Export pdf from iBooks

"Just emailing them to yourself" is an extremely unpleasant user experience and for a company and a device that is all about the user experience this response is both awful and insulting. When I point out the difficulty we Apple users have with this I am universally met with glad I stuck with Android or Windows. iPad/iPhone/iOS is mature technology so by now it is clearly intentional on the part of Apple management that it is OK for us to suffer. They have the talent to fix this. Apple management made the conscious decision to let users suffer.

I can also open each file one at a time in preview and then save it to a real folder. Same bad user experience. Apple made a lot out of drag and drop, and it just works. Well, someone fell down on the job. 'Antagonize the user' is not in the style guide. Well not when Jobs was running things.

The following works for me. Make sure iPad iBooks is synced with Mac iBooks. Open iBooks on the mac and view the pdf collection. Drag pdfs from iBooks to desktop. A copy of the pdf (if not DRM protected) is placed on the desktop.

Sure would be nice if ibooks just had a share button or send to button

Depending upon the PDF you might already be able to email them to yourself (which you can then use in the Mail app to 'open in' a different app) via the share icon that already exists, or you might be able to copy them over to your computer's iTunes library via File > Devices > Transfer Purchases (that has always worked for me for PDFs and/or epubs in the iBooks app) so that you can then copy them from your iTunes to a different app and take a backup copy of them.

I got Apple Support to call me to confirm this - they said that your original files uploaded to your iBooks iCloud Library will not be tagged with DRM and that you can export your original files back out. They also indicated that these files shared via Family Sharing should also be downloadable as original files without any Apple DRM by family members. I haven't confirmed it myself with checksums, just sharing what they've now officially told me whether it's right or wrong 🙂

I stored a bunch of my teacher material in iBooks. My material and material that was given freely. This material was gathered over years and was such a valuable resource for me and others. As teachers we are considered "Not High Achieving" if we do not share resources outside of our community. We also need to gain from that sharing as a community. Material is often given for free. Material which can take years to build. I had no idea I would lose all of my content when I broke my iPad screen and went to the Apple Store to replace the older one with a newer one. I thought I would die on the spot. They worked hard to try to find my files but I never got them back. I did have some copies elsewhere so I was lucky there. I have used GoodReader also but have a difficult time navigating once I am in there. Sure would be nice if ibooks just had a share button or send to button.

Still works for me, I've just downloaded an ePub and a PDF via Safari on my iPad into its iBooks app, connected my iPad to my computer's iTunes and done File > Devices > Transfer Purchases, and then done File > Move Books From iTunes in my Mac's iBooks app - both appeared on the bookshelf in my Mac's iBooks app and I can read them. Both iPad and Mac are up-to-date.

I don't have my "Master iGadget Control Center" Mac with me at the time to test, but when you plug in the iPad to the Mac's iTunes it is "married" to, in the device's Applications tab, does iBooks show up in the list of installed apps? Default apps do not, but since iBooks is/was an extra, it might.

If it does, look in the bottom Files section of that window, select iBooks and see if your PDFs are there. If they do, you are in luck and you can copy them out to the Mac's filesystem ipso-facto.

BTW, that's another reason for using Acrobat or similar. It appears on the list, and you can use iTunes to upload/download/manage its load of PDFs with a few drags and clicks in iTunes.

If there is only a few PDFs that is a potential simple way of copying them out. Or, as I also said in that reply, Transfer Purchases has always worked, and still works, for me. Or there is iCloud Drive. If you want to leave feedback to Apple about use their feedback site

Hi,

If you have your question solved that's ok. If not try to see this video on youtube. It works for iPad at least. It is an easy way to export pdf files from iBooks to another APP.

Regards

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ilzyLaFABHc

Some of the PDFs (downloaded free from sites) in iBooks on my iPad only give the 'print' option via the share icon, they presumably have some sort of protection in them stopping the email option showing.

If you aren't using iCloud Drive for the iBooks app on your iPad then you might be able to copy them over to your Mac by connecting it to your Mac's iTunes and doing File > Devices > Transfer Purchases (that has always copied PDFs or epubs from the iBooks app, not just ibooks from the iBookstore), and then in iBooks on your Mac do File > Move Books From iTunes

Hi. I'd strongly recommend not using iBooks for non-Apple content. Acrobat or GoodReader are excellent pdf apps that work without restrictions. I have hundreds of documents in GoodReader on my iPad, and I can transfer them easily to other devices.

File > Devices > Transfer Purchases

unfortunately does not transfer epubs / pdfs from iBooks that are from outside the Apple ecosystem