iBooks App Won't Show On PC

[sceadugenga]

I have iBooks on my IPad 3 and my PC insists it is on there but when I try to load eBooks from the PC by direct connection it does not show up in the Apps list.
iComics does and Kindle does but no iBooks.
I generally load books with DropBox, no problem with the smaller files but when you get a large .pdf book it can take forever and if the internet connection is poor, keep dropping out.

Any ideas how to get iBooks to showup with a convenient ADD button?

 

[sceadugenga]

I've still got this problem so I'm going to bump the topic.

 

[twerppoet]

I'm not sure how you are trying to get books on your iPad using the PC, but the normal method is to import the book into the iTunes library, and then sync. You can change the books sync section so that it only syncs selected books, or the entire library.

How are you trying to add books? Please be detailed. Maybe I can try to duplicate it and see what's going wrong.

 

[sceadugenga]

I usually add books by dropbox, up to about 20mb it's not a problem.
Bigger than that my internet connection isn't good enough.

Big files like .pdf and .cbr I can add to iComics and the Kindle app by hard wiring and by clicking on the app in itunes on my PC then clicking ADD which takes me to the PC file and I select and it's on in seconds.

There's no iBooks option for this.

I have half a dozen books in ePub format of between 50 and 100mb that I want in iBooks.
Sure, I can convert them to mobi or pdf and load them into my Kindle app, but I want them in iBooks and I want to do it using the same process.

I just tried syncing but I can't work it out.

Here's the screen shot, see... no ibooks

 

[twerppoet]

iBooks doesn't have the file sharing icon because you are supposed to load them into the iTunes library, and sync them. It's a lot like the Music app.

This may help: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4227

If you go this route, your best bet is to gather all the PDF files you want in iBooks and import them in iTunes. It will be far easier to do it this way than try to mix and match how you get the PDF files into iBooks. As a side benefit, you'll have all your PDF files backed up in iTunes on your computer.

Do this with all books that you have in iBooks that are not from the iBooks Store.

This may cause some disruption of your iBooks Store books. You can prevent this (probably) by using the Transfer Purchases option in iTunes Files > Devices menu.



The alternative is to use a different app for your PDF reading. There are several good ones, most with multiple ways to get PDF's into the app. The most common (that doesn't require the internet) is for the app to supply you with a URL to enter in your desktop's browser. You then copy files to the iPad using the browser.

Some good choices are PDF Expert and Documents, both by Readdle. The first has more tools for annotating and editing PDF files. The second will read a wider range of file types, including Word, Pages, and .txt files.

There are quite a few others, each with their own strengths.

Good luck.

 

[sceadugenga]

err... the files are epub, not pdf.
I'd rather not mess them around by converting them either.

 

[twerppoet]

err... the files are epub, not pdf.
I'd rather not mess them around by converting them either.

Sorry. I misread your post.

Same story though. You need to import the ePub files into the library and sync them. As you've already noted, there is no option to use File Sharing with iBooks.

The Documents app by Readdle will also read ePub files, but iBooks is better at it. There are other ePub apps out there, but I've never used them so I can't recommend any.

 

[sceadugenga]

Thanks for that, I'm a bit of at a loss with syncing but will give it another go.
I use Calibre for all book and document file conversions.

 

[twerppoet]

I used Calibre for a while, but these days I can almost always find what I want in either ePub or PDF. Or it's proprietary DRM (Kindle or iBooks), and I just read it in the app it's meant for.

I avoid PDF for books whenever possible, but manuals often have no other format options.

I do have some older .mobi books. Some ended up in the Kindle app. Other ended up in the Nook app when Barnes & Nobel absorbed eReader. They were nice enough to provide a migration path. I've been reading eBooks since my Palm III PDA.

Anyway, I rarely run into a new ebook that needs conversion these days, and all my older ones are already converted.

Addendum: I just spent a little time on the Calibre site, and it says it has a Connect to iTunes feature:

Connect to iTunes: Allows you to connect to your iTunes books database as though it were a device. Once the books are sent to iTunes, you can use iTunes to make them available to your various iDevices -- http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gui.html

While you'd still have to use sync to get them on your device, it might make it easier to migrate your book collection to iTunes; if they are all in the Calibre library.

Good luck, and please let us know how it goes.

 

[sceadugenga]

Thanks again for your help.

To be honest I'll probably have another try at syncing, give up and covert the files to mobi and read them in the Kindle app.
I've always struggled with the PC/iPad connection process, it seems to be a blind spot with me, the problem is I have this secret suspicion that my entire PC content will try to load uncontrollably onto my ipad causing chaos... LOL

I Googled some other online syncing advice as well as yours so who knows, I may be lucky this time.

I'd like to know why Apple decided to treat iBooks differently from the other apps but I probably never will.

 

[twerppoet]

Apple treats iBooks exactly the same way it does every app that ties into the iTunes store. It's the non-store apps and third party apps that get the second citizen treatment in the File Sharing section.

I know it's what you are used to using, but File Sharing is the after thought, not the syncing; which has been a part of iTunes from the begining; even before there were any apps.

That's not to say that syncing is a piece of cake. The entire iTunes app has has features bolted on until it's overly complicated. That's been alleviated a bit for Mac users, where Apple has spun the iBooks library into it's own computer app, but Windows users are still subject to the older way of doing things.