iBooks and PDF files - Clarification needed

[doge1555]

From the video of the keynote, it's not clear if in the new iBooks app you can highlight, annotate and bookmark also pdf files. Steve Jobs shows the new features only on Winnie The Pooh ebook, but just browses the pdf file without modifying it. Do you think that ibooks will allow the same functionality on both formats?

Does anybody know if there is an app that allows to handwrite over a pdf? That would be a killer app for all people that have to read and annotate a lot of articles.

That would be the main reason to buy an iPad for thousands, if not millions, of professionals.

 

[shadowness]

As far as I can understand PDF functionality will be more like image viewing or like mail app's preview function. If you sae the demo you can see the thumbnails of the pages at the bottom like in the photo app.

But we got to wait till the new version of iBook is available. Till then whatever we discuss will be mostly guesswork!

So till ibooks is available for me at least good reader is the best option.

 

[thewiccaman]

As far as I can understand PDF functionality will be more like image viewing or like mail app's preview function. If you sae the demo you can see the thumbnails of the pages at the bottom like in the photo app.

But we got to wait till the new version of iBook is available. Till then whatever we discuss will be mostly guesswork!

So till ibooks is available for me at least good reader is the best option.

Absolutely @shadowness; speculation won't answer the question. FWIW, GoodReader will continue to serve as my PDF reader of choice even after the update to iBooks as I can d/l those PDFs I want to read as I need them direct from iDisk and delete them afterwards so they're not hogging space on my iPad!

 

[caubeck]

Does anybody know if there is an app that allows to handwrite over a pdf? That would be a killer app for all people that have to read and annotate a lot of articles.

That would be the main reason to buy an iPad for thousands, if not millions, of professionals.

Handwrite on a PDF? Like with PaperPad (saves annotations to view them outside the app) or iAnnotate (in-app annotations only, I think)?

 

[doge1555]

Thanks for all the useful information.
I'll try iannotate. and wait for the new ibooks.

 

[masa.]

no PDF annotation in iBooks...

Looks like you cannot annotate/add notes to a PDF file within iBooks, while search does work for PDFs.

 

[phoneXcessories]

How do you import your PDF files into the iBooks Library?

 

[thewiccaman]

Adding PDF to iBooks

How do you import your PDF files into the iBooks Library?

Exactly the same way as you add epub books you may have already: drag the file into your iTunes library & they'll appear in 'books'. You can then sync the PDF to your iPhone/iPad. They appear in a separate section on your bookshelf.

As others have said, functionality is limited to viewing only.

The best PDF reader is still GoodReader (iPhone) in my opinion (iPad version here).

 

[Bufordt]

Pdf

You can also use this to transform your pdf file into a book that can be added to ibooks and it shows up as a book. Add a cover and it looks just like a book.

http://calibre-ebook.com/about

 

[phoneXcessories]

Exactly the same way as you add epub books you may have already: drag the file into your iTunes library & they'll appear in 'books'. You can then sync the PDF to your iPhone/iPad. They appear in a separate section on your bookshelf.

As others have said, functionality is limited to viewing only.

The best PDF reader is still GoodReader (iPhone) in my opinion (iPad version here).

Yeah I use GoodReader quite often but I don't like the PDF viewing aspect of the application. I actually prefer viewing PDFs through Mail but wanted to give iBooks a shot.

 

[jtara]

The PDF capability is pretty poor. For one, no real table of contents support. When you tap the contents button, you just get a thumbnail gallery of page images. Not very practical for a 500-page book! You have to navigate to the books's actual table of contents using the thumbnails first, then you can select from the "printed" TOC. I guess it would make sense to immediately bookmark the TOC for each new book and then it's not totally awful.

 

[HappyDude20]

You can also use this to transform your pdf file into a book that can be added to ibooks and it shows up as a book. Add a cover and it looks just like a book.

http://calibre-ebook.com/about

How long does it take for one PDF file to convert to epub with calibre?

 

[jtara]

How long does it take for one PDF file to convert to epub with calibre?

Not long at all. But conversion is poor, at least in my experience.

I tried to convert Apple's Objective-C references, for example. I got doubled-pages, and line breaks in inappropriate places. (A line and a half of text, a line break, a line and a half of text...) You might be able to fiddle with Calibre's extensive settings to fix this. I don't have the patience.

As well, Calibre doesn't directly support iPad yet. You have to choose the "Illiad" device. I'd imagine there might be subtle differences there as well.

And PDFs are awkward, for the reasons I stated above. Of course, you also have to scroll-around on the page, if they are big pages. I find PDFs work best for product manuals, which tend to use a smaller page format.