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Opening
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This past week I had someone ask me about managing PDFs in iBooks and that got me thinking a bit about the app. I use iBooks and I know the basics, but I had never really taken the time to explore it in depth. I figured it was time we remedied that.
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The Basics
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iBooks and the iBookstore were announced in January 2010 along with the iPad. The app and service were released in conjunction with the iOS 4 update in April 2010
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iBooks is not pre-installed as part of iOS, but is a free app you download from the App store.
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iBooks formats
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iBooks
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An ePub format with Apple's DRM baked in
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iBooks Author format/ Textbooks. Was added in iBooks 2.0. iPad only and supported by iTunes 10.5.3 or later and iOS 5 or later
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ePub
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Standard open format
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PDF
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Non-DRM's formats
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Supported in iTunes 10.5.3 or later for syncing from iTunes
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Getting content
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From the iBookstore
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Using iTunes and your Apple ID
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Can also purchase directly from your device
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Samples, on the iBookstore you can also get free sample chapters
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These are downloaded to the device and go into your Bookshelf
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Will have a "Sample" banner
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iBooks and the iBookstore should be available in every country that supports iTunes
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The caveat is that all countries have access to free content which includes mostly titles from the Gutenberg Project (40,000 titles, but not all are available in all countries)
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Which countries have purchased content varies, but Apple has a list in the support articles on their site
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Browsing and buying on the Mac
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Open the iTunes Store in iTunes and access the Books section from the navigation bar
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Click to access the Books main page
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You can also click the little disclosure triangle or click and hold to get a list of featured and other categories.
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Each category or section will have a "home page" with featured selections and content
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Browse through the various featured items, scroll left to right
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The 'See All' links will give you more items with in a category
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in this view there is also a "sort" drop down in the upper right ('Featured', 'Release Date", "Name")
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Right hand navigation
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Top section has category quick links drop down which mimics the one from the navigation bar. Also featured categories.
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Top sellers
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tabs for Paid/Free
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More in and collections
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additional sub categories
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Searching
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The search box at the upper right will search the entire iTunes Store
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results will have items broken out by Store
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Books will have a section and a 'See All' link
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You can also use the 'Filter By Media Type' link to view just Books
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On the search results page there is also a 'Power Search' button
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There you can select just books
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Then you are presented with specific search boxes
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Title, Author, Narrator (audiobooks), Description, or ISBN
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Previously Purchased
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There is a 'Purchased' link in the upper right navigation under the 'categories'
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At the top you will have button for various media types (Music, Movies, TV Shows, Apps, Books)
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Tabs for 'All purchases' or just 'Not on this Computer'
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Main window displays results
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There is a sort by drop down and search box
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Click the cloud "download" icon to download
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Also a "Download All" button at the bottom of the window that will download all the items currently viewed in the main results window
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Way down at the bottom of iTunes there is a set of links including a way to "Browse" various sections (Music, TV, Apps, etc).
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Multiple columns at the top where you can choose the store and then categories, genres, subcategories, etc.
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You then get full listings of results based on your selections
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The only store you CAN'T seem to brows this way is the iBookstore
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From your iOS device
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You'll need to download and install the iBooks App from the App Store
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Launch iBooks and it will show your Library
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Click the 'Store' button and the shelf will flip around and take you to the Store
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Has a similar interface to the Book section in iTunes
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Categories at the top
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All Categories
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Fiction
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Non-fiction
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"more" - drop down of all categories
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Can scroll left to right through featured items in a category
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"See all" link to see all the items in that category
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Filters for Featured, Release Date, and Name sorting
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Tabs at the bottom
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Books (main page)
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NYT bestsellers list
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Top Charts
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This has 'Paid' and "free" columns
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Category filter at the top
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Top Authors
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Listed Alphabetically by last name
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Scroll or use "quick link" letters to jump to that section
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Paid and Free tab filters
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Purchased
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All and Not on this Device tabs
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Click cloud icon to download to that device
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Filter by Most Recent or Name
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Load PDFs or ePubs directly from your Mac
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Drag the Document from your Mac into iTunes
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It will be added to the 'Books' section of the library
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Load PDFs or ePubs directly from other iOS apps
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in iOS in an app like mail you should be able to tap and hold a PDF or ePUB attachment. If iBooks is installed on the device you'll see the "Open in iBooks" option. Selecting that will send it to iBooks
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On 3rd party apps you'll most likely use the "Share" button and the 'Open With…" option
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Storage
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Most iBooks that are text-only are around 2MB is size
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Enhanced books withe text and audio can be quite a bit larger and vary in size depending on the content
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iBook textbooks are fairly large and tend to be 1-2GB or bigger.
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Loading content
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When you make a purchase on the device it will be downloaded automatically
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if your on cellular and the item is large (over 50MB), like a textbook, you'll have to download over Wi-Fi
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You can also use the 'Purchased' section to re-download previously purchased content
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On the Mac files are added to your iTunes library and the sync'd based on your sync options for each device
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In iTunes select the device from the Devices list
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Go to the 'Books' tab and check on the 'Sync Books' option
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You can now decide to sync all books or just selected ones
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If your only syncing selected books then you will check or uncheck the ones you want to sync
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You can view and sort Books and PDFs
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Automatic Downloads
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Automatically downloads any new purchases for devices and computers that are authorized with the same iTunes Apple ID
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In iTunes
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Make sure the Mac is Authorized under the Store > Authorize This Computer option
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iTunes > Preferences > Store
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Options for Music, Apps, Books under "Automatic Downloads"
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'Always check for Available' downloads
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'Automatically download pre-orders'
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In iOS
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Tap Settings > iTunes & App Stores
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If you are not signed in you'll need to tap sign-in
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In the Automatic Downloads section you can toggle settings for Music, Apps, or books
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If your device supports Cellular there is also a toggle to allow downloads over cellular
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Managing content
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On the Mac
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Content is physically stored in Music > iTunes > iTunes Media > Books and then organized in folders by Author
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Assuming you let iTunes manage your media
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If you've moved your iTunes the location of your iTunes Media folder then it will be there
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You can view titles in iTunes
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By book, author, or Category in thumbnail view
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Also list, album list, and cover-flow views
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You can edit the meta data for book similarly to Music. Change the title, author, sort tags, etc.
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iBooks
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When you first launch iBooks you will see the Bookshelf (your library) with any sync'd or downloaded ePub or iBook content
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If you are using iOS 6 and iCloud you can choose to see All your purchased content that is available on the iBookstore
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Settings > iBooks
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Turn on 'Show All Purchases'
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Content that is available but not on your device will have a iCloud download icon in the upper right corner
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There is a "Collections" button next to the 'Store' button
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This lets you organize your books into different, well collections, or shelves
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By default Books, Purchased Books, and PDFs have their own shelves
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To switch between collections, just tap the collections button and tap the collection you want to view
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You can create more collections by tapping on 'Collections' and then tapping the 'New' button
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Tap the Edit button to get the options to reorder or delete the collections
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If you delete a collection it will prompt you if you want to also remove the books in that collection or have them moved back to their original collection
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You can sync collections between devices in iOS 6 with iCloud
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Settings > iBooks
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Turn on 'Sync Collections'
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In shelf view you can swipe to move between collections
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To re-organize items on a shelf you can tap and hold and then drag the item to move it
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Click Edit button allows you to select books by tapping on them
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You can then tap "move" to move an item to a collection
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You can tap "delete" to delete the item
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You can also make multiple selections and move or delete multiple items
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There is also a "list" view
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It lets you view books in a collection by Bookshelf (manual sort order), Title, Author, or Category. Switch between the views by tapping the options at the bottom of the list view
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You can also 'edit' in this mode. Select one or more items and you can move or delete.
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In list view you can also swipe to delete an item.
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There is also a search feature that you can access by swiping down
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Search will search across all titles and collection on your device
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Swipe down even further and you can see the Apple logo (sort of an easter egg)
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Reading content
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On the Mac
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iBooks doesn't have a Mac version yet, so for ePub or iBook content you'll need to sync to an iOS device
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PDFs will open in your default PDF app (typically Preview) if you double click them
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You can tell if a book is a PDF in iTunes because it will look like it's spiral bound.
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In iBooks when you open a book for the first time you'll typically see the cover
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To advance pages you can tap the right side of the screen to move forward and the left side to go back
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If you'd like to have both margins advance the pages (move forward) go to Settings > iBooks and turn on the 'Both Margins' advance settings
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You can also tap, hold, and drag the page edge to get the page turn effect
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At the bottom of the page you get a summary of what page you are on and how many pages are in the book (at the current font and size) and on the right a 'X pages left in chapter' indicator
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There is also an indicator at the bottom (little dots and slider) that let you tap and drag to jump between pages quickly
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As you drag the slider a pop-up will indicate the chapter, title, and page number
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When you've used this to jump pages there will then be "back to page XX" and "Go to page XX" links under the scrubber. They work like breadcrumbs and you can tap to go back to where you where and also jump forward.
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If a book has hyperlinks to other pages (say like in an index or with an endnote link) then this breadcrumb navigation also becomes available.
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At the top left as your reading is a button to return to your library
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This will close the book and automatically bookmark your place. When you open the book the next time it will open to where you were
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If you'd like to sync bookmarks between devices go to Settings > iBooks and turn on the Sync Bookmarks option. This works based on your iTunes Store Apple ID
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On the top right is the font icon, search, and bookmark
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Bookmark will bookmark any page. You can have as many bookmarks as you want and they will sync across devices if you've turned on bookmark syncing
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Search lets you search by page number or term
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Results show the Title, page number, and summary of the found text near the search term.
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Search is an exact match of all words entered
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There are also "search web" and "search wikipedia" buttons at the bottom of the pane. These will launch you into Safari to perform the search.
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The font icon lets you adjust
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brightness controls (these are device wide, not just iBook specific)
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Font size, up or down
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Font: Original (specified by publisher), and a selection of 7 others. Only 1 San Serif at the moment, "Seravek".
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Themes
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Color: White (black text), Sepia (brown text), or Black (white text)
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Mode: Book (shows book edges), Full screen, and Scroll (vertical continuous scrolling)
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In scroll chapters are marked by a separator
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In some books you can also control the justification
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Settings > iBooks
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You can turn on or off "Full Justification" and "Auto-Hyphenation"
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Highlighting and Notes
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Double tap a word to make a selection and bring up additional menu options
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You can grab the handles to expand your selection
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Copy
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Define: will bring up a contextual dictionary and offer "search Web" and "Search Wikipedia" buttons
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Search: will perform a search for that word in iBooks
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Highlight: will highlight the selection and then give you the highlight menu
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Change color or use underline
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Remove the highlight
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Add a note: This brings up a sheet and the keyboard. Not is color matched to the highlight color
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Share button
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> button to get to Copy | Define | Search options
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Note: to add a note
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Share
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Uses contextual share panes
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If you added a note to a highlighted section it will be noted by a "post it" icon in the margin
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Share options:
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Mail, Message, Twitter, Facebook, or copy
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Sends the selected excerpt along with an App Store link and information.
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You can also highlight a section by simply dragging over it with your finger
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To get back to the highlight options single tap the highlighted section to bring up the menu options
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tapping a paragraph with 2-fingers will select the entire paragraph
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Table of Contents
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Next to the 'Library' button is the button for table of contents
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On the table of contents screen you have the 'Resume' button to take you back and the ubiquitous "Share" button
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Contents lets you scroll though and tap to jump to a chapter
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The Bookmarks tab displays all the bookmarks you added. Tapping one will take you to that bookmark
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Notes shows you the items that you've highlighted, the page number, and the date you highlighted the text. If there it's text is also shown.
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iBooks Textbooks
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These work very similarly to standard iBooks, but have some additional features
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You can tell when you are reading a textbook because the titlebar will be dark instead of light
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Also in portrait mode textbooks only scroll vertically and have images in the left margin.
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Pinching in on a textbook page brings up the table of contents
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In portrait view you get a chapter list that can be expanded to show the sub-sections
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In landscape you get thumbnails along the bottom and swiping left to right moves between chapters
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In addition to a table of contents, tapping on the table of contents button may also show a glossary
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There is also a 'study notes' button
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Any items you highlight or add nots to in a textbook will be added to the study notes
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You can browse through study notes organized by chapters
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You can search study notes
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When you Share study notes you get an edit mode that lets you select individual notes and then you can generate an email to share them.
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Study Cards
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You can tap the study cards button and it will take all your notes and the glossary terms and present them as cards
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Terms are displayed on one side, with definition on the other.
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For notes the highlighted text is on one side and your notes on the other.
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A swipe action flips between cards
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Tapping a card flips it over
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The settings icon reveals options to toggle on or off Highlight, Notes, and Glossary cards
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Under 'Highlights and Notes' click the blue triangle to toggle specific highlight or underline colors
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There is also a Shuffle toggle
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Closing
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