Help
This page decribes the ways in which you can load O'Reilly ebooks onto your iPad. First, we’ll look at how to load and read ePubs and PDFs from O’Reilly ebook bundles. Then, we’ll cover how to extract an ePub file from an O’Reilly iPhone/iPod ebook application, available in the iTunes Store.
eBook Bundles
O’Reilly ebook bundles typically include four formats:
- ePub
- PDF
- Mobi
- Andriod APK
More information and links about each format are available on our main ebooks page. Of these four formats, PDF and ePub can be imported and read on your iPad. Let’s look at these two formats.
ePub
The simplest way to load an ePub file to your iPad is to use iTunes, as described on O’Reilly Answers. Another article on Answers describes how to take advantage of the Automatically Add to iTunes directory that was introduced in iTunes 9.
You can use the methods described in the Answers articles to load your ePub to iBooks, but if you’d like to try a different ereader, you have other options:
- Ibis Reader is terrific for syncing between multiple devices and platforms. See the first comment in the O’Reilly Answers article to learn how to make the most out of Ibis Reader with O’Reilly’s electronic media mobile site.
- Stanza has been updated to work on the iPad and continues to be one of the most feature-rich ereaders available in the iTunes store.
With the recent update to the iBooks app, you can add PDF files to your iPad using the same methods described in the ePub section above. O’Reilly PDFs render best and most consistently with the iBooks app, so we recommend it, despite the fact that it is not nearly as feature-rich as other PDF readers on the iPad. We were glad to see that a recent update to iBooks (version 1.1.1) includes clickable hyperlinks between PDF pages and takes advantage of PDF bookmarks to create a table of contents.
Give some of the other PDF readers a try to see which one works best for you. But please note that we officially support only iBooks, and cannot guarantee that our PDFs will render correctly in other readers or provide technical assistance for them.
Importing ePub from iPhone/iPod Applications
Look Out for Non-eBook Apps
The methods of ePub extraction described in this section apply to our ebook apps only. The vast majortiy of our apps are simply app versions of our books, but we’ve also released non-ebook apps such as The Geek Atlas Companion and Head First PMP Exam, and we expect to add more in the future. While you should definitely check these non-ebook apps out, you should not expect to be able to extract ePubs from them.
Importing the Manual Way
As you may know, many of our books are also for sale as apps. While these apps are compatible with the iPad, they have not been optimized for it, so the experience is not all it could be. If you own one of our iPhone/iPod ebook apps, then you also own the same ePub that is sold in our ebook bundles. Because our apps include no DRM, you can extract the ePub and read it in one of the ePub readers described above. This process of extraction is described on our iPhone app page. Once you’ve got the ePub, you can read it with an iPad ePub reader.
Importing the Slightly Less Annoying Way
Extracting the ePub from an app can be a little tedious, so we’ve tried to make it less so with some simple scripting tools. Here is a bash function that you can run in a Mac OS X environment via the Terminal:
function add_to_ibooks()
{
cd ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Mobile\ Applications
unzip $@
cd Payload/*/book
zip -q0X `echo $@ | sed 's/\.ipa/.epub/'` mimetype
zip -qXr9D `echo $@ | sed 's/\.ipa/.epub/'` *
mv `echo $@ | sed 's/\.ipa/.epub/'` ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Automatically\ Add\ to\ iTunes
cd ../../..
rm -rf Payload
}This script takes the name of an .ipa file (an application file), extracts the ePub file, drops it in the Automatically Add to iTunes directory, and cleans up the mess. Add it to your .bashrc config file and then run it like so:
$ cd ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Mobile\ Applications $ add_to_ibooks <filename>.ipa
This solution works well in a Mac OS X environment, assuming you haven’t moved or changed your iTunes directories.
bash Shell, What??
Not much for the command line? That’s fine. We’ve wrapped the same script in a drag-and-drop applet. Download and unzip it, and you’ll have a file named add_to_ibooks.app. Simply locate the .ipa file and drag it onto the add_to_ibooks.app file. Sync your iPad with iTunes, and the extracted ePub will be loaded to iBooks.
As with the shell script, this applet is intended for users in a Mac OS X environment, using the default iTunes directory structure.
Windows
Got a solution similar to the one above but for a Windows environment? Let us know. We’ll test it, and if it works, we’ll add it to this page.
