

Does the "Open in ..." function give you more than one page of options? And what kind of file are you refering to. the apps available in that screen (s) will depend on the file type.

James,

File type? Refers to PDF docs that come as mail attachments.

I get two window options to open the file- both with the same App:

Documents( free )

Documents ( basic upgrade )

I no longer have the " Open in iBooks", "Open in Kindle" options I normally have.

Seems to have overridden them..

Same problem here, no iBooks or kindle, just google drive. Nothing has been installed, kindle did update this morning though.

Any ideas on a fix? Using an iPad 4 at the mo.

Cheers

I'm running Documents (I assume we are talking about the same app), and well as two dozen other apps that can handle PDF files. Not seeing what you are reporting at all. Everything shows up when I tap and hold the attachment or open it in Mail.

Try a reset: Simultaneously hold down the Home and On buttons until the device shuts down. Ignore the off slider if it appears. Once shut down is complete, if it doesn't restart on it own, turn the device back on using the On button. In some cases it also helps to double click the Home button and close all apps from the tray before doing the reset.