Q: Ibooks pdfs do not sync between devices?

It won't copy the actual PDFs or epubs/ibooks between devices, the Settings > iBooks > Sync options will only keep in-line what you already have on your devices e.g. if you have the same PDF on 2 devices and you move it into a collection on one of them, then that setting will put it into the same collection on your other device - but if you don't have the PDF on the second device, then it won't copy it over.

BUT WHY WOULDN'T IT DO IT?

Because it's not designed to. You need to copy the PDF/epubs (and any other content) onto each device that you want them on, the 'sync collections' setting will only keep the PDFs/epubs/ibooks that you already have on your devices in the same collections on each, it doesn't copy them onto a device if they aren't already on it

I will chage my question to

I should do it.   I am keeping a category for all manuals and i want to sync in all my devices under my pdfs categories.. 

It should do it.

The existing setting shouldn't do it, that works for what it is supposed to do.

You can try leaving feedback for Apple, but personally I don't think that it will be added : http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks_ios.html

I had to check iTunes -> my iPhone -> Books -> Sync [check] -> All Books [select], seems to be fine now but it does it with Wifi sync, not iCloud/iBooks one imho.

It used to with Mountain Lion. If I put a PDF into a library on one, like a product manual, it would sync over mobile me (or whatever it was at the time). Now it doesn't. Another Apple step backwards.

I wish iBooks made it easier to sync PDFs among apple devices too under the same apple id, but it apparently doesn't.  I deciced to use Adobe cloud and that works fine enough.

I just emailed them from one device to another. It was surprisingly quick to get them on each device, and moving forward it should be easy to at least have them one acid evict, but not in sync with bookmarks.

I have content saved in ibooks on my iPad mini. The collections folders show across my devices, iPhone, macbook pro, and iPad mini. However it does not show the content of these folders. Can you help? Everything switched on and same ID etc. For example if I receive a PDF document on my iphone and I choose to open it in iBooks it will not auto sync to my ipad. Any help gratefully received!

iOS 7.0.4

You need to copy your books/PDFs onto the devices/computers that you want them. If they are only on your iPad Mini then connect it to your computer's iTunes and do File > Devices > Transfer Purchases to copy them over to it and you can then sync them to your iPhone.

The sync collections will only keep your collections in-line i.e. if you have a PDF or book and you move it into a collection on one device, then if it is also on your other devices/computers then it will be moved into the same collection on them - but it won't copy the PDFs/books onto a device or computer, you need to copy it where you want it

Is this really the case? I'm getting more and more disenchanted with my iPad. It's implied in all the advertising that iCloud will 'magically' make sure everything stays synched between your devices. But is it actually true that the pdfs I have saved in a collection on my iPad (which were downloaded from any old website), will not sync to my mac at all? How is this helpful in any way? I've got 'sync all books' selected in itunes on the mac, and 'sync collections' selected in the settings on all my devices.

Edited to add: they don't sync over iCloud or when i have the iPad connected by cable, if that was not clear.

Quite frankly, this is rubbish and in my opinion, blatant false advertising. Is there some annoyingly cumbersome workaround I can use??

And I realise someone said this already but - pdfs that are actually synched to the mac then open with Preview anyway?? iBooks for Mavericks get the most pointless software of the year award.

From Lion onwards everything at Apple has been going downhill!