Learn something new in an Instant! A short, fast, focused guide delivering immediate results.
Learn everything you need know, from reading iBooks to creating and publishing your own
Best practices and solutions for Apple iBooks
Presented in an easy-to-follow tutorial style, this book is your quick and compact guide to iBooks"
Description
"iBooks is a great tool for book lovers. This book is a guide for using iBooks for reading, managing, and creating books – everything that an avid reader (and the writer within you) would need.
""Instant Apple iBooks How-to"" is a practical guide that takes you on a reading and writing journey with iBooks for your iPad. Begin with getting familiar with iBooks and proceed to write your first interactive book with iBooks Author!
This book begins with downloading the iBooks app from the iTunes store and adding books and PDF collections to it via iBookstore. The book then goes on to explain other technologies in the iBooks app and concludes by showing you how to write your own book with iBooks Author.
Not only will you learn how to read and manage books effectively, but you will also learn how those books can be created with iBooks Author. You will also understand how iBooks Author templates can help you lay out a book easily; some third party templates are also available.
You will learn everything to maximize your reading and writing experience for the iBooks platform."
Who is this book for?
This book is for literary geeks who want to explore the Apple iBooks universe. From buying books from the Apple iBookstore to organizing books and PDFs, this book goes forward by explaining how to write an interactive book with iBooks Author.
What you will learn
Downloading iBooks and books for iBooks from the iBookstore
Adding and managing your PDF collections on iBooks
Enhancing your reader experience with reader tools and 3D support
"Instant Apple iBooks How-to" in some ways is two different books. The first part (pages 1-18) as described in the title, is a how to use iBooks with your iPad, and for anyone who is unfamiliar with the iPad and iBooks, this how-to is well-orngiazed, a with logical step-by-step process, and can get any user up and running quickly and easily. In addition, there are lots of graphics as examples to help the learning process, as well. If you are not familiar with Apple's iBooks, save yourself some time and read the book. However, for me the later part of the book was even more helpful, and that is "How to publish your own books with iBooks Author." While I have used iBooks on a regular basis with my iPad (and even my iPhone), this book showed me a few tips of which I was unaware. I had never tried creating my own book with iBook Author on my iMac, in fact never even thought about it. With this book I was able to do it, as easy as 1-2-3. Could I have figured it out on my own? Yes, but I would have wasted considerable time doing so, had a less-professional looking book, and I would have missed the tips and resources that this book gives. It's worth buying. Disclaimer: I am not an employee of Packt Publishing, nor am I being paid for my review.
Amazon Verified review
Alexander ANICHKINMay 29, 2013
4
Apple iBooks How-to is a hand-holding guide to how to start using iBooks. The books is so easy to follow, provided you have an iPad or another iOS device at hand, that I can already recommend it to whoever has doubts or fears about venturing into self-publishing. Of course, it needn't be something grand, like War and Peace or Pride and Prejudice. You can publish you student paper or a family album too.
Amazon Verified review
onlyInSFMay 15, 2013
4
Do you love to read ebooks on the iPad? Are you a writer who wants to publish his or her own interactive ebooks for the iPad, and sell them on the iBookstore? Zeeshan Chawdhary, a highly experienced web and mobile developer who is currently the CTO of iCityConcierge Ltd, a travel startup, shows you how to do both in his new book Instant Apple iBooks How-to. To read ebooks, you use the app iBooks in your iPad. To write and publish ebooks, you use the app iBooks Author in your Apple MacBook or iMac. The first five sections describe how to use iBooks, and the rest tell you how to use iBooks Author 2.0, the latest version of the program as of this writing. You should also know how to create an HTML5 webpage.For readers: how to use iBooks:In these sections, you are introduced to features that enable you to browse and purchase ebooks (or download free ebooks), group these ebooks into different categories; or Collections, and add PDFs to the iBooks library. You also learn about tools that you can use while you read these books. These reading tools enable you to select text from the book to be copied, pasted, and emailed. In iBooks 3.0.2, which was current when he wrote this book, you can also change the color of the highlight when the text is selected, and use the Fonts and Themes feature to change the font size and family of the text, and the color of the book's background.If you're using iBooks 3.1, please note that this version no longer has these last two features. The horizontal bar that appears when you select the text has also changed. When you tap the text to select it, only the words "Copy" and "Search" appear in the bar. If you tap one word, the word "Define" - which enables a box with a dictionary definition of this word to appear - will also show up in the bar. To view iBooks - and the rest of your iPad - in "night mode," go to your Settings app, press Accessibility, then switch Invert Colors to On.For writers: how to use iBooks Author:Here, Instant Apple iBooks How-to teaches you how to create an interactive London travel guidebook by choosing a template (you can find templates in the program itself, or various websites), and editing the text and graphics. In iBooks Author 2.0, you can now directly drag images from websites onto placeholder images. Then you learn how to create a custom HTML5 Twitter widget that pulls tweets about London into the ebook, and a widget where a 3D object can be viewed and rotated in the ebook. When inserting a 3D object into your iBooks Author 2.0 document, make sure "Auto-rotate object when idle" is unchecked; otherwise the 3D object will not show.My Verdict:I thought Instant Apple iBooks How-to was a really good quick-start book, and enjoyed using it. However, I wish it also included tutorials on other features iBooks Author supports; like exporting the ebook to PDFs, publishing the ebook for the iBookstore, and other widgets you can include in your ebook; like videos, audios, Keynote presentations, interactive images, image galleries, review questions, scrolling sidebars, and popover text boxes that appear when the user taps a graphic. I also thought it would have been nice if HTML5 code for the webpage in the Twitter widget had been included; in case there might be readers who are not familiar with HTML5 (I am). Instant Apple iBooks How-to is a well-written hands-on guide, but I feel it can use more detail.Article first published as [...] on Technorati.
A subscription provides you with full access to view all Packt and licnesed content online, this includes exclusive access to Early Access titles. Depending on the tier chosen you can also earn credits and discounts to use for owning content
How can I cancel my subscription?
To cancel your subscription with us simply go to the account page - found in the top right of the page or at https://subscription.packtpub.com/my-account/subscription - From here you will see the ‘cancel subscription’ button in the grey box with your subscription information in.
What are credits?
Credits can be earned from reading 40 section of any title within the payment cycle - a month starting from the day of subscription payment. You also earn a Credit every month if you subscribe to our annual or 18 month plans. Credits can be used to buy books DRM free, the same way that you would pay for a book. Your credits can be found in the subscription homepage - subscription.packtpub.com - clicking on ‘the my’ library dropdown and selecting ‘credits’.
What happens if an Early Access Course is cancelled?
Projects are rarely cancelled, but sometimes it's unavoidable. If an Early Access course is cancelled or excessively delayed, you can exchange your purchase for another course. For further details, please contact us here.
Where can I send feedback about an Early Access title?
If you have any feedback about the product you're reading, or Early Access in general, then please fill out a contact form here and we'll make sure the feedback gets to the right team.
Can I download the code files for Early Access titles?
We try to ensure that all books in Early Access have code available to use, download, and fork on GitHub. This helps us be more agile in the development of the book, and helps keep the often changing code base of new versions and new technologies as up to date as possible. Unfortunately, however, there will be rare cases when it is not possible for us to have downloadable code samples available until publication.
When we publish the book, the code files will also be available to download from the Packt website.
How accurate is the publication date?
The publication date is as accurate as we can be at any point in the project. Unfortunately, delays can happen. Often those delays are out of our control, such as changes to the technology code base or delays in the tech release. We do our best to give you an accurate estimate of the publication date at any given time, and as more chapters are delivered, the more accurate the delivery date will become.
How will I know when new chapters are ready?
We'll let you know every time there has been an update to a course that you've bought in Early Access. You'll get an email to let you know there has been a new chapter, or a change to a previous chapter. The new chapters are automatically added to your account, so you can also check back there any time you're ready and download or read them online.
I am a Packt subscriber, do I get Early Access?
Yes, all Early Access content is fully available through your subscription. You will need to have a paid for or active trial subscription in order to access all titles.
How is Early Access delivered?
Early Access is currently only available as a PDF or through our online reader. As we make changes or add new chapters, the files in your Packt account will be updated so you can download them again or view them online immediately.
How do I buy Early Access content?
Early Access is a way of us getting our content to you quicker, but the method of buying the Early Access course is still the same. Just find the course you want to buy, go through the check-out steps, and you’ll get a confirmation email from us with information and a link to the relevant Early Access courses.
What is Early Access?
Keeping up to date with the latest technology is difficult; new versions, new frameworks, new techniques. This feature gives you a head-start to our content, as it's being created. With Early Access you'll receive each chapter as it's written, and get regular updates throughout the product's development, as well as the final course as soon as it's ready.We created Early Access as a means of giving you the information you need, as soon as it's available. As we go through the process of developing a course, 99% of it can be ready but we can't publish until that last 1% falls in to place. Early Access helps to unlock the potential of our content early, to help you start your learning when you need it most. You not only get access to every chapter as it's delivered, edited, and updated, but you'll also get the finalized, DRM-free product to download in any format you want when it's published. As a member of Packt, you'll also be eligible for our exclusive offers, including a free course every day, and discounts on new and popular titles.