Chapter 26. Reading Ebooks
For those who love to read, an iPad can become an indispensable device since you can cram thousands of different books into an iPad without the drawbacks of the physical weight or bulk of these books. With ebooks, you can read the latest best sellers, the best from classic literature, or anything in between.
To read ebooks on your iPad, you’ll need to download the free iBooks app from the App Store. After you install the iBooks app, you can start downloading and reading ebooks directly from Apple’s iBookstore.
In this chapter, you will learn how to read ebooks on your iPad.
Opening (and Closing) an Ebook
The iBooks app displays all your ebooks as books on a virtual shelf. If you start stuffing iBooks full of ebooks, you may need to scroll down to see the rest of your ebooks.
To open an ebook, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap iBooks. The iBooks screen appears, as shown in Figure 26-1.
Tap the Books or PDFs tab in the upper left corner of the screen.
Tap the image of the book that you want to read. Your chosen ebook opens with animation that mimics the opening of a real book.
Note
Your ebook opens to the last page you viewed before exiting the iBooks app.
Flip your iPad to view both landscape and portrait modes. In landscape mode, the ebook appears as two pages. In portrait mode, the ebook appears as one page, as shown in Figure 26-2. (PDF files only appear as a single page in both portrait and landscape mode.)
Tap the screen, and tap Library in the upper-left corner of the screen. The virtual bookshelf screen reappears. You can now choose another book to read.
Turning the Pages of an Ebook
In addition to the ability to jump to another page, iBooks gives you a way to view the table of contents and then return to the last page you were reading at the time.
Turning One Page at a Time
While reading an ebook, you’ll spend most of your time turning pages one at a time. If you want to turn to the next page, place your finger on the right margin and swipe your finger to the left. If you want to see the previous page, place your finger on the left margin and swipe your finger to the right. Either swiping motion curls the page as if you were turning a real book page, as shown in Figure 26-3.
You can also just tap the right margin (to view the next page) or the left margin (to view the previous page).
To turn pages when viewing a PDF file, just swipe your finger to the left (to view the next page) or to the right (to view the previous page).
Jumping to Specific Chapters
To jump to a particular chapter, you’ll need to view the table of contents and then tap the chapter you want to read. (These steps do not work when displaying PDF files.) To jump to a specific chapter in an ebook stored under the Books category, follow these steps:
While you’re reading a book in iBooks, a Table of Contents icon appears in the upper-left corner of the screen, as shown in Figure 26-4.
Tap the Table of Contents icon. The Table of Contents page appears, as shown in Figure 26-5.
Tap the chapter or section that you want to view. (If you tap the red Resume bookmark icon in the upper-right corner of the screen, you’ll see the last page you viewed before jumping to the Table of Contents page.)
Jumping to Any Page in an Ebook
Rather than turn pages one at a time or jump to specific chapters or sections in an ebook, you might just want to jump to any page in your ebook. To jump to any page in an ebook stored under the Books category, follow these steps:
While reading an ebook in iBooks, flip through several pages, and tap a page.
Notice that the bottom of the screen displays the current page number, the total number of pages in the ebook, and how many pages are left in that particular chapter. In addition, a line of dots appears at the bottom of the screen, which represents the pages of the ebook. A current page icon (it looks like a brown square over one of the dots) can show you the relative position of the currently displayed page compared to the total number of pages in the ebook, as shown in Figure 26-6.
Place your finger over the current page icon and slide it left or right over the row of dots. As you slide the current page icon, a pop-up appears, telling you the current chapter (or section) and page number.
Lift your finger off the screen to view a page. Your chosen page now appears.
Jumping to Any Page in a PDF File
When you’re reading a PDF file, you can jump to another page by following these steps:
While reading a PDF file in iBooks, tap the page. Controls appear at the top and bottom of the page as shown in Figure 26-7.
(Optional) Tap a thumbnail of a page at the bottom of the screen. Your chosen page appears.
(Optional) Tap the Display Thumbnails icon in the upper-left corner of the screen. Multiple pages appear in rows and columns on the screen, as shown in Figure 26-8. Tap the page you want to view, and that page appears on the screen.
Searching for Text
One huge advantage that ebooks have over paper books is the ability to search for specific text within the book.
To search for text in an ebook or PDF file, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap iBooks. The iBooks screen appears (shown earlier in Figure 26-1).
Tap the image of the book you want to read. Your chosen ebook opens with animation to mimic the opening of a real book.
Tap the Search icon (it looks like a magnifying glass that appears in the upper-right corner of the screen). A Search field appears along with a virtual keyboard, as shown in Figure 26-9.
Type the word or phrase you want to find, and tap the Search key on the virtual keyboard. A listing of where that text appears in the book is displayed, as shown in Figure 26-10. Scroll down to see more instances of your search term.
Scroll through this list, and tap the page that you want to view. Your chosen page appears with your word or phrase highlighted, as shown in Figure 26-11.
Using Bookmarks
With a paper book, it’s easy to stuff multiple bookmarks in various places in a book so you can find certain pages again. With an ebook, you can’t stuff a piece of paper in between its pages, but you can place multiple bookmarks on a page.
Creating a Bookmark
To create a bookmark, follow these steps:
While reading an ebook in iBooks, open to a page that you want to bookmark.
Tap the Bookmark icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. The Bookmark icon changes to red to show that you have placed a bookmark.
Jumping to and Deleting a Bookmark
After you have created one or more bookmarks, you can view and jump to them at any time or remove the bookmark altogether. To use and remove your bookmarks, follow these steps:
While using iBooks, tap the image of the book that you want to read that contains a bookmarked page. (If you want to find a bookmark in a PDF file, skip to step 5.)
For an ebook stored under the Books category, tap the Table of Contents icon that appears in the upper-left corner of the screen. The table of contents of your ebook appears.
Tap the Bookmarks button that appears at the top of your Table of Contents page. A list of bookmarked pages appears, as shown in Figure 26-12.
Tap the bookmarked page that you want to view. (If you tap the red Resume button in the top-right corner of the Table of Contents page, you can jump to the last page you viewed.) Your chosen bookmarked page appears.
(Optional) Tap the Display Thumbnails icon in the upper-left corner of the screen. All the pages of your PDF file appear in rows and columns. Scroll up or down, and then tap on the page that contains a red bookmark in the upper-right corner of the page, as shown in Figure 26-13.
(Optional) To delete a bookmark, jump to that bookmarked page, and then tap the red Bookmark icon in the upper-right corner of the page. When the Bookmark icon no longer displays red, then your bookmark no longer exists.
Making Ebooks Easier to Read
If you find that the text is hard to read with a paper book, you either have to buy a magnifying glass, get a special large-print version of the book, or just suffer and do nothing. Fortunately with ebooks, you can modify the text to make it more readable by adjusting the font size, font, and screen brightness.
Note
You cannot change the font or font size of a PDF file, but you can change the brightness of the screen.
To see how to change the font, font size, and screen brightness of an ebook, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap iBooks. The iBooks screen appears (shown earlier in Figure 26-1).
Tap the image of the book you want to read.
Flip to any page in the ebook. In the upper-right corner of the screen, the Brightness and Font icons appear, as shown in Figure 26-14. (If you do not see these icons, tap the screen until they appear.)
Tap the Brightness icon. A Brightness slider appears, as shown in Figure 26-15.
Slide the Brightness slider left and right to change the brightness of the screen.
Tap the Font icon. A Fonts menu appears, as shown in Figure 26-16.
Tap the Shrink icon (it looks like a small A) or Enlarge icon (it looks like a big A). Each time you tap the Shrink or Enlarge icon, the text in your ebook changes size.
Tap the Fonts button icon. A list of fonts appears, as shown in Figure 26-17.
Tap a different font such as Cochin or Verdana. Your entire ebook text changes to your chosen font.
Tap anywhere on the page to make the Font menu disappear.
Additional Ideas for Reading Ebooks
There’s a saying that goes, “Leaders are readers.” With iBooks, you can easily carry and read all types of books to help you become a better person, whether you want to read for work, pleasure, or education.
For those who purchased Amazon’s Kindle and bought Kindle books, download the free Kindle app for your iPad, and you can transfer all your Kindle books to read in the Kindle app. Now your investment in Kindle books won’t be a waste of money when you wind up carrying your iPad everywhere and leave your Kindle to collect dust in a closet somewhere.
As ebooks grow in popularity, you can expect to find more choices covering a wide variety of topics, so you should never run out of reading material, unless your iPad runs out of battery power first.