You can think of your iPad as an independent computer, but it's really an extension of a desktop or laptop computer. Since you probably already have important data stored on another computer, you need to learn how to transfer files to your iPad so you can use those files wherever you go.
To transfer files from your computer to your iPad, you'll need to use the iTunes program. Every Mac comes with iTunes, but if you have a Windows computer, you'll need to download and install iTunes directly from the Apple website (http://www.apple.com/itunes/).
Before you can transfer files to your iPad from your computer, you must store those files in the iTunes program on your computer. You can buy music and movies directly from iTunes on your computer, or you can get them from another source. For example, you can get a copy of an audio file from a friend or download it from another source, such as Amazon.com. Most people capture photographs using a digital camera or a mobile phone, which they can then transfer to their computer.
Note
You can also buy and download songs directly to your iPad using the iTunes app on your iPad. In most cases, movies and TV shows are too big to download directly to your iPad, so you'll first need to download them on your computer and then transfer them to your iPad from the iTunes program on your computer, like you're doing in this section.
No matter where you get your photo, audio, ebook, and video files, you must make sure that any files you import into iTunes are stored in file formats that iTunes (and your iPad) can recognize. Table 16-1 lists the most popular file formats that iTunes supports for each type of file.
Note
To convert files into one of the file formats recognized by the iPad, you may need a special file conversion program, such as Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) or Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/). Programs such as iPhoto or Photoshop Elements can convert graphic images to a compatible file format for your iPad. Programs such as iMovie and Premiere Elements can convert video to different video formats as well. Flip ahead to “Converting Files to EPUB Format” on page 130 for hints on converting ebooks.
To import an audio, video, or ebook file into the iTunes program on your computer, follow these steps:
Run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose File ▸ Add to Library (Mac OS X) or File ▸ Add File to Library (Windows). An Add to Library dialog appears.
Click the file that you want to import into iTunes, and click Choose (or Open). Your chosen file gets loaded into iTunes. Depending on the type of file you chose, your file may appear in a different iTunes category, such as Music or Movies.
Note
Alternatively, you can simply drag your files from Finder or Windows Explorer into iTunes. With photos, you don't need to import them directly into iTunes. Instead, you can store them in iPhoto (on a Mac) or in any folder.
The most common type of audio files you can store in iTunes and transfer to your iPad are songs, audio lectures, and voice memos (which are typically recorded from an iPhone). You'll probably find the bulk of your audio files stored in the Music category.
To transfer music and other audio files to your iPad, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer using the USB cable that came with your iPad.
Run the iTunes program on your computer.
Click the name of your iPad in the Devices category in the left pane of the iTunes window.
Click the Music tab to view the options for synchronizing audio files to your iPad, as shown in Figure 16-1.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync Music checkbox.
Click the Entire music library or Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres radio button. If you choose Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres, you'll see additional checkboxes for selecting all your playlists, artists, albums, or genres stored in iTunes.
(Optional) Click any additional checkboxes to select specific playlists, artists, albums, or genres.
(Optional) Select (or clear) the Include music videos checkbox.
(Optional) Select (or clear) the Include voice memos checkbox.
(Optional) Select (or clear) the Automatically fill free space with songs checkbox. This option analyzes the songs you've selected and tries to guess similar songs that you did not select to be transferred to your iPad. Then it stores these additional songs on your iPad, filling up the remaining storage space.
Click Apply. The Sync button appears.
Click Sync (if your iPad doesn't start synchronizing automatically).
Podcasts can consist of multiple episodes; some podcasts are audio only, while others are video. Since it's possible to download podcasts directly to your iPad and your computer, it's possible that you could download a podcast episode to your iPad and a newer episode of that same podcast on your computer. When you connect your iPad to your computer, iTunes is smart enough to synchronize the different podcast episodes together so both your computer and your iPad contain identical podcast episodes.
When synchronizing podcasts, you need to choose not only which podcasts to transfer but also which episodes of that podcast to synchronize. You can select individual episodes, or you can automatically sync episodes based on criteria, such as all unplayed episodes or only the most recent episodes.
To synchronize podcasts with your iPad, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer with the USB cable, and run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose your iPad in the sidebar, and then click the Podcasts tab. The Podcasts screen appears, as shown in Figure 16-2.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync Podcasts checkbox. If you uncheck the Sync Podcasts checkbox, you won't be able to choose any other options. If you check the Sync Podcasts checkbox, you'll be able to select which podcasts and which episodes to transfer.
(Optional) Check the Automatically include checkbox, and select an option in the pop-up menu to choose the podcasts to transfer, such as all unplayed podcasts or the most recent podcasts. Then select an option in the episodes of pop-up menu to transfer all podcasts or selected podcasts. If the Automatically include checkbox is unchecked, you can click each podcast and individually select episodes from each podcast.
(Optional) Click Sync to start transferring your selected podcasts to your iPad.
To transfer movies and TV shows to your iPad, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer with the USB cable, and run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose your iPad in the sidebar, and then click the Movies tab. A list of your stored movies appears, as shown in Figure 16-3.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync Movies checkbox.
(Optional) Check the Automatically include checkbox, and select an option in the pop-up menu to choose movies based on how many recent or unwatched movies you want to transfer, as shown in Figure 16-4. If the Automatically include checkbox is unchecked, icons representing all your movies appear, letting you select individual movies.
Click Apply to start transferring your selected movies to your iPad.
Click the TV Shows tab. The TV Shows screen appears, as shown in Figure 16-5.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync TV Shows checkbox. If you clear the Sync TV Shows checkbox, you won't be able to choose any other options. If you select the Sync TV Shows checkbox, you'll be able to select which TV shows and which episodes to transfer.
(Optional) Check the Automatically include checkbox, and select an option like all unwatched in the first pop-up menu. Then choose all shows or selected shows in the episodes of second pop-up menu.
(Optional) If the Automatically include checkbox is clear, you can click each TV show and individually select episodes from that show.
Click Apply to start transferring your selected TV shows to your iPad.
The iPad can take pictures on its own, but you can transfer the digital photos you've already taken onto your iPad, too. Synchronizing your photos between your iPad and your computer also gives you a backup of any photos taken with your iPad.
To synchronize photos, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer with the USB cable, and run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose your iPad in the sidebar, and then click the Photos tab. The Photos screen appears, as shown in Figure 16-6.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync Photos from checkbox.
Click the Sync Photos from pop-up menu, and choose a program to synchronize your photographs (such as iPhoto or Photoshop Elements) or a folder where you store your photographs on your computer (such as the Pictures folder).
Click the All photos, albums, events, and faces or Selected albums, events, and faces radio button. (If you click the Selected albums, events, and faces radio button, you can check the checkboxes of different albums.)
(Optional) Check the checkboxes of individual photo albums that you want to synchronize with your iPad.
Click Apply.
To read ebooks on your iPad, you need to install the free iBooks app, which you can download from the App Store. The iBooks app can display ebooks stored in the EPUB, iBooks, or PDF file formats. To install the iBooks app, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap App Store. The App Store screen appears.
Tap in the Search field in the upper-right corner of the screen. The virtual keyboard appears at the bottom of the screen.
Type iBooks, and tap Search. The iBooks icon appears on the screen.
Tap FREE next to the iBooks app. The FREE button turns into an INSTALL APP button. (If you see the word INSTALLED next to the iBooks icon, that means you already have iBooks installed on your iPad.)
Tap INSTALL APP. A dialog may appear, asking that you type your iTunes account password. After you type your password, the iPad downloads and installs the iBooks app.
If you already have an audiobook or ebook stored on your computer, you just need to import it into iTunes, just like you would a song or video. To import a file into iTunes, follow these steps:
Run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose File ▸ Add to Library (Mac OS X) or File ▸ Add File to Library (Windows). An Add to Library dialog appears.
Click the file that you want to import into iTunes, and click Choose (or Open). Your chosen file gets loaded into the Books library in iTunes.
Note
Alternatively, you can simply drag your files from Finder or Windows Explorer directly into iTunes.
Once you have some ebooks or audiobooks in iTunes on your computer, you can transfer them to your iPad. To transfer your files, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer using the USB cable, and run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose your iPad in the sidebar, and then click the Books tab. The Books screen appears, as shown in Figure 16-7.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync Books checkbox.
Click the All books or Selected books radio button. (Choosing the Selected books radio button allows you to select EPUB, iBooks, and PDF books individually.)
(Optional) Click the pop-up menu under the Books heading and choose Books and PDF files, Only Books, or Only PDF files.
(Optional) Click the second pop-up menu and choose Sort by Title or Sort by Author.
(Optional) If you chose the Selected books radio button, check the checkboxes of the books you want to transfer.
(Optional) Check (or uncheck) the Sync Audiobooks checkbox, and click the All audiobooks or Selected audiobooks radio button. (If you choose the Selected audiobooks radio button, you'll be able to select audiobooks individually.)
Click Apply to start synchronizing your EPUB, iBooks, and PDF files and audiobooks with your iPad.
If you have non-EPUB or non-PDF documents (such as Microsoft Word .doc/.docx files) that you want to store on your iPad, you have several choices. You can use the iWork app to open and view these files, or you can convert the file to the EPUB file format. Some websites that offer free EPUB conversion are 2ePub (http://www.2epub.com/), Epub2Go (http://www.epub2go.com/), and ePubConverter.org (http://www.epubconverter.org/).
Note
Converting any file into another file format, such as a Microsoft Word file into the EPUB file format, may not always be accurate. This could mean text is formatted incorrectly or pictures may be missing.
If you'd rather not hassle with converting files, you can download free EPUB books from sites such as ePubBooks.com (http://www.epubbooks.com/), Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/), and Google Books (http://books.google.com/). Many classic books are freely available for download because they are in the public domain.
Rather than convert files to EPUB format, you might find it easier to convert files to a PDF file instead. On a Mac, you can choose the Print command to convert any file (such as a word processor or spreadsheet file) into a PDF file. On a Windows PC, you may need to use PDF creation software, such as Adobe Acrobat, to convert files to PDF.
Note
If your .doc or .docx file is small enough, you can also just email it to yourself and open the attachment in the Mail app.
If you're ready to learn how to read ebooks and navigate the iBooks app, flip ahead to Chapter 20.
On the iPad, contact information gets stored in the Contacts app. If you're using a Mac, this information is probably already stored in your Address Book program. If you're using a Windows computer, this contact information is likely in Microsoft Outlook or Windows Live Mail.
In addition, you can also store and synchronize contact information that you may have saved in Google Contacts or Yahoo! Address Book. Syncing means that any new contact you add to your address book of choice will automatically appear in your iPad (and vice versa).
To synchronize your contact information, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer using the USB cable, and run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose your iPad in the sidebar, and then click the Info tab. The Info screen appears.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync Address Book Contacts checkbox, as shown in Figure 16-8.
Click the All contacts or Selected groups radio button. (If you click the Selected groups radio button, you can check the checkboxes of different contact groups you may have created on your computer.)
(Optional) Check the Add contacts created outside of groups on this iPad checkbox. Then use the pop-up menu to define which group to store these contacts in.
(Optional) Check the Sync Yahoo! Address Book contacts checkbox. Then click Configure.
(Optional) Check the Sync Google Contacts checkbox. Then click Configure.
Click Apply.
Appointments can help keep you on schedule so you know where you have to be and when. On the iPad, all this information is stored in the Calendar app. If you're using a Mac, this information is synchronized into your iCal program. If you're using a Windows computer, this contact information is synchronized into Microsoft Outlook.
Note
If you're synchronizing appointments between your iPad and your computer through iCloud or an email provider like Gmail, then you don't need to manually synchronize appointments through iTunes, so you can skip these steps.
To synchronize appointments, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer using the USB cable, and run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose your iPad in the sidebar, and then click the Info tab. The Info screen appears.
Check (or uncheck) the Sync iCal Calendars checkbox.
Click the All calendars or Selected calendars radio button. (If you click the Selected calendars radio button, you can check the checkboxes of different calendars, such as Home or Work.)
(Optional) Check (or uncheck) the Do not sync events older than checkbox. Then click in the days text box and type the number of days, such as 30.
Click Apply.
Synchronizing email affects only your account settings, not the actual messages. Synchronized settings let you access your email from either your computer or your iPad without having to retype all those cryptic mail account settings.
After you've synchronized email account settings on your computer and iPad, you'll be able to read and access the same messages on either device. This lets you read a message on your iPad while you're on the road and then read and respond to that message when you return to your computer.
On the iPad, you can synchronize email account settings from the Mail app and the Mail program (Mac) or Microsoft Outlook or Windows Live Mail (Windows).
If you often get good ideas and need to jot them down, you could scribble them on the nearest scrap of paper. However, it might be better to store them in the Notes app on your iPad and then synchronize those notes to the Mail program on a Mac or Microsoft Outlook on Windows. Notes act like miniature word processor documents for storing text.
Finally, you may have a group of favorite bookmarks that you'd like to transfer between your iPad's Safari browser and your computer web browser. By keeping your favorite bookmarks synchronized, you'll be able to visit your favorite websites whenever you need them.
Note
If you're synchronizing email, notes, and bookmarks between your iPad and your computer through iCloud or an email provider like Gmail, then you don't need to manually synchronize these items through iTunes, so you can skip these steps.
To synchronize email, notes, and browser bookmarks, follow these steps:
Connect your iPad to your computer using the USB cable, and run the iTunes program on your computer.
Choose your iPad in the sidebar, and then click the Info tab. The Info screen appears.
Scroll down the Info screen.
(Optional) Check (or uncheck) the checkboxes of the email accounts whose settings you want to synchronize with your iPad.
(Optional) Check (or uncheck) the Sync Safari bookmarks checkbox.
(Optional) Check (or uncheck) the Sync notes checkbox.
(Optional) Check (or uncheck) the checkboxes in the Advanced category to define whether you want to erase information stored on your iPad and replace it with information from your computer.
Click Apply.
If your computer uses Wi-Fi, you can wirelessly synchronize your iPad to iTunes over a Wi-Fi connection. To do this, you must first connect your iPad to your computer with the USB cable, choose your iPad in the sidebar, click the Summary tab, select the Sync with this iPad over Wi-Fi checkbox, and then click Apply. You can now choose to synchronize your iPad to your computer with the USB cable or over Wi-Fi.
To synchronize your iPad to your computer over Wi-Fi, follow these steps:
Run the iTunes program on your computer.
Plug your iPad into an electrical outlet.
Make sure your computer and iPad are using the same Wi-Fi network.
From the Home screen of the iPad, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears, as shown in Figure 16-9.
Tap iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. The iTunes Wi-Fi Sync screen appears, as shown in Figure 16-10.
Tap Sync Now. The iTunes program on your computer displays your iPad name under the Devices category just as if you had plugged the iPad into the computer with the USB cable.
You can freely erase and transfer different audio, video, and ebook files to your iPad, so don't think you need to cram everything from your computer onto your iPad. You can transfer a handful of audio or video files from your computer that you want to hear or watch for that day and then pick an entirely different batch of audio or video files to use the next day.
If you're learning a foreign language, you can store audio files of that language in the iTunes program on your computer and then transfer them to your iPad so you can hear them wherever you go. You can load motivational lectures as audio files and take them with your iPad, too.