Chapter 9

Reading Books and Newspapers with iBooks and Newsstand

Not only is your iPod touch a wonderful device for playing games, surfing the Web, and listening to music, but with iBooks, it's also a powerful e-book reader with a library of more than 30,000 free books at your fingertips as well as thousands more paid books, including many New York Times best sellers. But iBooks doesn't stop there! You can add your PDFs to iBooks so you can carry them with you on the iPod touch. This allows you to access all your PDFs from the same library as your books—a great feature for those of you who regularly work with or receive PDF files. In addition to iBooks, Apple has introduced Newsstand in iOS 5. Newsstand lets you view and buy all your magazine and newspaper subscriptions in one easy to access location.

In this chapter, you'll discover how to navigate your iBooks bookshelf and the books themselves. You'll also learn about bookmarking favorite passages from books, creating notes, and even having a book read to you aloud. I'll take you through all the PDF features of iBooks. Finally, I'll explore Newsstand and show you how to shop for and organize all your subscriptions. Let's get started.

iBooks App

The iBooks application does not ship on the iPod touch. To use it, you must download it first for free from the iTunes Store. Once you have done this, the iBooks icon appears on your iPod touch's home screen (see Figure 9–1).

Figure 9–1. iBooks icon

Tap the icon to launch the iBooks app. When you do, you'll be presented with your iBooks bookshelf (see Figure 9–2). The bookshelf is populated with any e-books you have added to your books library in iTunes (more on that in a moment).

Figure 9–2. The iBooks bookshelf

Syncing Books

Before you can sync books, you need to first get some to sync. We talked about syncing books to your iTunes library in Chapter 2, but we'll touch on it again here. There are a few ways for you to obtain books to sync to your iPod touch.

iBookstore

In the previous chapters, you learned how to buy music, videos, and apps using the separate applications to buy them (such as iTunes for music and movies and the App Store for apps). With iBooks, Apple has combined both the store and the reader into one app. In the upper-right corner of your bookshelf, you'll see a Store button (see Figure 9–2). Tap this button, and your bookshelf flips around like it's a secret passageway. On the backside of the bookshelf, you are presented with the iBookstore. Here you can buy books, download samples, and navigate best-seller lists. Let's look at the iBookstore more closely now.

As you can see in Figure 9–3, the iBookstore is laid out similarly to the iTunes and App stores. At the top of the store you'll see a Categories button that allows you to select specific sections of the iBookstore like Mystery or Non-Fiction. The Library button on the right flips the store around and brings you back to your iBooks bookshelf. The bottom of the screen is populated with five shortcut buttons that allow you to browse the bookstore in different ways.

Figure 9–3. The iBooks bookshelf. The Featured page is the first page you'll see.

Featured: This is the home page of the iBookstore. On it you'll see banner ads for specific books or collections of books. Below the banner ads you'll see individual listing of select books. Tap any listing to be taken to the book's information page. We'll talk more about a book's individual information page a little later.

Charts: This button displays two tabs at the top of the screen: Top Charts and New York Times.

Top Charts shows you the top downloaded paid and free books on the iBookstore in groups of ten. You can tap Ten More Books at the bottom of the listings to show an additional ten books.

The New York Times gives you a listing of its fiction and nonfiction best sellers that are available on the iBookstore. Note that only New York Times books that are available on the iBookstore appear in the charts. If the iBookstore doesn't sell a particular book that is on the New York Times list, it does not appear on the screen.

Figure 9–4. Charts shows you the top iBookstore downloads as well as the New York Times best sellers.

Browse: This allows you to search through the iBookstore by author (Figure 9–5). Scroll through the list with your finger, or drag your finger along the alphabet on the side to jump to a specific letter. Authors are in alphabetical order by their last names. You can choose to browse by authors of paid or free books by selecting the Top Paid or Top Free tab at the top of the screen. You can further whittle down your authors list by choosing a specific category from the categories button. For example, selecting Romance will show only romance authors.

Figure 9–5. The Browse function lets you search through the iBookstore by author.

Search: The search function allows you to search for a book by typing in the name of the author or title.

Figure 9–6. Search for books by author or title.

After you've entered your query, tap the search button on the keyboard, and you'll be presented with a list of results. Tap any item in the list to be taken to the book's information page.

Purchased: This page allows you to see all the purchases you have made in the iBookstore. Not only can you see all your purchases, but you can redownload them if you've deleted them from your device. Simply tap the button with the downward arrow in a cloud icon. You will not be charged again for downloading book you already bought.

Figure 9–7. The Purchases screen lets you view and redownload all your iBooks.

View a Book's Info Page

Once you have found a book you're interested in, tap it to be taken to its information page. As you can see in Figure 9–8, a book's information page allows you to read a summary of the book (this is equivalent to reading what's on the back of the book in a real bookstore). It also has a link to the author's page where you can read more about the author and his or her other works. You can also view user ratings for the book.

Figure 9–8. An individual book's information page

As you can tell, the information page has a ton of information about the book, but the main features are the two buttons at the top. The first button in Figure 9–8 reads $11.99. This is the price button. If you want to buy the book, tap the price, and it turns into a green Buy Book button. Tap it again to purchase and download the book. You may be asked to enter your iTunes password if you haven't entered it in a while, and then the iBookstore flips around, and the book appears on your bookshelf with a blue progress bar (see Figure 9–9). Once the download is complete, it disappears, and you can begin reading your new book! Note that with free books, the price button will read Free. When you tap it, the button changes to Get Book. Tap it again to download the free book.

The Get Sample button shows on every book listing. It allows you to download a sample of any book on the iBookstore. Simply tap the Get Sample button; the iBookstore flips around, and the book appears on your bookshelf with a blue progress bar. Once the download is complete, the progress bar disappears, and you can begin reading the sample of the book. Samples always start on the first page and usually include the first chapter (or first several chapters if the book has smaller chapters).

Figure 9–9. Downloading an iBook. Note the blue progress bar on the upper-left book. This means you are downloading the book.

ePub Books

Besides using the iBookstore to read books in the iBooks app, there is a second way to get books on your bookshelf. You can download ePub-formatted books from other web sites and then drag them into your book library in your iTunes source list on your computer. Any ePub books you've added to your iTunes library are automatically synced the next time you connect your iPod touch to your computer.

What Is ePub?

ePub is a universal e-book file format. Any device capable of opening and displaying ePub files can display the book no matter where you bought the e-book. In other words, you don't need to buy your books from the iBookstore only. Several sites sell e-books in the ePub format that are compatible with the iPod touch. ePubbooks (www.epubbooks.com/buy-epub-books) has an excellent list of sites that offer ePub books for sale and for free download. Once you've downloaded an ePub book, simply drag it to your iTunes library, and the book syncs to your iPod touch on the next connection.

ePub vs. PDF

As you'll see later in this chapter, iBooks can read both ePub books and PDFs. So, if you have a choice between buying a book in ePub format or PDF, which do you choose? Let's look at the pros and cons of each:

ePub pros:

• Selectable and searchable text in iBooks
• Smaller file sizes

ePub cons:

• Requires a dedicated ePub reader if you want to read the book on your Mac or PC. Currently there is no desktop version of iBooks available.

PDF pros:

• Can be read in iBooks or on almost any computer in the world. PDF is one of the most universal document formats.

PDF cons:

• Files sizes can be large. A 300-page book can be more than 100MB in size, taking up valuable room on your iPhone.
• iBooks doesn't offer font adjustment, searchable text, or notes for PDFs.

After looking at the pros and cons, I would say that if you have an option of buying a book in ePub or PDF format, choose ePub, especially if you'll be viewing the book primarily in iBooks. The ePub format offers many more feature-rich options than PDF does.

Navigating Your Bookshelf

OK, you have a bunch of books downloaded and synced. Before you start reading them, let's get a little better acquainted with navigating all your books on your bookshelf. By default, your iBooks bookshelf will look like it does in Figure 9–2. If you swipe you finger down, you'll be presented with a few more options, as shown in Figure 9–10.

Figure 9–10. From the title bar of the iBooks bookshelf, you can access the iBookstore, navigate between your collections, and access view and edit modes.

The title bar in the iBooks bookshelf features three buttons with an additional search field and view buttons below it:

Edit: Allows you to rearrange or delete books on your bookshelf as well as sort your books into collections.

Collections: In Figure 9–10 the collections button is labeled “Books,” but the label on the button changes to the name of the collection you are viewing. The collections button displays a list of all your book collections in iBooks. By default you'll see two collections:

Books: When you tap Books, you'll be presented with your bookshelf. This contains all the ebooks you have in the iBooks app.

PDFs: Tapping PDFs takes you to your PDF bookshelf. I'll talk more about the PDF features of iBooks and collections in the second half of this chapter.

Store: As mentioned, tapping this takes you to the iBookstore where you can go shopping to expand your library.

Search: If you have a large collection of books, you can use this search feature to quickly find the book you are looking for. The search feature searches all the titles on your shelf by name or author.

Icon View: This is the default view of your bookshelf. The button with four white squares shows you all your books' covers in large, easy-to-see thumbnails.

List View: This is the button next to the Icon View button. It has three white lines in it. Tap it to display a list view of your iBooks bookshelf (see Figure 9–11).

Figure 9–11. List view with sorting options by bookshelf, title, author, and category

When you tap the List View button, you'll notice that at the bottom of the screen you have four ways to sort your lists:

Bookshelf: Displays your books in the order that they appear in icon view.

Titles: Displays your books in alphabetical order by title.

Authors: Displays your books in alphabetical order by name of author.

Categories: Displays your books in genre groups. Books are arranged alphabetically in each grouping.

You may notice that some of your books have a blue or red ribbon in their cover's right corner. The red ribbons say Sample, and they signify that the book on your bookshelf is a sample you've downloaded from the iBookstore. Samples stay on your iPod touch until you delete them or buy the full book, but they will not sync back to your iTunes book library.

Blue ribbons say New, and they signify that you have not begun reading the book yet. The New ribbon will appear until you've turned at least one page inside the book (Figure 9–12).

Figure 9–12. Books with the New and Sample ribbons next to a previously read book

Rearranging the Order of Your Books

iBooks allows you to rearrange the order of the books in your library. In icon view, tap the Edit button, then tap and hold a book's cover, and finally drag it to a new position on your bookshelf. This is no different from the way you arrange apps on your iPod touch's home screen. In list view in edit mode, you can only rearrange books in the Bookshelf sorting category. Tap and hold the grip bars on the right of the book's genre, and drag to your preferred position.

Deleting Your Books

Deleting books is also easy in iBooks. In icon view, tap the Edit button; you'll notice that a red Delete button appears in the upper-right corner of the screen. Tap the book or books you want to delete so a blue checkmark appears over them (Figure 9–13). Next, tap Delete. A confirmation dialog appears asking whether you're sure you want to delete the book. Tap Delete again to confirm.

In list view in Edit mode, you can delete books from any of the four sort views. Tap the book or books you want to delete so a blue checkmark appears next to them (Figure 9–13). Next, tap Delete. A confirmation dialog appears asking whether you're sure you want to delete the book. Tap Delete again to confirm. You can always redownload any books you've purchased again for free.

Figure 9–13. Deleting books in icon and list views

Sorting Your Books into Collections

iBooks does a wonderful job of displaying your books and PDFs on a digital bookshelf. However, there may come a time when your book collection grows so large that seeing all the titles displayed on a single iBooks bookshelf might not make for the easiest browsing experience.

Luckily, Apple has a built-in feature called Collections that allows you to sort your books onto different bookshelves for easier organization. In the center of the iBooks screen you'll see the Collections button. It is labeled according to the name of the selected collection. In Figure 9–10, the collections button is labeled “Books” because that is the currently selected collection. Tap the collections button to reveal a list of book collections in iBooks (Figure 9–14).

Figure 9–14. The Collections menu

Be default you'll see two collections: Books and PDFs. Any ebooks you have appear on their own bookshelf under the Books collection, and any PDFs you have appear on their own bookshelf under the PDFs collection.

Creating New Collections

If you'd like to create new collections to better manage your library, you can do so easily:

1. Tap the Collection button so the collections menu appears.
2. Tap the New button.
3. A new Collections field appears (Figure 9–15). Enter the name of your new collection.
   

   Figure 9–15. Creating a new collection

4. When you have entered your collection's name, tap Done, and your new collection is created.

Adding Books and PDFs to Your Collections

Once you've created a new collection, you need to add some books or PDFs to it. To add books or PDFs to a collection, follow these steps:

1. Tap the Edit button in the upper-right corner of an iBooks bookshelf.
2. Tap the book(s) or PDF(s) you want to add to a collection. The selected book or PDF covers fade, and a blue check mark appears in the lower-right corner (Figure 9–16).
   

   Figure 9–16. Selecting books to move to a collection

3. Tap the Move button at the top of the iBooks bookshelf. The collections list is displayed (Figure 9–17, left).
4. Choose the collection you want to add the selected books or PDFs to by tapping its name. An animation shows the selected collection sliding on-screen, and you'll be taken to that collections bookshelf where you'll now find your selected books or PDFs (Figure 9–17, right).

Figure 9–17. Moving books to your new collection, left, and your new collection, right

Navigating Between Your Collections

iBooks makes it easy to navigate between your collections. As a matter of fact, it gives you two ways to do this:

• Tap the Collections menu and then tap the collection you want to view.
• From any collections bookshelf, drag your finger left or right to swipe to the previous or next collection.

Editing Collections

iBooks lets you edit the names of existing collections, arrange the collections in a specific order, and delete collections.

To edit the name of a collection, follow these steps:

1. Tap the Collection button so the collections menu appears (Figure 9–15).
2. Tap the Edit button.
3. Tap the collection whose name you want to edit.
4. Enter the new name of your collection.
5. Tap the Done button when finished.

To arrange the order of a collection, follow these steps:

1. Tap the Collection button so the collections menu appears.
2. Tap the Edit button.
3. Use the grip bars to drag your collections up or down in the Collections list (Figure 9–18). You can't move the Books or PDFs collections.
4. Tap the Done button when finished.

Figure 9–18. Editing collections

To delete a collection, follow these steps:

1. Tap the Collection button so the collections menu appears.
2. Tap the Edit button.
3. Tap the red minus sign button (Figure 9–10).
4. A red delete button appears. Tap it to delete the collection. A warning dialog appears asking if you want to remove the collection's items from the device or move them back to their original collections. Tap Remove to remove the items from your iPad, or tap Don't Remove to keep them on the iPad and move them back to their default (Books or PDFs) collection.

Reading Books

The bookshelf displays your books in a gorgeous and easy-to-find layout, but books are meant to be read, not just ogled at on a shelf. Let's get started!

To read a book, simply tap its cover. The book flies forward and opens. If it's the first time you've opened the book, you'll be on the first page. If you have opened the book before, it opens to the last page you were reading.

While reading a book, you can choose between landscape or portrait orientation. As you can see in Figure 9–19, landscape mode shows you about a paragraph of text on average, while portrait mode shows you slightly more text. You can navigate between the two modes by rotating your iPod touch.

Figure 9–19. Reading a book in landscape and portrait modes

At the top of any book's page, no matter what orientation you are in, you'll notice a menu that contains a series of buttons (see Figure 9–20). I'll explain the use of all these features momentarily, but I'll familiarize you with the menu first.

Figure 9–20. A book's menu buttons

Library: Tapping this closes the book and takes you back to your bookshelf. The next time you open this book, you'll be taken to the page you were on when you left it.

Table of Contents/Bookmarks: This button is signified by three dots, each with a line after them. Tap this button to go to the book's Table of Contents/Bookmarks page.

Brightness: This is the button that looks like the sun and changes the screen brightness only while you're using the iBooks app.

Font: This button, symbolized by a small and big A, allows you to change the font of the book's text as well as the font size. This is helpful for those people who need larger text while reading, such as older people or anyone with sight difficulties. You can also change the background of the book's page to a sepia tone.

Search: The magnifying glass button allows you to search through a book's text.

Bookmark: Tap the bookmark ribbon to lay down a red bookmark in the upper-right corner.

Page scrubber: This is the series of dots that run along the bottom of a book's page (see Figure 9–22). Tap and hold the square button that sits on the dots; then drag it left or right to quickly navigate through the book's pages.

BUY: A Buy button appears when you are reading a sample book. Tap the Buy button to purchase the book. Your sample copy is replaced with the full copy.

While reading, you can tap the center of a book's page to show/hide the menu bar and page scrubber. You'll be left with only the title of the book and name of the author (in landscape view) at the top of the page and the page number at the bottom.

Turning Pages

You have three ways to move through a book's pages:

• Tap and hold the side of a page and then drag your finger across it from right to left. The page curls on the screen (see Figure 9–21), and when you lift your finger, the page turn is complete.
  

  Figure 9–21. You get cool eye candy when turning a page.

• Tap the right or left side of the screen to move forward or backward. This accomplishes the same function as the previous one, but with less interactive eye candy.
• Tap and hold the scrubber bar at the bottom of a page (see Figure 9–22); then slide your finger in either direction. The name of the chapter and the page number appear above the scrubber as you slide. When you've found the right page, remove your finger from the scrubber, and the page flips, taking you to the page you've selected. The scrubber lets you go to a specific page number quickly without having to flip through all the pages of the book.

Figure 9–22. The page scrubber shows the page number and chapter title.

Adjusting Brightness

Depending on your eyes, you may find it easier to read text with a brighter or darker screen. To adjust the iPod touch's screen brightness while reading a book, tap the Brightness button (the one that looks like a sun) in the menu bar. A drop-down menu appears with a slider on it (see Figure 9–23).

Figure 9–23. The brightness slider

Slide to the left to reduce brightness and to the right to increase it. When adjusting the brightness in the iBooks app, the entire screen brightens or dims according to your slider settings, but once you leave the iBooks app, the screen brightness returns to the settings you have specified in the iPod touch's Settings application. This is a great feature because you can instantly switch between brightness levels when you enter or exit the iBooks app without having to reconfigure them each time.

To change your iPod touch's overall brightness levels, go into Settings on the iPod touch's home screen, and choose Brightness. Adjust the slider there to set your preferred brightness.

Adjusting Font, Font Size, and Page Color

Depending on your eyesight, you may want to adjust the font size of the text. Tap the double-A font button to be presented with the font menu (see Figure 9–24). Tap the small A to decrease the font size and the large A to increase it. Increasing or decreasing the font size results in fewer or more words on a page, respectively.

Figure 9–24. The font panel

Below the font size controls is a Fonts button. Tap this to select from six font types (see Figure 9–25). Different font types can affect the number of words you see on the screen slightly. Why change the font? Some people have an easier time reading different fonts, especially serif or sans serif fonts. A sans-serif font is like the font of the text of this book; there are no little lines hanging off the letters. A serif font is one like Times New Roman.

Below Fonts is the Sepia button. Tap it to toggle a sepia tone on or off. When set to ON, the entire book takes on a yellow-brown tone, similar to how pages in an old paper book start to turn color after a while. Some people find reading from a sepia screen easier on the eyes since you aren't staring at a bright white background.

Figure 9–25. The fonts you can choose from

Searching Text

You can search for any word or text in the book you are reading by tapping the magnifying glass icon. A search field pops up along with the keyboard. Type any search term you want, and you'll be presented with a list of results, displayed by order of page number (see Figure 9–26). Tap any result to go instantly to that page. On the page, your search term will have a brownish yellow bubble over it.

You can also perform a Google or Wikipedia search for your word or phrase. Below the search results, you'll see a Search Google button and a Search Wikipedia button. Tap either to leave the iBooks app. You'll be taken to Safari where the Google search results or Wikipedia entries are presented.

Figure 9–26. The search panel lets you perform in-text searches as well as quickly link to Google and Wikipedia searches on the Web.

Bookmarking a Page

Tapping the bookmark icon causes a red bookmark to appear at the top of the page (see Figure 9–27). Laying down a bookmark adds a shortcut of the page to the Table of Contents/Bookmarks page so you can quickly access the bookmarked page later. Bookmarking in iBooks isn't really like using a bookmark in a physical book. In the iBooks app, the bookmarking feature is more akin to dog-earing a page on a real book, since you aren't limited to one bookmark. You can bookmark as many pages as you want. To unbookmark a page, tap the red bookmark ribbon.

Figure 9–27. Tap the bookmark button (left) to lay down a bookmark (right).

Interacting with Text

Your interaction with the book's text isn't limited to search. What we'll show you next is one of the reasons why e-books are superior to traditional paper books. However, paper books still have a leg up on e-books in many ways. See the article about the two formats here: www.tuaw.com/2010/05/08/a-tale-of-two-mediums-despite-the-iPodtouch-traditional-books-aren/. Paper books have the advantage over e-books that they are relatively cheap (especially if you buy them used), and you don't need to be afraid to take them to a park or a beach. Sand or dirt isn't going to affect the usability of a paperback like it will an electronic device like the iPod touch. Also, while reading in public, paper books are much less of a theft target than Apple's latest gadget.

While on any page, press and hold your finger to the screen, and a magnifying glass pops up on the page. To move it around, simply drag your finger. Below the magnifying glass, a single word is highlighted in blue. When you've found the word you want, remove your finger from the screen. The magnifying glass disappears, and the word is highlighted with grab bars on either side. Drag the grab bars to select more than one word, such as a sentence or entire paragraph.

With your selection confirmed, you'll be presented with five text-selection tools from the black pop-up menu that appears (see Figure 9–28).

Figure 9–28. The text selection tools

Copy: Select to copy the text so you can paste it into another application or the search field.

Dictionary: This is my favorite feature in the iBooks app because it shows off one of the primary advantages—and ease-of-use features—that e-books have over traditional paper books. When you come across a word you don't know in a paperback book, you need to put the book down and grab a dictionary. On the iPod touch, you can select the unfamiliar word and tap the Dictionary button. The first time you tap the dictionary command you'll get a notice that iBooks need to download a dictionary. Tap the download button to download the dictionary. This needs to be done only once. After that, a page appears with the definition of the word (see Figure 9–29). You can then tap Done on the page to close the dictionary window and get back to reading the book.

Figure 9–29. The dictionary panel

Highlight: Tapping highlight marks the text as if it's been highlighted by a highlighter (see Figure 9–30). Apple has outdone itself here, because the highlighting actually looks the same as it does on physical paper.

Figure 9–30. Highlighted text. When you highlight text, it automatically gets added to the bookmarks page.

If you tap the colored highlight, another pop-up menu appears that allows you to change the color of the highlight, create a note to go along with the highlighted text, or remove the highlight (see Figure 9–31). Color selections are yellow, green, blue, pink, and purple. Any newly selected text you choose to highlight is highlighted with the color of your last choice. Any text you highlight appears in a list on the bookmarks page (which we'll get to in a moment).

Figure 9–31. Options for highlighted text

Note: Tapping Note automatically highlights the selected text and causes a Post-it note to fly forward on the screen and the on-screen keyboard to appear (see Figure 9–32). You can type as much as you want in the note and scroll up and down using your finger. The color of the note is based on the color you chose for your highlight. Tap the note's Done button to close the note. You'll see a small note icon appear on the side of the page (see Figure 9–32). Tap the note's icon to edit the note. Tap the text's highlight, and select Remove Note to delete the note.

Figure 9–32. Creating a note and the note icon in the margin of the page after creation. The note is tied to the highlighted text.

Search: Tapping Search opens the magnifying glass search window in the upper-right corner of the page. The text you selected is automatically filled in as the search query.

Accessing the Table of Contents, Bookmarks, and Notes

Tap the Table of Contents/Bookmarks button (the button that displays three dots followed by three lines; see Figure 9–19) at the top of your page to instantly go to the Table of Contents/Bookmarks page (see Figure 9–33).

The Table of Contents/Bookmarks page is, unsurprisingly, divided into Table of Contents and Bookmarks sections; each has their own tab.

Figure 9–33. The Table of Contents/Bookmarks page. Switch between the two by tapping the appropriate tab. Return to your last position in the book by tapping the Resume button.

The Table of Contents tab displays the book's table of contents as a scrollable list. Tap any item in the table of contents to view It immediately.

The Bookmarks tab displays all your bookmarks, highlights, and notes divided into two sections: Bookmarks and Highlights & Notes. Under the Bookmarks heading is a list of chapter names or numbers that hold bookmarks, as well as the page number of the bookmark and the date you bookmarked the page. A red ribbon representing each bookmark lies next to the bookmark's page number. Tap any bookmark to jump to the bookmarked page.

Under the Highlights & Notes heading is a list of all the highlights and notes you've created. For each highlight and note, you'll see the beginning of the first sentence that the highlight or note appears in, as well as the chapter name or number and also the page number and the date you marked the page. The date is highlighted in the color that you chose to highlight the text in. This is a nice feature if you use different colors for different bookmark classifications, such as quotes from the antagonist in blue and from the protagonist in pink.

Remember that whenever you create a note, a highlight is automatically created. You can distinguish between a highlight and a note easily. Any note has a tiny sticky note icon in the right margin. To instantly go to any highlight or note, tap it in the list. To read a note you created without leaving the Table of Contents page, tap the note icon in the margin. The note springs forward on the screen, and you can then tap the note to bring up the on-screen keyboard and edit it. Tap the Done button on the note to close it.

In the top-right corner of the Table of Contents and Bookmarks page is a Share button. Tap it to insert the TOC and your notes into an e-mail message, or print the TOC and your notes to a wireless AirPrint printer.

To exit the Table of Contents/Bookmarks page, tap the Library button to return to your bookshelf, or tap the Resume button to return to your last position in the book.

Having a Book Read to You

Not only can you read books on the iPod touch, but also you can have the iPod touch read books to you. Using the iPod touch's VoiceOver screen reader technology, you can make the iPod touch read any text to you, including the text of an entire novel. I'll talk about VoiceOver in detail in the final chapter of this book, but for now I'll touch on how to activate it for iBook reading.

1. Turn VoiceOver on. Go your iPod touch's home screen, and tap Settings; then choose General Accessibility VoiceOver. Tap the ON button.
2. Return to your book in iBooks. To have everything on a page read to you, use two fingers held together and flick up. Everything from the top of the screen down will be read aloud. When VoiceOver reaches the bottom of the page, it automatically turns the page for you and continues reading.
3. To stop VoiceOver reading, tap anywhere on the screen with one finger. It is also a good idea to return to Settings and turn VoiceOver off, unless you want to continue using VoiceOver gestures.

Now, you might be wondering why you would have VoiceOver's mechanical voice read you a book when you can just buy an audiobook and sync it to the iPod touch. The simple answer is because not all books are in audiobook format. It should also be noted that the iBooks VoiceOver ability isn't a feature intended to appeal to a large number of readers but an accessibility option to help those who are hard of sight read their favorite books.

Syncing PDFs

You have two ways of syncing PDFs to iBooks on your iPod touch -- using iTunes or using the iPod touch's Mail app. To sync PDFs via iTunes, drag any PDFs you want to sync into your iTunes library. They are automatically added to the Books section of your iTunes library. The next time you sync your iPod touch to iTunes, your PDFs are synced as well.

You can also add PDFs to iBooks through the iPod touch's Mail app. To do this, open Mail, and select an e-mail with a PDF attachment. Tap the attachment in the body of the e-mail to see it a full-screen preview of it. While previewing it full-screen, you'll see a Share button in the upper-right corner. Tap this button, and select Open in “iBooks” from the pop-up list (see Figure 9–34). The Mail app closes, and the PDF automatically opens in iBooks and is added to your PDF bookshelf. When you sync your iPod touch with iTunes, any PDFs you have added to iBooks in this manner are added to your iTunes books library.

Figure 9–34. Opening a PDF in iBooks using Mail

Navigating the PDF Bookshelf

To see all the PDFs that are in iBooks, launch iBooks, and tap the Collections button in the iBooks menu bar (see Figure 9–10). From the collections menu (Figure 9–14), tap the PDFs collection. Doing so takes you to your PDF bookshelf. As you can see from Figure 9–35, the PDF bookshelf is similar to the regular bookshelf. The PDF bookshelf is populated with any PDFs you have added to iBooks.

Figure 9–35. The PDF bookshelf is identical to the regular bookshelf. If you know how to navigate one, you know how to navigate the other.

Just like with the regular bookshelf, you can choose to view your PDFs as icons or in a list. In list view you can sort your PDFs by titles, authors, categories, or bookshelf (the way they are arranged in icon view). List view also presents you with a search field so you can search your PDFs by name or author. The PDF bookshelf works just like the regular bookshelf in editing and deleting items as well. Tap Edit to rearrange or delete PDFs.

Navigating and Reading PDFs

To read a PDF, tap its cover. The PDF flies forward and opens. If it's the first time you've opened the PDF, you'll be on the first page. If you have opened the PDF before, it opens to the last page you viewed.

You can view PDFs in portrait or landscape mode (see Figure 9–36).

Figure 9–36. Viewing PDFs in iBooks

At the top of any PDF page, no matter what orientation you are in, is a menu that contains a series of buttons with the name of the PDF document in the center. These buttons should be familiar to you because they are similar to the ones you see while reading an e-book.

Library: Tapping this closes the PDF and takes you back to your PDF bookshelf. The next time you open the PDF, you'll be taken to the page you were on when you left it.

Contact Sheet: This button is signified by three dots, each with a line after them. Tap this button to be presented with a contact sheet—a series of thumbnails of all the pages in a PDF.

Share: Tap this button to email or print the PDF.

Brightness: This is the button that looks like the sun and changes the screen brightness of the iBooks app.

Search: The magnifying glass button allows you to search through the text of a PDF. It also has quick links to search Google and Wikipedia for your selected search term.

Bookmark: Tap the bookmark ribbon to bookmark the current page you are on. Remember that iBooks uses bookmarks differently than traditional bookmarks are used in a paper book. Bookmarking a page in iBooks means you have effectively “dog-eared” the page. You can have multiple bookmarks in the same document. To remove a bookmark, tap the bookmark icon again.

Page scrubber: This is the series of page icons that run along the bottom of a PDF's page. Drag your finger across the thumbnails to quickly navigate through the PDF's pages. You'll see the page number of the page currently selected float overhead. You can also just tap any thumbnail to jump right to that page.

While reading, you can tap the center of a book's page to show/hide the menu bar and page scrubber. While on a page, you can double-tap it to zoom in or, for more control, you can use a pinch gesture to zoom in or out. To navigate the pages of a PDF, swipe your finger to the left or right to move forward or backward one page. You can also tap the margins of a page to move forward or backward, or you can use the page scrubber at the bottom of the page. Alternately, you can scroll through large thumbnails representing all the pages in the PDF document by using the contact sheet.

Using the Contact Sheet

As you can now see, you already know how to use the PDF menu bar because it is so similar to an e-book's menu bar. The only feature that is slightly different is the Table of Contents button, which has been replaced with a contact sheet button (though both icons are identical—three dots, each followed by a line).

Tap the contact sheet button, and all the pages in the PDF document are presented to you in large thumbnails that you can scroll through with a swipe of your finger (Figure 9–37). This is useful when you are dealing with a very large document with lots of diagrams or images, as it allows you to quickly search the PDF by eye. When you find the desired page, tap it, and you'll instantly go to that page in the document.

You'll also notice that some contact sheets might have a little red bookmark in their upper-right corner. This means you've bookmarked that page by tapping the bookmark button in the PDF menu bar (see Figure 9–36). To see only your bookmarked pages, tap the bookmark button in the upper-right corner of the contact sheet menu (see Figure 9–38). Any page without a bookmark is hidden from view.

Figure 9–37. The contact sheet lets you see all the PDF's pages as large thumbnails.

Figure 9–38. The contact sheet bookmarked pages view

To leave the contact sheet, you can tap the Library button to return to your PDF bookshelf, you can tap the Resume button to return to the page you were on when you navigated to the contact sheet, or you can tap any page to be taken to that page.

Settings

There are a few external settings for the iBooks app. Navigate to Settings from the iPod touch's home screen, and select iBooks from the Apps header on the left side. You'll see three settings (see Figure 9–39).

Figure 9–39. The iBooks app settings

Full Justification: When this set to ON, the text on a book's page fills the width of the page evenly. When full justification is set to OFF, the text on the right side of the page is ragged (see Figure 9–40).

Figure 9–40. The same page with full justification on (left) and full justification off (right)

Auto-hypenation: When this is set to ON, iBooks automatically hyphenates words, allowing more words to be displayed on a single page.

Tap Left Margin: You can set this to Previous Page or Next Page. If you set it to Next Page, tapping the left margin of a book advances you to the next page in a book instead of taking you back one page. This setting might be nice while reading a book on the iPod touch at odd angles, like in bed. With Next Page selected, the only way to go back one page in your book is by using the page scrubber bar at the bottom of the page.

Sync Bookmarks: When set to ON, this syncs a book's bookmarks, highlights, and notes between devices. This is nice if you are using iBooks on an iPad and iPhone as well as your iPod touch. When you create a note or bookmark in the book on one device, it appears on the other devices as well.

Sync Collections: When set to ON, this syncs your iBooks collections. When you create or modify a collection on one device, it will appear the same on the other.

Newsstand

Newsstand is a new feature of iOS 5 that allows you to view and manage all your magazine and newspaper subscriptions in one place. We call it a feature because Newsstand isn't technically an app. It looks like an app, but it's actually a folder that resides on your home screen and holds all your subscriptions.

You can see the Newsstand icon in Figure 9–41. The icon on the left show you what Newstand looks like with no subscriptions. When you start download subscriptions they appear in the icon (right).

Figure 9–41. The Newsstand icon

Unlike books in iBooks, magazines and newspapers in Newsstand aren't actually text epub files. Each magazine or newspaper subscription is its own individual app. What this means is that, unlike with books in iBooks, each magazine you download and view can look and act differently. Again, this is because all subscriptions are just individual apps, they all happen to just be contained in the dedicated Newsstand folder.

To open Newsstand, simply tap it, and your home screen splits to display the Newsstand shelf filled with all of your subscriptions (Figure 9–42).

Figure 9–42. The Newsstand shelf

The Newsstand store is part of the App Store, and it's where you'll find all of the magazine and newspaper subscriptions you can buy. To quickly get to the Newsstand section of the App Store from your Newsstand shelf, tap the Store button, and you'll be instantly taken there.

Once you have subscribed to the magazines or newspapers of your choice, the newest issues are automatically downloaded as they become available and are placed in your Newsstand. The cover of the most recent issue or the front page of the most recent newspaper is displayed at the top of that periodicals subscription stack on your Newsstand shelf.

To read an issue, tap it, and that periodical's app will open as a normal app would.

Summary

In addition to doing so many other things, the iPod touch is also a breakthrough e-book and PDF reader. iBooks, the all-in-one application that lets you buy books and read, search, and mark them up, is an elegant yet powerful tool for discovering new titles and taking your entire book library with you, and Newsstand allows you to subscribe to and automatically download the latest issues of your favorite magazines and newspapers. Here are a few key tips for you to carry away with you:

• You aren't limited to buying books from the iBookstore. Many web sites sell books in the ePub format that you can download and sync to the iPod touch. A great place to start is www.gutenberg.org. Also, Googling free e-books returns a host of results of sites that let you download e-books for free.
• iBooks has a powerful dictionary-lookup feature that gives you the definition of a word right on the screen.
• iBooks bookshelf has many views and a search function to help you navigate your books library.
• No audiobook? No problem. You can use the iPod touch's built-in VoiceOver technology to read any book out loud to you.
• Choose different colors for your notes and highlighting. Maybe use blue for passages you like and green for something you want to reference later. See all your bookmarks, notes, and highlights in one easy place (the Bookmarks page, of course!), and tap any one to instantly jump to it in the book.
• iBooks isn't limited to reading e-books. It's also a PDF reader. Now you can organize, view, and easily navigate all your PDFs—even while on the go!
• Newsstand automatically downloads your latest subscriptions in the background, so when you wake up in the morning, the day's paper will be ready and waiting for you.