Text can wrap any number of ways around pictures, objects, or other blocks of text. This video shows you all the different ways you can flow text in your iBook.
This chapter explores the basics of iBooks Author. You'll be introduced to the workflow and interface, learn how to use templates, and even see how to create a complete iBook in just four minutes.
Getting Started with iBooks Author
Reading an iBook on the iPad is nothing like any reading experience you've had before. This video takes you on a tour of a typical iBook and shows you how to find your way around it.
iBooks Author includes a number of beautiful templates that you can use to start creating your iBook. We'll take a look at some of them in this lesson.
Believe it or not, you can make an iBook in just four minutes! OK, it won't win any awards, but in this video you'll see just how easy it is to go from a blank screen to a book on your iPad.
You can't judge a book by its cover - but people do it anyway. In this chapter you'll learn how to make a good impression by creating a high-quality cover and introductory image or video for your iBook.
Creating Your Cover and Introduction
Every book needs a cover - even digital books. In this lesson you'll learn how to make your cover and get some tips on making it stand out.
The first thing readers see when they open your book for the first time is almost as important as the cover. With an iBook, that can be a still image or even a video. You'll learn how to add that important introduction to your iBook in this lesson.
In this chapter we'll get into the nitty-gritty of designing your iBook, starting with the key concepts of chapters, sections, and pages. Then you'll learn how to import and format text and images and how to arrange objects in your design.
Designing Your Book (Basic)
The basic structure of an iBook consists of chapters, sections, and pages. Understanding their relationship to each other and where each belongs before you get too far into your book will save you headaches down the road, and so that is what we will explore in this video.
You can write your book in iBooks Author directly or pen it in another application such as Pages then import the text. In this video you'll see how to import text into iBooks Author from another application.
You could individually apply styles and formatting to your text as you go, but if you take advantage of paragraph styles you'll find making changes down the road much, much easier. This lesson shows you how to do it.
It's an iBook, so it needs images! In this lesson you'll learn all about adding images to your iBook, including how to create slideshows, thumbnails, captions, full-screen views, and more.
Sometimes text needs to flow in a straight line, and sometimes it needs to flow around an image. In this video you'll learn how to mask your photo so text will automatically flow around it exactly the way you want it to.
Want to drop a simple background out from behind a photo so you can fill that negative space with text? In this lesson you'll learn how to create an instant alpha mask in iBooks Author.
Text can wrap any number of ways around pictures, objects, or other blocks of text. This video shows you all the different ways you can flow text in your iBook.
Some objects look great floating free, while others need to be precisely aligned to look their best. This video shows you easy align objects in your iBook if you want to.
In this chapter you'll learn how to create custom layouts in your iBooks and how to use master objects to easily repeat elements that you have designed. You'll also see what can happen when your readers rotate their iPads and what you can do about it.
Customizing Your Layout
The built-in templates are great, but chances are you'll want to customize your iBook to suit your own tastes. In this lesson you'll learn how to create custom layouts that you can use over and over again.
Master objects are built into a template so you don't have to add them manually to every new page. In this video you'll see how to create and control master objects in your iBook.
When your readers rotate their iPads while reading your iBook, the format will change dramatically. This lesson explains what happens, as well as how to disable portrait orientation entirely.
This chapter looks at some more advanced book design techniques. You'll learn how to link and unlink text boxes, auto-update text, and create glossaries and tables of contents. You'll also see how to add shapes, tables and charts, galleries, video, audio, links, and more.
Designing Your Book (Advanced)
Some text blocks needs to flow from page to page, while others need to be constrained to one area. In this lesson you'll learn how to create and link text boxes so your words go where you want them.
This video looks at working with shapes in iBooks Author. You'll learn how to add a standard or custom shape, position and rotate it, and add colors, images, borders, or text.
If your iBook contains lots of data, you'll want to use tables and charts. In this lesson you'll learn how to express complex ideas simply with tables and charts - in 2D or 3D!
A digital book lets you not only include a single photo on a single page as in a printed book, but also embed galleries that can include as many images as you like. Galleries can have thumbnails and captions, go full-screen, and more, as you'll see in this video.
As your book grows and you reference one page or section of your book from another, then start moving elements around, you don't want to have to go back and manually update all those references. In this lesson you'll learn how to insert text that auto-updates, no matter where things move.
Textbooks are all about teaching, and what better way to reinforce your points than with a simple test? This lesson looks at the Reviews feature in iBooks, which lets you build multiple-choice and matching quizzes to make sure your readers are following along.
Have you already built a Keynote presentation to illustrate your message? There's no need to reinvent the wheel - with iBooks Author, you can simply drop an existing Keynote presentation right into your book. This lesson shows you how.
Some images are pretty just to look at, and others need to be touched. In this lesson you'll learn how to create interactive images that readers can zoom into, pan around, and tap for more info.
You can use links in your iBook to help readers navigate within your document or to direct them to outside resources. This lesson will show you how to add both internal and external links.
A good table of contents is a critical part of any good informational book, and in this video you'll learn how to create one in iBooks Author. Once it's set it up it will populate itself as your book grows and changes.
Are you using complex or advanced terms that your readers may not already be familiar with? iBooks Author includes a rich glossary feature that allows you to turn any word into a glossary entry, as you'll see in this video.
The final steps in creating your iBook are to preview and publish it. We'll cover both in this chapter.
Previewing and Publishing
You'll create your iBook on your Mac, but you need to view it on the iPad to truly see what your audience will experience. This lesson demonstrates the process of previewing your iBook to find concepts that don't quite translate to the touchscreen.
Android
Apple iPad
