hook up iMac to ipad

Hello there, Wstar.

The following Knowledge Base article provides the information for syncing and backing up your iPad to iTunes on your Mac:

iOS: Back up and restore your iOS device with iCloud or iTunes.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766

Use iTunes

You can use iTunes to back up and restore your content on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Note that iTunes and iOS do not support installing backups of newer versions of iOS onto devices using earlier versions of iOS.

Back up

To back up the content on your iOS device, follow these steps:

1. Make sure your computer has the latest version of iTunes.
2. Connect your iOS device to your computer.
3. Choose File > Devices > Back up.
   If you're using iTunes 10.7 or earlier, right-click the device from the list and choose Backup Now.

You can also back up by syncing your iOS device with your computer. When you use iTunes to sync, backing up is the first step.To verify that the backup finished successfully, open iTunes Preferences and select the Devices tab. You'll see the name of the device along with the date and time iTunes created the backup.

Restore from a backup

If you have a new iOS device, or if you need to restore your device to resolve an issue, follow these steps:

1. Connect your iOS device to the computer that has your backup.
2. Make sure this computer has the latest version of iTunes.
3. Choose File > Devices > Restore from Back up.
   If you're using iTunes 10.7 or earlier, right-click the device from the list and choose Restore from Backup.

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

Cheers,

Pedro.

In case you are asking the most basic question: you use the same cable as you use to charge you iPad, except you plug it into your computer via a USB port. This should automatically launch iTunes, but if it doesn't launch automatically, you can simply start it your self. Your iPad you should appear as a button at the top of the iTunes window.