Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Books from the iBookstore are formatted as EPUB files, an open format
designed for electronic publishing by the International Digital Publishing
Forum. Titles from Project Gutenberg (
www.gutenberg.org)
are all EPUB
files, without Apple's DRM, and are available from other sources.
If you purchase or download an EPUB file, you can add the topic to your
iBooks library. In iTunes, drag the file to the Library section in the sidebar,
or to the iTunes application icon; you can also choose File > Add to Library
and locate the file. The topic is added to the iPad the next time you sync.
Creating Your Own EPUB Books
Writing a novel? Or perhaps you have an electronic book formatted
as a text-only file? With the assistance of a few utilities, you can
build your own EPUB files for viewing in iBooks (or any other reader
that accepts the format). Here are a few examples:
■
Calibre (calibre-ebook.com) is an application available for
Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux that accepts several text formats
and converts a document to an EPUB.
■
Storyist (storyist.com) for Mac OS X includes support for output-
ting EPUB files, including adding images.
■
Adobe InDesign (
www.adobe.com)
is the big gorilla in this zoo,
with support for creating Adobe Digital Editions as EPUB files.
■
Pages, from Apple's iWork (
www.apple.com/iwork/),
allows you to
export any document into the EPUB format for reading in iBooks.
■
Stanza Desktop (
www.lexcycle.com)
was designed to create EPUB
files for the universal Stanza iPad/iPhone app, but the files also
work in iBooks.
