This tutorial will guide you through the process of converting PDF files so that they can be read in iBooks, the iPad application.
Update: you can now read PDF files directly in iBooks, without having to convert them to .epub or any other format. See this tutorial for a quick overview of how to add PDF files to iBooks to read on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.
This tutorial will remain up just in case someone wants to create an .epub of their PDF.
iBooks uses an ebook format called ePub. Using a free converter application (and ebook manager) called calibre you can quickly convert PDF (and other file formats) to .epub files, which you can then transfer to your iPad for reading in iBooks. This tutorial will take you step by step through the entire process.
- Start out by finding a PDF you want to convert. In this example I used The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (which btw is free in the iTunes Book Store – but it’s a PDF I had handy, so that’s why I’m using it).
- Download and install calibre. It comes in versions for Windows, OS X and Linux. The interface is very slightly different in each version (not much). The screenshots in this tutorial are from the OS X version – but Windows users should have no problem at all following along.
- Once installed, open calibre. The first time you run calibre it will take you through a quick setup. The first thing you’ll want to do is specify your ‘ebooks’ folder. This is the location you’ll save your .epub files. Click the Change button.
- Select the folder you want to save all of your ePub files in.
- Back at the Welcome screen, click the Continue button.
- Select Apple from the Manufacturers list, and iPhone/iTouch + Stanza from the Devices list. Click Continue.
- You can ignore the information on this screen and click Continue. Or if you’re interested, give it a read. With that said, enabling Turn on the content server will not help us out.
- Now you’re at the main calibre interface. Click the Add books button in the top-left corner of the window.
- Navigate to a PDF file that you want to convert to an .epub file. Select it and click Open.
- Now click the small ‘arrow’ next to the Edit meta information and select Download metadata and cover files.
- calibre will now download additional information about your PDF/ebook – if it can find it. If it’s an eBook (as a .pdf), you may need to manually enter the book title and author name if it isn’t present when you load it into calibre initially.
- When it finds the additional meta data and a book cover, it will appear in the bottom pane of the calibre window.
- Now we’ll start the actual conversion process. Make sure your PDF file is selected in the main list of books, and then click the small arrow next to the Convert E-books button. From the list that will appear, select Convert individually
- You’ll be prompted with a “summary” window prior to calibre making the final conversion. Click the OK button.
- Depending on the size of your PDF/eBook the conversion process will vary. It took less than 10 seconds to convert my 200 page PDF. If you’re using a Mac and have growl installed, you’ll get a window notifying you that the conversion has finished.
- And now in the folder you specified way back in step #3 will contain an .epub version of your PDF. This is the file we’ll upload to your iPad.
- Connect your iPad to your Mac or PC, and launch iTunes. From the iTunes menu select File -> Add to Library…
- Navigate to your newly created .epub file, select it and click Choose.
- The new .epub file will now appear in the Books section of iTunes.
- If you sync all your Books to your iPad, select your iPad in iTunes and select the Books tab. After confirming your new .epub book is listed, click the Sync button.
- Now launch iBooks on your iPad. There it is! From PDF to ePub and into iBooks.
I tried calibre with a pdf file generated from inDesign with a 3 column layout. It made a complete mess out of it.
Hi, I’m very new to the iPad world so please be gentle lol
My question is this; will calibre convert my Sony ereader files to pub? I have a lot of books for my Sony ereader that I’d like to put on my iPad also!
thanks in advance
Does this same process apply to someone who has a Kobo Ereader. Without of course using the Itunes?
I am trying to convert a book I wrote into epub. It has a lot of photos and when I try to convert the PDF to e pub, it gets all the formatting wrong. How do I resolve this?
Mott – you don’t, really. Converting to epub is still pretty new (as epub didn’t become REALLY popular until iBooks/the iPad). Images in particular are generally not converted very well – the formatting will often change, very much for the worse. I expect more and more programs, both free and paid, to add features and really start to work on reliable and accurate PDF to EPUB software.
thanks for sharing this information, I have found it for a long time , as an ipad user , I was troubled in convert pdf files to epub format .
Have tried for 2 days (about 10 hours) a number of times to convert a PDF file (part of my self published book) to epub.
It didnt pick up the tabs, word wrap was shocking and now Ive given up and looking for an alternative.
Lionel – there’s some paid software out there that will probably do a better job. Since ePub has only recently become much more widely used (thanks Apple) – the conversion software is still a bit behind. I expect it will catch up/become much better in the near future.
Thanks for your comments, Ross. However, I also converted my sample into various other formats including RTF and text and tried to get Calibre to convert them into txt and Mobi (which Calibre claims it can do). Each resulted in the same hash. Yes, looks like it might be a case of “you only get what you pay for” – in this case, paid nothing (except for many hours of my time) and got nothing in return.
Fantastic!!!! Works like a dream thanks to your easy to follow instructions!
One thing you should know is that ePub totally hoses the formatting of anything written in a different format. So if their are any graphics with the text, they will be somewhere other than where they started.
Why Apple selected such a horrible format for the iPad is a mystery. It’s one more reason I don’t have an iPad and have not permitted anything I write to be on that device.
If you don’t believe this, convert anything you have in any format to ePub and see what happens to the format.
Is there a way to convert epub to pdf?
Thanks for the guide! It was very helpful, while I don’t mind the pdf’s, it drives me nuts that there are, more often than not, no book covers, and it takes forever to find the book I want. There are also features in iBooks that can not be used on the pdf’s. All in all, worth the few minutes it takes to convert.
I do have a question though, once the file is converted, it creates many sub files such as the cover.jpg etc. Can I delete those now?
Fantastic! Thanks for the guide. Really helpful! I really love the way how it converted the PDF document I downloaded from the web with almost total fidelity. The ability to synchronise to my iPhone through iTunes is totally perfect. Everything including the book cover converted and synchronised without a single problem.
I really love my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro. They’re really fantastic at what they do. The main advantage as I see it of converting a PDF document into ePUB format is the ability to adjust font sizes in iBooks on the fly. This plus the easily readability of the book is a total win for Calibre.
thank you. This worked perfectly to get my microsoft word converted to PDF document on my ipad 2.
thanks dude…….i worked
thanks dude….
Nice small program I tried it for a pdf files and did the job!!!
This instruction does exactly what it says it does. It does cover a PDF into a EPUB file so that the iPad can read it. However, one thing all people needs to know is that once the PDF is converted, it will not hold on to its original design. All the font style will be stripped and the images will be moved base on the order of information. If you just want to “READ” the text as information do this process. If you are expecting to maintain the nice design of the PDF avoid this process because you’ll be wasting your time.
Wow, this program rocks. it works like a charm. i have converted a lot of PDF documents into epub, and they are read great on my iPad 2. Thanks for sharing such a great tip. Nice work.
Calibre’s useless. I just attempted to create an ebook out of a story I wrote using an HTML file as it recommends, and all the quotation marks disappeared. I mean, how am I supposed to put an ebook out there in which no one knows what’s dialogue and what isn’t, huh?
at the moment İ am using another computer which İ cannot sync with my ipad.İs it possible to send epub files as an attachement to my mail so that İ can open it in my ipad rather than sycncronising thanks