This brief tutorial will show you how to add PDF files to iBooks so that you can read them on your iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone.
Note: there’s also a nifty way to use Dropbox to add PDF files to iBooks – but if it’s a large PDF file, you’ll probably want to stick with the method outlined below.
- First up – we’re going to make the assumption that you have iBooks installed on your iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone. If you don’t, click here to install it.
- Now open up iTunes. Select File -> Add to Library….
- Navigate to the PDF file(s) you want to add to iBooks. You can select more than one file, or select an entire folder. Once you’ve made your selection, click Choose.
- Now select Books from your iTunes Library. You should see the PDF file(s) that you just added, now listed.
- Right-click (ctrl+click for single-button Mac folks) on the newly added PDF and select Get Info.
- First select the Options tab. Make sure that the Media Kind: is set to Book.
- Now select the Info tab. From here you can add any missing info – the authors name, the published year etc. When you’re done, click OK.
- Almost done. Now select your iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone from the Devices list in iTunes. Select the Books tab from the list at the top. Make sure that Sync Books is checked. If you want to sync all of the books you’ve added to iTunes, select All Books and then click the Sync button. If you want to only sync specific books, choose Selected Books and then place a check next to each of the books you want to sync (and then click the Sync button).
- Now open iBooks. You’ll see a PDFs button at the top. Tap it.
- You’ll be presented with a list of all the PDFs you added via iTunes. Tap one of them..
- and it will open in iBooks. At any point in time you can tap the screen and a menu will appear at the top. From here you can change the displays brightness, search the PDF, bookmark a page etc.
- That’s it – you’re done!
I can’t get the PDF files to show up in the ipad Books tab for sync. iTunes seems to know they are books, marked etc, but for some reason the sync processes ignores them.
Meggeler – are you using iTunes 9.2 and iBooks 1.1? You’ll need to make sure both are totally up to date.
Sorry, my fault – didn’t get the the new version of iBook. Works now.
Hey none of my books are showing up in iBooks.
yes i hav iTunes 9.2
and iBooks 1.1
Thanks! a great guide!
@Sun876 – is there a PDF tab in iBooks at all?
noo there is no PDF tab, theres jst the Edit Store tabs on top… thats it :S
I second the above two comments, pdf may be for ipad only. I have iphone and there r no pdf files there but itunes shows books in my memory. I have followed all the steeps u said exactly. But y no pdf tab?!!
Nomi –
If you look at the screenshots at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibooks/id364709193?mt=8 you’ll see that they were taken using an iPhone (notice the 3G in the corner etc). You may need to check for updates to make sure you do have the very latest version of iBooks, which came out yesterday.
Nomi – it takes my 2gen iPod Touch to finally show the pdfs. My iPad is at lest 2x quicker
Tanx … a lot
Thnx Every1, Although I followed all the steps correctly, turns out problem was with my jailbreak! Now a new version is released redsn0w-0.9.5b5-4 which has fixed my problem. CIao
If you are having the iBooks PDF problem it is probably due to jailbreak. Fix here http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/722633863/all-four-one
Can you do the opposite? On the iPad save a PDF opened from a web page to iBooks, to be synced to your PC later?
Don – Assuming you have iTunes set to sync all your books, yes, a PDF file added to iBooks via Safari or an email etc, will be transferred to your PC/Mac the next time you sync.
Thank!! A well written tutorial!!! It was a bit of a pain for the first one, with so many stepd. But the second one took a matter of seconds.
hey i’ve followed your steps but when i click sync books it warns me that all my songs and movies will be deleted. Is there anyway i can sync my pdfs without deleting everything else?
oh nevermind i fixed it
thanks for the tutorial!
THANKS! Very Helpful!!!!
Thanks excellent tutorial – works great as long as you don’t create any custom genres for your PDFs. Once I categorised my PDFs into a pre-existing genre, they magically appeared (after a few seconds delay.)
Thanks, for your helpful tutorial. All of my movies, music, audiobooks and TV shows have now been removed from my iPhone. There’s hours of work that I have to look forward to.
hi,
I read your description and it seems to be a good one. However, I have a little problem. I’m a windows user, and when I look at my iTunes library, it only contains:
music, movies, tv shows, apps & podcasts, and not books. Do you have an idea on how to include the section books to my iTunes library.
Brilliant thanks for the info, worked a treat.
1. I follow all the steps and still can’t see my pdf files in ibook on my ipod touch 3rd (gen with latest software), though I can see my pdf books under “books” icon in my itunes; Is books in itunes different than ibooks in ipod’s application?
2. In my ipod touch 3rd, I cannot see “books” icon in the home page. I can only access ibook from applications, which means I will need to use wifi to connect it. Can’t I download free books to my ipod touch if the book is free and read it offline?
3. My ipod touch doesn’t connect my home wifi even after I gives password for wifi. Don’t know what to do now.
Can anyone help? thank you.
sorry, i was wrong. i can read ibook samples from ipod touch when I am off line and the ibook icon is shown on my ipod. But I still can’t import my own pdf files from my itunes into my ipod. i don’t know where went wrong.
a very much thank you
great work, nice and simple
@Jasperv: To add “Books” to your library, open iTunes, select Edit > Preferences, then in the General tab, check “Books” and click Ok. It will now show up in the Library pane.
Thanks alot bro … really great tips !!
nice and simple for a new too iphone person. thanks
Great instructions. Thank you for writing this up; it worked like a charm!
Thank you for this information – this is very valuable; just got my iPad and I have a lot of PDFs so knowing this process is very helpful.
Thanks for the post it was very helpful, I have got my PDF’s on my IPAD now.
Thank you so much for your help! I’ve been trying all day to get Stanza to work on my phone and toyed around with other readers in the process. I finally downloaded ibooks but worried about converting my pdf files. Thanks to your tutorial, I had them on my itouch in minutes.
man you have saved my life… i’ve been trying all my best to put my pdf files into ibooks for past 1 month but no use.. its was so easy the way u told… thanks alot.. dude..
Thank You. It worked.
Thanks, this was very helpful!
Thanks a lot
i find it difficult to understand that such an advanced company as apple needs to do the transfer between systems this difficult. it is stone age
Yeah… it works
This totally worked and your steps were detailed and clearly explained – thank you so much!!!
I put some pdf’s into my iphone 4 library, which is great. I put them in via email, now I would like to email one of them from my iphone 4 to someone, is it possible to email a pdf from my iphone?
This works like a charm! Thanks so much for sharing such a useful tutorial.
This is great. I get a lot of PDF’s to review for work. But when I open a PDF(email attachment), I can’t see any of the check boxes! Any suggestions?
Super help! Clear and accurate. Thanks!