Scott Barrows1
Level 1 (29 points)
iTunes

Q: View iBook on Windows PC?

I have created a number of iBooks (with the various media files) for colleagues, but they have Windows PCs (Win7) and I do not know what program PC users can use to view the iBooks created in iBooks Author (which is a great learning tool, by the way). Can anyome recommend something?

 

Thanks,

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on May 23, 2014 1:23 PM

by Scott Barrows1,Solvedanswer
Scott Barrows1 Scott Barrows1
Level 1 (29 points)
iTunes
A:

Thanks. I hope someone creates a Windows program for iBooks created in iBA. One of the best teaching platforms I have seen in many years. I realize Windows is not the best platform but as a lowest common denominator for many people it is what we are stuck with.

 

Anyway, I can stop searching for an answer on this. Thanks for the help.

Posted on May 24, 2014 7:11 AM

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Scott Barrows1

Q: View iBook on Windows PC?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Tom Gewecke,Helpful

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke May 24, 2014 5:48 AM in response to Scott Barrows1
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    May 24, 2014 5:48 AM in response to Scott Barrows1

    Books created with iBooks Author can only be viewed on an iPad or on a Mac running OS 10.9,  not on any other platform (not even an iphone or an earlier Mac OS X version).

     

    You could export your book to pdf format from iBA.  That can be viewed on any platform, but various features will be lost.

     

    You could recreate your book in the .epub format.  That can also be viewed on any platform, also with some features not possible.  The Apple app for that is Pages, but there are many others.

  • by Scott Barrows1,Solvedanswer

    Scott Barrows1 Scott Barrows1 May 24, 2014 7:11 AM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 1 (29 points)
    iTunes
    May 24, 2014 7:11 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

    Thanks. I hope someone creates a Windows program for iBooks created in iBA. One of the best teaching platforms I have seen in many years. I realize Windows is not the best platform but as a lowest common denominator for many people it is what we are stuck with.

     

    Anyway, I can stop searching for an answer on this. Thanks for the help.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke May 24, 2014 7:16 AM in response to Scott Barrows1
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    May 24, 2014 7:16 AM in response to Scott Barrows1

    Scott Barrows1 wrote:

     

    Thanks. I hope someone creates a Windows program for iBooks created in iBA.

     

    Yes, it would really make sense to Apple to do this, just like it did for iTunes.  Unfortunately it took them 3 years to produce an iBooks app for OS X.

  • by ktracton,

    ktracton ktracton Oct 24, 2014 6:26 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 24, 2014 6:26 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

    Surely someone has answered this somewhere. iBooks can be viewed with iTunes on Windows.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Oct 24, 2014 7:15 PM in response to ktracton
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Oct 24, 2014 7:15 PM in response to ktracton

    ktracton wrote:

     

    iBooks can be viewed with iTunes on Windows.

     

    That would be great if true.  But I've never heard of anyone doing it.  Could you post the title of a book obtained from Apple's ibookstore which you have been able to read using iTunes and a screen shot of how it looks (use the camera icon)?

     

    Books produced by iBooks Author (they have the .ibooks format) and .epub books with DRM (which is almost all paid for books) can normally only be read on a Mac or iOS device usings the iBooks app.

  • by johnniehare,

    johnniehare johnniehare Feb 3, 2015 12:46 AM in response to Scott Barrows1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Feb 3, 2015 12:46 AM in response to Scott Barrows1

    Try Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/. This is cross platform available and easily helps either converting your existing books to either epub or any other cross platform format. Also the readers could install this software to handle their ebooks as well as to read them. Hope this helps.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Feb 3, 2015 5:17 AM in response to johnniehare
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Feb 3, 2015 5:17 AM in response to johnniehare

    johnniehare wrote:

     

    Try Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/. This is cross platform available and easily helps either converting your existing books to either epub or any other cross platform format.

     

    But Calibre CAN NOT convert books made by iBooks Author to some other format, which is what the OP is asking for.

  • by johnniehare,

    johnniehare johnniehare Feb 3, 2015 2:24 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Feb 3, 2015 2:24 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

    Yes and no. You cannot read the savefiles from iBook Author, but of course you can create epub files which should then be readable on PC via Calibre. To share the author files would not be possible; but it's like sharing production files amongst a production community. Sorry if I missed this special case. If this is the intent - for sure this would not work outside iBook author. It's same thing like *.psd files probably could not be read by any imaging program outside Photoshop, but of course *.jpeg, *.tiff etc.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Feb 3, 2015 3:16 PM in response to johnniehare
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Feb 3, 2015 3:16 PM in response to johnniehare

    johnniehare wrote:

     

    You cannot read the savefiles from iBook Author, but of course you can create epub files

     

    No, you are mistaken, iBA cannot create epub files.  That's the whole point.  It creates .ibooks files, which no app other than iBooks can read (and only on an iPad or a Mac running OS X 10.9 and higher, not even on an iPhone or an older Mac).

  • by johnniehare,

    johnniehare johnniehare Feb 4, 2015 12:20 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Feb 4, 2015 12:20 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

    My fault, you are right. Sorry for providing "interim hope".