Ios 11, Share Files and ibooks

[NSquirrel]

I had a word doc, on a PC, which I wanted to put into iBooks on my iPad. I converted it to a PDF, on the windows laptop, and imported into File Browser, so that I could then open in iBooks. Ios11 no longer seems to have Open In, but now has Share File, so I shared it with iBooks and the PDF openned up. When I closed it, in iBooks for later reading, the PDF was not listed with all my other books and PDFs. I tried this several times to no avail, until, in iBooks, I tried the icon of the square box with an up arrow- I am not sure what the proper name is for it- and found Copy to iBooks as a menu item. This did the copy I wanted, but it took a while to find it and seemed counter- intuitive.

Btw, on my iPhone 8, sharing the file, again from File Browser, did what I expected it to do and copied the file straight into iBooks.

(While I used File Browser above, I see this more to do with ios 11 and iBooks.)

Perhaps this is described somewhere, but if not the above may help someone else.

 

[twerppoet]

This is because iBooks can now read a PDF (or other iBooks compatible format) without importing it. The Files app appears to open files in place, when the recieving app is cable of this. I’m not sure how to force a file to be copied to the receiving app when there is no expliceit share item to do this and that app’s folder (like iBooks) can not be seen in the Files app.

I’ll have to look into this.

I’m not sure how you initially imported the file in the the Files app, but if you have the option you should probably import it directly to iBooks instead.

Note, the Open in iBooks share icon used to say Copy to iBooks, before the recent changes.

The Open In, still shows up in some situation; but I supsect it’s a legacy extention that only shows up for older apps that don’t support the newer APIs.

 

[twerppoet]

I found a workaround, of sorts.

Open the PDF in Files by tapping on it.
Choose the Share icon at the top left.
Choose Print.
Pinch out to expand the document view.
Choose the Share icon again.

You should now see a Copy to iBooks option.

This is an oldish (since iOS 10) trick to save documetns as a PDFs whenever you have a print option. In this case you are actually printing a PDF to a PDF file. A bit redundant, but it works.

By the way, when using Documents to browse files, you can get either the Open in Books or Copy to iBooks

 

[twerppoet]

Ok, found an easy method. You’ll like it, if your iPad is new enough to use it.

Open the Files app and iBooks in side view. You can drag the PDF from the Files app to the iBooks app.

It ends up in the All Books list. I tried dragging it to a specific collection, but it still ended up in ‘just’ the All Books list.

 

[NSquirrel]

Thanks twerrpoet for your replies and comments, which I will look into. Incidently, I did not use the Files app; I imported into the File Browser app and then shared directly into iBooks, as I always used to and as I am still able to do directly with the iPhone.

I have tended to steer clear of the Files app, although for some reason it seems to make more sense on the iPhone.

 

[NSquirrel]

An after- thought: why go to the trouble of putting it into iBooks, when File Browser will read it? Reason: I often use iBooks as a quick access reference area. The PDF in question was our daughter’s latest travel and flight details and by putting it into iBooks my wife and I know where to find it.

 

[Aerofly]

An after- thought: why go to the trouble of putting it into iBooks, when File Browser will read it? Reason: I often use iBooks as a quick access reference area. The PDF in question was our daughter’s latest travel and flight details and by putting it into iBooks my wife and I know where to find it.

NSquirrel, if you have a file which you only intend to keep short term, as the travel details you quoted, why not put it temporarily in the “notes” app, which will then share across all of your devices?

 

[NSquirrel]

Thanks. Good suggestion Aerofly, but source doc is not received in a friendly Notes format (filled with mixed columns, foreign languages/ scripts . . .) so I find it easier just to go to PDF.

 

[twerppoet]

PDF’s can be saved in Notes; Though I’m not sure how you’d do that from the File Browser app, and can’t experiment since I don't have it.

Though if you can Print from the File Browser app, then that shouuld work for Notes just like ti does for iBooks.

And with iOS 11, you can actually choose which folder you save a new new note. Nice for keeping things organized.