iBooks Author App Reviews

I used iBook Author to write a lengthy piece. The plan was to see if the program was worth using for actual ebook publishing. On several fronts it is a reasonable effort, but it is lacking. The publication limitation to apple was known and not a major concern. The issues that I had are consistently the program comes up short. It is a good first effort but is limiting to the extent that I cannot recommend it in good faith. If you know you are never going to publish your work at all, except on your own devices then it is workable. If there is even the slightest chance you need to use other formats than look elsewhere. Too many options allow the author to format in different ways, while this is a worthy effort it is a lightweight solution. Considering this is from apple itself I am left wondering what the plan was. And there are issues on the iP* side as well. Upload a new version and the comments that have all been deleted are now back. And, since the new version is most likely different they are also wrong and useless. Look further afield than here. There are many solutions and iBook Author was not worth continuing with for me.

It was updated to remove support for OS X 10.7 (Lion). Apple has also blocked downloading of previous versions. If youre using an old computer that is stuck on 10.7, youre out of luck!

Why can I not three-finger tap within iBooks to look up the definition? i… Books… Books are just words… This is necessary. . . Apple… Please. I can just read on but just think of all the times I will tap extra to learn words. GIVE IT TO ME

It does not support right-to-left (RTL) languages, such as Arabic, Urdu, Hebrew, etc., which makes it useless to authors of those languages.

Would LOVE to be able to write on my Mac Mini then continue working on the same file on my iPad. PLEASE add an App for iPad and/or iPhone so that I can be productive away from my Mac mini. Right now I have to use Pages to work remotely, then import into the iBooks Author. Trying to edit what I have already worked on in iBooks Author is even more of a nightmare. There is no editing in pdf format, not to mention trying to re-import it afterwards to sync with my iBooks Author file. The App is great for finalizing work, but not really helpful for work-in-progress.

I am surprised why Apple does not promote this product, as it is an amazing resource and one of the best, most intuitive software programs I have ever used to create original creations (Adobe could learn from this with regard to an intutive interface and easy to use product). I feel like I can create without having to spend hours on tutorials, and this is the key to truly wonderful software that doesnt inhibit the creative flow or process (unlike Adobe, which has software engineers design products instead of creative professionals). The ONLY drawback (and it is a big one) is that there are no Windows programs that can run iBook Author creations and this limits the usefulness. I know the Mac is a better learning platform and this is an Apple product, but schools and businesses buy cheap these days and low end Windows computers are unfortunately the usual choice. iBooks Author simply great creative product (even Time Magazine agrees)!

I gotta say, I’m big into Apple’s stuff, and their programs. I use Keynote, Pages, Numbers and others on a near daily basis. iBooks Author takes few if any of the user friendly options from those programs. Things don’t import well from any program, and once you have it imported, get ready to learn a whole new piece of software ripped straight out of the 90’s. It’s twitchy, it’s tempermental and it’s counter-intuitive at every bend. Here are a few of the pains: Pinch to zoom… NOT Apply formatting to all… NOT Adjust formating in Auto-populated text boxes… GOOD LUCK! You have to trick it into doing what you want on a page by page basis. The format tool bar is gone in place of an inspector window that will play with lots of things on your document. Watch it carefully, it will make changes that you had no idea it would do! Want a 2-line chapter title with a return in it so you can decide where the line break is? NO WAY!! Remember those shortcut keys that you used in every other program? Half of them are gone, the other half, you have to define for iBA to understand. There are some good things about iBA, but the other reviews have covered most of those. I’m disappointed in Apple on this one though.

This is a must have application - not just for education - for anyone who has a business to advertise, a service to sell, or a story to tell. Drag and drop easy to use, interactive features built in, and plenty of support from the community when it comes to tutorials and how-to’s.

wow this app is great for my family album file and share. easy to create with many effect.

For aspiring authors, teachers who want to write their own textbooks, etc., iBooks Author gives you the opportunity to publish your works free of charge. The application is loaded with features and because of that is would be presumptous to think mastering all its functionalities will take just one sitting. Like many robust applications, the more you use iBooks Author the more savvy a user you become. The time spent is well worth it! I was very happy to see in this latest version (v. 2.3) that iBooks created using iBooks Author are now viewable on the iPhone. Until this update, iBooks created with iBooks Author were only viewable on the iPad and the Mac. One caveat. When viewed on the iPhone (I have an iPhone 6+) the text size of iBooks created with iBooks Author is very small…too small for comfortable reading by “mature” readers. This is true even if you use a very large font size when creating an iBook using iBooks Author. Hopefully, Apple will address this limitation in an update.

this is great except for the fact that i cant imort pdfs as chapters. i have books, each chapter a separate pdf and i cant import them. Fix soon. Other than that 5/5.

This update is a huge for me and for many others… i was soon happy I was jumping up-and-down i made 10 phone calls in 10 minute to tell people i know about this update :-))) thank you so much. Cristina

I just started my book, and i LOVE this app! I have trouble with getting my artwork on, but with a few simple tasks I got it fixed (and it wasn’t the app’s fault)! ***GREAT FOR A FREE APP!***

I like this app, and as I got started using it I fell into a groove. Then I hit a massive brick wall. I can’t import any PDF’s. SInce most of the work I created is in PDF form, this great app has become almost useless. If that was fixed, this would be a 5/5, incredible app. Until then, I’ll have to look elsewhere.

From Main Menu Bar, with your document open, choose FILE menu, then PRINT. From Print window, bottom left corner, click PDF button. Choose any of the options from the PDF button including Save as PDF; Open PDF in Preview, etc. HINT - this PDF button appears in EVERY supported App in the Print Window.

Apple has been listening to feedback and dramatically improving iBooks Author. It is a delight to use this software, as it’s been a challenge to find a decent ePub editor. For a while, this software wasn’t the right solution. But now with the new ePub template, it’s great. With this software, I can create books for iPhone, iPad and Mac. The advantage of using this, instead of building an app, is that it’s easier. It’s also nicer for customers. Only one purchase is needed. They don’t need to buy one app for OS X and another for iOS. I’m busy working on “A Book About Hype”. If you’re not aware of this application, it’s a great companion for iBooks Author. Interactive widgets, built with HTML5, can be placed inside of the book. It’s like living in the future. Books can become more engaging and interactive. It’s a great way to teach complex ideas. Videos can be added too. The software feels more stable too. I’ve been using the app pretty heavily, but I don’t remember the last time it crashed. And with automatic saving, I can just restart my computer and pickup pretty much right where I left off. Hype, Pixelmator, iDraw and iBooks. These are reasons to own a Mac. It’s publishing in the modern age, but it’s fairly inexpensive – and iBooks is a free download. My six year old Mac Mini is still rocking! So if you’ve been thinking about publishing that book that has been stuck in your head all those years, Apple has created a massive opportunity with iTunes and iBooks. There is room for improvement though. The software should work with iCloud – work on the iPad (like Pages) or work online. Even just quick backups would be an improvement. Also, the grammar check is excessive. Interface and parameter are computer terms. iBooks Author doesn’t need to highlight them with dotted green lines. I don’t like the floating Inspector window or the Paragraph pane. I feel like the application should just be one window, not a combination of three types of windows. Also, it should support responsive HTML widgets. Hype has the ability to create flexable and responsive layouts. Unfortunately, they don’t display properly in iBooks. So, I’ve been using fixed width widgets that run on the page. I’m not sure why Apple can scale a widget when it’s on a page, but not when its in fullscreen mode. I still think It’s a 5-star app though. For years, I was stuck trying to publish The Interactive Stencyl Textbook. But with iBooks Author, the pages flowed like water. I prefer ePub over iBooks Author templates (.ibooks files) though. I find that ePub is less restrictive and has better compatibility.

What I do not understand is that this software is absolutely free, whereas all other iWork apps cost $20. This app here, as I describe it, is what you get when you put together Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, all within a uniform PDF export. Here’s a word of advice: Before you purchase Numbers (if it’s not already on your Mac) try this app first for free. You can copy any chart or graph and paste it into TextEdit or Apache OpenOffice. If you like this app, you can keep it; if not you can just tell MacKeeper to remove it. I think you will like it, but if you don’t please don’t contact me about it. Send your complaints to Apple.

It seems iBook Author doesn’t want to open when using OS X El Capitan. It crashes. Waiting for an update to fix this problem.

As with a lot of Apple products, this is not user-friendly by any means. After 20 minutes of trying to change the color of the title page background, I gave up and just settled on a darker template. When adding text or taking away text, shaping it on the page is just incredibly frustrating. Just a terrible, terrible product. It’s nice that it’s free, but it’s too time consuming trying to figure out its functionality. It shouldn’t be this hard.

With the recent El Capitan update, .iba files take forever to load. I get the spinning beachball for 15 - 20 minutes until I am finally able to use the file. Before the El Capitan update, files would load within seconds. I have this problem on a MacBook Pro and iMac running the latest El Capitan and iBook updates. It is ridiculous to wait so long for a file less than 1GB to open. Please fix this issue!