With the advent of iOS 4, the iPad, and iTunes 9.2, iTunes can now manage eBooks to sync with Apple’s iBooks app. iTunes accepts two types of book files: those in epub format and pdf files. However, organizing eBooks on iTunes can be a bit confusing. here’s a look at how you can keep your eBook library pristine.
first, you will see in itunes a library of books in the sidebar of the program. (if you don’t see it, choose itunes -> preferences, click the general icon and check the box next to books in the show section). this library, represented by a book icon, houses two types of files: audiobooks and ebooks.
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If you have both types of files, you’ll see them in separate sections when you click the book library icon in the default grid view: Books and Audiobooks. however, you can choose list view or cover flow if you want to display your books differently. (You can find more about these different viewpoints in another article I wrote.)
The grid view is useful because you can choose to sort your books in three ways: books, authors, or categories. the books button sorts by title, with the two types of files separated. the authors button sorts by author, but mixes ebooks and audiobooks. finally, the category button sorts by genre.
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Sort by author does what you’d expect: in the grid view, icons are displayed for each author, with a cover graphic for one of the titles. (Note that some of the books in my library shown above do not show covers; these are free public domain books downloaded from the iBookstore. You can add covers by selecting a book, pressing command-i, and then pasting a graphic: a book cover real, a photo, etc., in the illustration). move your cursor over the graph to see how it changes to show all covers “hidden” behind the author icon (if you have more than one book by one author). however, you may find some books that show the author as an unknown artist. To fix this, select a book, press command-i, click the info tab, then enter the author’s name in the artist field and click ok. (itunes has no author field).
When viewing the list of books in grid view, you can also choose how they are sorted. choose view -> sort the books and tell itunes to display the books in order by author, title, or year, as well as choose ascending or descending order. (there are other options too, but they’re grayed out, maybe they’ll be available later?) interestingly, while itunes correctly sorts my eBooks by authors’ last names, it sorts audiobooks by their first names.
If you double-click one of the author icons, the screen changes to a list view, with the book covers in the left column. you can see all the works you have by an author this way.
sorting by categories can be more confusing. Book genres, or categories, in Apple parlance, are relatively inconsistent on the iBookStore. in my library, for example, one of the categories is audiobooks; Although these are organized by author when you sort by author, iTunes does not reflect categories (or genres) in this view. second, three books appear with the words unknown genre (why not unknown category?). as above, for unknown artist, you can change this by pressing command-i and entering something in the genre field for each of the books. you can choose any genre you want, either one that already exists, or you can create your own.
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What’s more disturbing is the inconsistency of genres (er, I mean categories) in the iBookstore. In my library, I have the seven volumes of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. One shows as Epic, two others as Fantasy, four as Fiction & Literature, and one as Horror. You can, of course, change these, but if you use this view, you need to ensure that you tag your books correctly so you can find them when you double-click a category.
All of the above applies to epub books you buy from ibookstore, epub books you buy or get elsewhere and add to your itunes library, and pdf files you add to your itunes library. Please note that when you add pdf files, they are displayed by default in the book library. if you want them to show up somewhere else, choose a file, click i-command, click the options tab, and then choose one of the media type menu options. in most cases, you’ll want to choose book. but if you have a file that you prefer to store with an album in your music library, choose music and be sure to tag the file with the artist and album name. same goes for podcast and itunes u; you can store pdf files in those libraries by choosing one of those types of media types, but you’ll need to fill in other tags to order them correctly.
You can choose which books to sync by connecting an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch running iOS 4 and clicking the Books tab after selecting the device in the iTunes sidebar. choose to sync all books, or only selected books; in the latter case, check those books you want to copy to your device.
one final piece of advice. You may have some iTunes digital booklets that you got when buying albums from the iTunes store. these are stored with your music and tagged to stay with the albums they refer to. you can find them all and put them in your book library if you want. create a smart playlist where kind contains pdf. then select all files, press command-i, click the options tab, then choose book from the media type menu. then you can sync and view them on your iphone or ipad.
[Senior contributor kirk mcelhearn writes about more than just mac on his kirkville blog.]See Also: Keri Arthur – Book Series In Order