Ebooks are a hit item these days for many readers. One good reason is due to the staunch love-hate relationship associated with them. You’ll have individuals who despise them, opting for the natural paper feeling of a tangible book. However, on the other end, you have individuals that are dedicated fans of e-books, finding them less expensive alternatives, allowing you to carry a ton of books at one time. During the iPad Mini event a few weeks ago, Tim Cook revealed a new update to the e-book software, iBooks Author. Today, we will look at the new updates and their impacts.
Fresh Template Choices
The first type of templates released are meant for portrait view only. While this is considered a new update, some users may see this as a disadvantage than anything. The inability to view these type of templates on iDevices other than the iPad models makes it a bit unpopular. Despite this, new themes are also released with this iBooks Author update. Some of the new themes released includes cookbooks, scrapbook themes, and many more. This enables you to focus more on the writing rather than the designing.
Better Education Choices
Apple’s main push recently has been for incorporating Apple into the classroom and education. With over 2500 classrooms making use of iBooks, which covers 80% of the subjects available in US high schools today, the service is certainly becoming more educational friendly. The new feature added includes the ability to embed mathematical equations into your ebook. This allows you to hash out great, accurate, and useful equations in a fashion that prevents you from having to substitute due to the lack of options on a standard keyboard.
Solving More Paper Book Pitfalls
In addition to updated mathematical expression embedding, iBooks Author allows you to also make ebooks a lot more interactive than before. For many ebook authors, this is the major reason for switching to ebooks, but also the major pitfall that separates stellar ebooks from substandard ones. A basic paper book’s threshold for interaction is the CD-Rom that comes with it, but ebooks allow you to do more.
With the new iBooks Author update, you have the ability to now add in pop-ups to gain reader’s attention, as well as a scrolling bar on the side – essential for readers to skim ahead or see how much more is on the page without having to scroll. Finally, to ensure that readers are always kept up to date, ebooks can now be automatically updated the moment an addition or change occurs.
Fonts Galore
I have a minor addiction to fonts, always searching for a new and quirky font to include in a Word document or Powerpoint. However, there was a time with iBooks Author where certain fonts weren’t supported with the software. Now, the latest update allows you to make use of the fonts available on your Mac.
These should sum up the new addition in the latest iBook Author. What other features have I missed? Will these features make you want to use iBook Author?
Ari Simon has been a writer with Make Tech Easier since August 2011. Ari loves anything related to technology and social media. When Ari isn’t working, he enjoys traveling and trying out the latest tech gadget.
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