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I am travelling tomorrow and I have some PDF's and e-books I want to read on my IPad.

I have downloaded an EPUB file to my Ubuntu computer. I want to know how to sync files in Ubuntu with an IPad or how I could store files on the IPad from Ubuntu.

I tried using Ubuntu One but it just gives me the option of "Open in IBooks" which does not appear to be working.

8 Answers 8

9

I would use Calibre. It is an awesome and easy to use Library management system. You can install it as follows:

sudo apt-get install calibre

I haven't used it with iPod/iPad but I use it with my Android phone and Kindle all the time and it is great.

EDIT:

I might also add that the iPad driver is still experimental, so you may encounter a few bugs. It is better than nothing though

Thanks to Kenneth for suggesting adding the following link which helps greatly!

http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq.html#how-do-i-use-app-with-my-ipad-iphone-ipod-touch

2
  • Hi, it looks like a great software package it found all my books in my directories but when plugging in my ipad it didn't recognize it. I have an old kindle should I try that? I read all my kindle on the color ipad anyway.
    – bjackfly
    Jul 13, 2013 at 5:58
  • Freedom_Ben thanks so much calibre is really a great piece of software, thanks again for the recommendation. I really appreciate it. Disregard my last comment I used ken's link to figure it out. Thanks again!
    – bjackfly
    Jul 13, 2013 at 6:15
6

You could use a cloud drive. Upload the files to the cloud drive from your pc and download them again on your ipad (for example dropbox). You could also send a mail to yourself with the eBook as attachment.

If you would like to know more about sending files to your ipad i would suggest reading the following article, it covers multiple options on sending files from your pc to you ipad.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1159805/iPad_file_transfers.html

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  • 2
    @Freedom_Ben Using Calibre to manage his eBooks between multiple devices is a great idea. Might want to refere him to the following page with instructions on how to set it up with his iPad. manual.calibre-ebook.com/… (would have added it as a comment to his answer but i can't manage to find the button)
    – user174671
    Jul 13, 2013 at 0:28
  • 1
    Ken thanks so much! This comment saved me, I used the calibre server and ibooks shown in the link to download to my device. Thanks again so much I really appreciate it!
    – bjackfly
    Jul 13, 2013 at 6:12
4

If you email it to yourself as attachments that you can download, so that it's on an email address on your iPad, you can open the ePubs and it'll add them to the books feature. Assuming, of course, you're on the latest iOS.

I have yet to find a direct-from-linux-to-iOS solution though... the above does work though.

1
  • I do this on my iPhone, and although it's not an iPad, it should be a similar method on your iPad because the iOS is basically the same.
    – Thomas Ward
    Jul 13, 2013 at 0:17
1

I have found a workaround that works really well for loading ebooks onto your iPad, and you dont need internet access at all. Download the app USB Disk for your iPad (it is free). Plug your iPad into PC. Navigate to your iPad in the file explorer. The USB Disk app should show up. It will have a folder called "Documents" inside of it. Drag all of your ebooks into this folder. They will then show up inside the USB Disk app on your iPad. You can then choose the option "Open with app" --> iBooks, to add them to your library.

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  • 1
    Where do I get that program?
    – Braiam
    Sep 2, 2013 at 23:41
1

This might be the most hacker(hard) way to do it.

Close your ibooks app, do not open it till the end! Extract your .epub file in to a folder with the same name. If the file is book1.epub, the extracted contents should be in the folder book1.epub.

Open the iDevice in your Ubuntu file explorer. Navigate to Books/Purchases copy the extracted folder here.

Open the purchases.plist file in your text editor. It's an xml.

It should look like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Books</key>
    <array>
       <dict>
            <key>Artist</key>
            <string>Chuck</string>
            <key>Inserted-By-iBooks</key>
            <true/>
            <key>Name</key>
            <string>Fight Club</string>
            <key>Package Hash</key>
            <string>6744918BA88D5BF234A2B663F3A311E2</string>
            <key>Page Progression Direction</key>
            <string>default</string>
            <key>Path</key>
            <string>Fight Club_ a novel - Chuck Palahniuk.epub</string>
            <key>s</key>
            <string>0</string>
        </dict>
        <dict>
            <key>Artist</key>
            <string>George Orwell</string>
            <key>Inserted-By-iBooks</key>
            <true/>
            <key>Name</key>
            <string>The Complete Novels Of George Orwell</string>
            <key>Package Hash</key>
            <string>6744918BA88D5BF234A2B663F3A311E1</string>
            <key>Page Progression Direction</key>
            <string>default</string>
            <key>Path</key>
            <string>Complete Novels Of George Orwell, The - George Orwell.epub</string>
            <key>s</key>
            <string>0</string>
        </dict>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Copy a section between with the <dict>...</dict> tags and fill in your meta data of the book.

For the Hash just change the last two characters, so that it doesn't duplicate any other entry. Save the file and open the iBooks app.

0

Install kindle on your iPad.

They will provide you one dedicated email to send your documents and ebooks which can be stored in amazons cloud.

Send your files to that email as attachment.

Now open your iPad's kindle app and go to cloud section you will see these file there. From there you can also download them locally to your device for offline access.

0

A little late to the party..... however, in extension to Freedom_Ben's Answer, you can use Calibre on your PC to start a Calibre Content Server. Then connect your mobile device to the same network as your PC and access the server. Download the book. Read. Enjoy!

P.S.: Steps 8 and 9 can be skipped.

  1. Download and install Calibre on Ubuntu using the below command.

    sudo apt-get install calibre

  2. Launch Calibre. Click Add Books to add all your epub books to this library.

  3. To start the server, click the Connect/share button and choose Start Content server.

  4. Connect your iOS (or any mobile device for that matter) to the same wifi network as your Ubuntu PC.

  5. Type in the IP address of your Ubuntu PC on your mobile device. Use command ifconfig. The format must be http://<IPaddress>:8080. So if your computer's IP address is 192.168.1.2 the URL to access from the mobile device will be

    http://192.168.1.2:8080/

  6. You will see a list of books added during Step 2.

  7. Tap on any book and Safari will ask you if you want to open it with iBooks.

  8. Start reading that book.

  9. Enjoy!

HTH

-1

You can also spin up a simple http server (i.e. python -m SimpleHTTPServer in the directory where you have your documents), then open the directory in Safari on your iPad. You should be able to see the files there and import them into iBooks.

1
  • This is usually overkill for this kind of thing.
    – Thomas Ward
    Jan 10, 2015 at 1:03

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