iBook Development

[AQ_OC]

I would like to develop some content for iBooks targeted for use on the iPad.

Anyone doing this? I understand you need iAuthor and to run that you need some kind of Mac PC. I'm a strong Wintel guy and have nothing beyond iDevices on the Apple side.

What is the minimum hardware I need to run iAuthor and write for iBooks?

Mac Mini? 4GB, i3?

I really would not like to spend a lot for this as I really don't need another PC (laptops included).

Thanks.

 

[AQ_OC]

Seem as if I like to ask question for which no one has opinions? I can't be the only one here thinking of creating content for iPad.

 

[Rends]

iBook Author needs MacOSX Lion. Snow Leopard isn´t supported.

MacMini with MacOSX Lion is all what you need.
I have a 2009 MacMini with 2GB RAM and a nvidia9400 graphic. To use Lion i suggest to upgrade to 4GB RAM.

 

[AQ_OC]

iBook Author needs MacOSX Lion. Snow Leopard isn´t supported.

MacMini with MacOSX Lion is all what you need.
I have a 2009 MacMini with 2GB RAM and a nvidia9400 graphic. To use Lion i suggest to upgrade to 4GB RAM.

Thanks.

 

[twerppoet]

iBooks Author is nice enough, but it is not necessary (or necesarily the Best way) to make a book for iBooks.

iBooks supports standar ePub books. Just about any tool that will let you create an ePub is going to work. Off course a good tool that specifically says it optimizes for iBooks would be best. No, sorry, I don't know what tools those would be.

iBooks Author extends the ePub stanard in a way that makes the book compatible only with iBooks. As a trade off you get the ability to add some extras not possible in a standard ePub. Because it was intended for the creation of text books, it is best suited for creating highly structured books with multimedia content. If you are looking at creating a novel or other other conventional ebook, iBook Author can actually get in the way.

That is about all the advice I can add. I've played a bit with iBook Author, but not with any other tool.

 

[AQ_OC]

iBooks Author is nice enough, but it is not necessary (or necesarily the Best way) to make a book for iBooks.

iBooks supports standar ePub books. Just about any tool that will let you create an ePub is going to work. Off course a good tool that specifically says it optimizes for iBooks would be best. No, sorry, I don't know what tools those would be.

iBooks Author extends the ePub stanard in a way that makes the book compatible only with iBooks. As a trade off you get the ability to add some extras not possible in a standard ePub. Because it was intended for the creation of text books, it is best suited for creating highly structured books with multimedia content. If you are looking at creating a novel or other other conventional ebook, iBook Author can actually get in the way.

That is about all the advice I can add. I've played a bit with iBook Author, but not with any other tool.

Thanks. I do want to include multimedia elements so it sound as if iBooks Author is exactly what I need. I just wish it were available on windows. Oh well.

 

[twerppoet]

There is the ability to add limited multimedia content to a standard ePub. Nothing too fancy, but video and audio are possible. There are at least a couple of books in the store that do this.

I still can't recommend any tools. Sorry.

To get an idea of what iBooks Author will do, and how the book will be organized go to the new Text Book category and download one of the free books. They are big, really big, so it will take a while.

 

[twerppoet]

O'Reilly just published a new book on how to use iBooks Author. It called Publishing with iBooks Author, and it is free in the iBooks Store.

That will do more to answer your questions about the tool than I can.

 

[AQ_OC]

O'Reilly just published a new book on how to use iBooks Author. It called Publishing with iBooks Author, and it is free in the iBooks Store.

That will do more to answer your questions about the tool than I can.

Thank you, kind sir!

 

[twerppoet]

You're welcome.

 

[cryaway]

Hi. I recently made a book using ibooks author. I used a macbook air. I'm pretty sure you do need a mac to get ibooks author. The program is free though. If you want to look at what I made, it's called: CRY by Salman Shariff.

 

[AQ_OC]

Hi. I recently made a book using ibooks author. I used a macbook air. I'm pretty sure you do need a mac to get ibooks author. The program is free though. If you want to look at what I made, it's called: CRY by Salman Shariff.

It is a very nice looking book, indeed. I wish it were free.

 

[drathbun]

I just finished editing two of my textbooks into iBook (epub) format that can be read on the iphone, ipod or ipad. I used Adobe InDesign CS5 to edit the texts. This YouTube video was really really helpful in getting my book formatted correctly for iBooks.

I had created the bigger of my two textbooks in InDesign to begin with and so converting it for epub was not too difficult. My smaller text had been written quite a few years ago and I didn't even have an electronic version of it. So I scanned the pages at my office with our office copier which converted the document to PDF and emailed it to me. I then used Adobe Acrobat's OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature to turn the scan into text. After some edits, I copied the text out to a text file and then copied and pasted it into a new InDesign book, added my graphics, and in no time had an epub which I can read on iBooks.

My students can now get my textbooks at a fraction of the published cost at the bookstore.

 

[AQ_OC]

Thanks for the additional info, drathbun. What is the cost of InDesign? I see it writes to the ebook format, so this lets you avoid using iBook and having the restrictions that Apple places on work created in iBooks Author. I want to consider other options beyond Author, so your post is useful to me.

 

[drathbun]

InDesign CS6 is currently $699, but I have it as part of the Creative Suite which my work purchased for my office computer (educational license). The student/teacher version of the Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat X Pro, Bridge, Media Encoder) is $349.