Creating ePubs
One of the great aspects of the ebook functionality of the iPad is that you can create your own reading materials to be viewed in iBooks. Using Pages ’09, part of the iWork Suite, teachers can create word processing documents that can then be exported from Pages as an ePub file. Then all the teacher has to do is drag the ePub file into the computers iTunes and choose which books will be synced with which iPads. The following materials will help get you started.
Click to download the ePub Best Practices for Pages template. The following .doc file will provide guidelines for formatting your text to be used in iBooks. Remember that this file can be edited in Word but will have to be opened in Pages ’09 in order to export it as an ePub file. Click here for Using Pages for ePub Instructions and a step by step explanation of what it means to export as an ePub.
Here is a sample text of ‘Three Little Pigs’, click here: The_Three_Little_Pigs to download. Remember it is a Word Doc so you need to open it in Pages.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
If you would like to try and create ePubs outside of Pages you can try going to Acrobat.com and creating a free account. Once you have an account choose the file ‘Welcome to Buzzword’ which is a web-based word processor that allows you to share your document as an ePub.
If you are using Microsoft Word there is an add-on to Word called Aspose.words Express 1.1.0 that will enable Word to create ePub files.
If you are looking to review or read your ePub file on your computer before putting it on your iPad there are add-ons for Firefox that allow you to open the ePub file with Firefox. There is an application through Adobe called Adobe Digital Reader. There are also some ePub readers and PDF-to-ePub converters on the desktop version of the App Store. For Windows there are some applications such as Mobipocket Reader and Calibre.
