Got iBooks for my iPad but where is the icon? How do I get some content to it?

[bob12603]

I got iBooks for my iPad. Very shortly after going through the download process (on my laptop) the iPad made a sound - I think indicating that the app was indeed on it. And if I look in "App Store" iBooks is certainly there. But outside of "App Store" there is no indication on the iPad that it exists.

Is this because I have not yet managed to get any content downloaded for it? I've tried to do that but have thus far been unable. I have to use iTunes for that, right? But the iTunes help is not clear about whether it will work at all. I just want to download one pdf file, it happens to contain sheetmusic, to see how iBooks handles sheetmusic. So I think that I want to manually "sync" something. The iTunes help says what kinds of files you can and cannot manually sync but doesn't identify the files by file types and doesn't indicate one way or the other, in what I've read so far, whether you can download a pdf file.

I read a post which said that you have to use iTunes File>Add File to Library. I went through that dialog, but after I selected the file the dialog just ended. As if it had done everything it was going to do. But it had never given me a change to say the the file was destined for iBooks.

Where's the iBooks icon? How do I get some pdfs downloaded to it? I have Dropbox on the iPad and it contains many of my sheetmusic pdfs. Is there some way Dropbox can provide one of the pdfs to iBooks?

Thanks, Bob

 

[bob12603]

I guess this is resolved, but I have little confidence that I will not have very similar problems in the future. I had Apple Support on the phone for at least 40 minutes.

The first problem was that when I thought I was getting iBooks (via iTunes on my Windows laptop), the laptop was unable to put iBooks on the iPad because the iPad was not connected to the laptop. That might sound pretty stupid on my part, but, if I am recalling correctly, when I order (using my laptop) a book for my Kindle the book gets there (via my home Wi-Fi) without any connection between the laptop and the Kindle. And the iPad did understand that I had gotten iBooks. It was in the "App Store" on the iPad! But hadn't actually been downloaded and installed. There were several steps involved after connecting the iPad to my laptop before iBooks was fully installed and operational on the iPad but I cannot now recall what they were. (It was so much easier to get the Drobox app onto the iPad!)

If anything it was even more challenging to get a PDF file to the iPad for iBooks to consume. The guy I was talking to at Apple Support was apparently not familiar with the level of iBooks I have on the iPad nor the level of iTunes I have on my laptop. Again I cannot recall the sequence of steps required to move a PDF from my laptop to iBooks on the iPad.

Bob

 

[twerppoet]

Easiest: If you've purchased a book in iTunes on the computer, you can go to the iBooks Store (inside the iBooks app), go to the purchased tab and download your book from there. That's not terribly different from the Kindle app, where you can see and choose to download all your books.

Most control: A PDF can by added to iTunes on the computer and synced. You need to connect the iPad, select it in iTunes, then go to the Books section to set up what does and does not sync; then sync. This is also where you set up syncing for your iBooks purchases.

Quick for small files: You can email the PDF to yourself. When it arrives in the Mail app on the iPad, tap and hold on the attachment to get the options to open the PDF in iBooks, another compatible app, and a few other things.

Hold in mind that when you add a PDF directly to iBooks rather than syncing with iTunes on the computer there is no backup, nor will iBooks sync that PDF back to iTunes latter; so if it's important also store a copy somewhere on the computer.

I recommend you practice practice finding and downloading a book directly on the iPad. Go to the iBooks Store by tapping the Store button at the top left in the iBooks app. Search for the iPad User Guide for iOS 6. Download it. It's free.