Editing on the iPad

[marguerite]

Almost two months after purchasing my iPad, I still use it almost every evening. Besides reading books, surfing the Web, watching YouTube videos, and the like, I actually do use it to read/edit my Storyist files. So in the absence of a Storyist app (c'mon, Steve, you don't really need sleep, do you? ), and despite the flawed state of most of the available options, I thought it might be worth starting an editing on the iPad thread. It may not be "using Storyist," exactly, but it is certainly an extension of Storyist.

 

So here, from top to bottom, are my preferred ways of editing Storyist files on the iPad.

 

1. iBooks

Pros: it's easy, it's free, and the ePub file looks just like a book, which as a writer is the next best thing to seeing my work-in-progress in an actual or virtual bookstore. Almost makes me feel like I've published the thing. I keep a cover image that I created in Photoshop in my Storyist file and export the cover and manuscript (you can find instructions, including a video, for doing this elsewhere on the forums) whenever I make significant changes. Then I drop the ePub file on iTunes, sync it to my iPad, and use the bookmarking feature in iBooks to highlight anything that needs work. I would do this exclusively were it not for one drawback.

Cons: iBooks has no annotation feature (yet). So unless it's glaringly obvious what is wrong, I have to take notes in another program, either Notes or Pages.

 

2. Pages

Pros: I can highlight text and indicate how I want to change it. I could actually make the changes and save the new file if I wanted to reimport to Storyist or export to Word. If I don't care too much about retaining styles, I can create a file simply using copy/paste. And if the iPad is not connected, I can e-mail files back and forth as well as transferring them through iTunes. For other people's files, I use this method almost exclusively—but most of those people don't use Storyist.

Cons: Pages costs $, albeit not much ($10). Creating a styled text file is a pain: Storyist > RTF > Word > Pages. The navigation drives me insane (although I hope that I or the interface or both will improve over time). And Pages for iPad is seriously limited (no comments, e.g.), so I mark up everything twice: once on the iPad and again on my Mac. Except for adding notes, I might as well use iBooks, which has the advantage of looking extremely cool.

 

3. Kindle and B&N eReader (just released for iPad)

Both are free as well as permitting bookmarking and annotation. But I have yet to figure out how to get my own documents onto the iPad without e-mailing them to Amazon. calibre works for the Kindle and is supposed to recognize iPad, but so far I've seen no evidence that it does. Does anyone know more?

 

In every case, I then transfer the edits/comments manually back into the Storyist file. But since I can search the iBook for bookmarks and Storyist for the text in question, that's not as onerous as it sounds.

 

So, that's my experience. What do others do?

Best,

Marguerite

[marguerite]

Note the following updates to iBooks, due later this month, announced by Steve Jobs during his keynote speech (as recorded by MacWorld) at WWDC:

 

"Jobs also outlined new features in iBooks, including the ability to highlight text, add bookmarks and create notes. The table of contents of each book has also been tweaked to list all the bookmarks and notes created by the user. Perhaps more interestingly, the updated iBooks will support documents in PDF format. This should extend the app’s ability to display books to a large number of new titles, in addition to all sorts of documents saved in Adobe’s portable document format. PDFs can be accessed through a separate “bookshelf” in the app’s main screen. Jobs didn’t mention whether PDF support extends to Adobe’s proprietary DRM technology, which would make it possible to import and use books purchased through other bookstores that support the format."

 

That last one's for you, Julie G. (I admit it will be useful to have PDFs and ePubs in one place.) And if I can add my own notes, I can go directly from Storyist to iBooks and back, bypassing all those other programs, which is great for me. Can't wait.

 

iBooks also accounts for 22-23% of the ebook market: not too shabby after only two months.

Best,

M

[Joolissa]

w00t!!!! Now I can add all the PDF ebooks I was given from a friend. Yay!!

 

One interesting thing to note, is that I found a link for a free ePub ebook on GoodReads.com and clicked on it with my ipad. I didn't think I would be able to save it directly to my iPad, but surprisingly enough, it was downloaded directly into Stanza. Now, if I can figure out how to get it out of Stanza, I can then put it into iBooks. It's good to know incase you're ever on the go with your iPad and find a limited time only free ePub ebook without having access to your computer.

 

I would of course prefer that it go into iBooks, but I guess there isn't a way to do that.

- Jools

[marguerite]

See my suggestions in the Community section, here, since we are moving beyond Storyist files at this point.

Best,

M

[Joolissa]

Awesome. Thanks for moving it M. I will go check it out.

- J