Take Control of iBooks Author


Apple’s Multi-Touch ebooks boast visually impressive, template-driven layouts that can contain many types of interactive media—including interactive images, slideshows, audio and video files, rotating 3D images, and quiz questions. You create them on your Mac in the free iBooks Author application from Apple, and you can sell them to iPad users in the iBookstore or distribute them for free in any way you like. Read this ebook for expert advice on how to:

Plan Your Project!

  • Give your content a “spine,” and design it to flow comfortably into an iBooks Author template.
  • Determine what special types of media your book will contain—including audio files, video files, slideshows, charts and tables, graphics, interactive graphics, 3D rotating graphics (COLLADA), and study questions. You’ll learn what your options are, and what file formats are needed.
  • Decide whether to write your text in iBooks Author or in another program—and, if you decide to write outside of iBooks Author, learn how to import your content efficiently.

Produce Your Book!

  • Pick an iBooks Author template and customize it—you’ll learn about the dependencies and interactions between the portrait view layout and the landscape view, and find specific advice and steps for customizing both types.
  • Add new chapters, sections, and pages to your book.
  • Make your text flow through your book, and understand how to control the flow.
  • Import and position graphics, videos, and other media items, so that they appear where you want them to—and understand why and how these elements may appear as thumbnails.
  • Make an imported graphic interactive with tappable elements that reveal additional information.
  • Create and configure study questions (and answers).
  • Add an interactive glossary and index, and understand how they interact.
  • Learn how iBooks Author generates a table of contents, and tweak your table of contents.
  • Make internal hyperlinks and external links to the Web.

Publish!

  • Export your ebook as a basic PDF or text file (for people who want to read your book, but don’t have an iPad).
  • Export your ebook as a Multi-Touch ebook that can be read exclusively in iBooks on the iPad.
  • Get set up to make your ebook available through Apple’s iBookstore.
  • Upload your completed project to the iBookstore.

Book Details

  • Paperback: 150 pages
  • Publisher: TidBITS Publishing, Inc. (June 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1615424032
  • ISBN-13: 978-1615424030
Download [10.5 MiB]

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