Make interactive digital books
1 Choose a template
The Template Chooser makes layout decisions extremely simple. If you want an easy life, just pick a template that you like the look of – for horizontal or portrait layout – and add your content to it. You can adjust almost anything about it.
2 The Blank template
Alternatively just pick the Blank template to get the kind of starting point you find in professional desktop publishing tools. Choose this if you want to create layouts from scratch, though we’ll work with a template.
3 Add a cover design
Begin with your book’s cover, called Book Title on the left. This will be shown in your iBooks library and on the iBooks Store, so make it look good small as well as large. Add an image, then enter and format a title (View > Show Format Bar).
4 Add an intro video
The Intro Media stage, listed on the left, is optional. It plays a video when the book is opened. Use the Media palette to browse your videos, or drop one into this page directly. When this video ends, the first chapter is automatically shown.
5 Add pages
Under Insert > Pages, pick a template and add media to it. Text boxes are linked so that words flow from one to the next. Under Insert > Insert Chapters From, you can add text from Pages or Word docs, or layouts from IDML files.
The Media widget
The Media palette enables you to browse and add items from your Movies folder, or you can just drag a video from Finder into your book to add it as a Media widget. Use the Preview icon in the toolbar to check your work in iBooks.
The Keynote widget
Click Widget in the toolbar, choose Keynote, then click the rightmost icon at the top of the Inspector to choose your Keynote file. Almost anything that works in a presentation played in Keynote itself will also work within an iBook.
Custom widgets
How about adding a map to your book? We’ll use bookry.com to make one of these. Sign up on the site, then go to My BookShelf and start a new “book” to store your work in your Bookry account. Click Add Widget and pick Google Maps.
Configure widget
In Google Maps, click the menu icon (three lines) and choose “Share or embed map.” Copy the code under Embed Map and paste it into Bookry’s Google Maps Link field. “Freeform” sets your widget to a specific size on a page.
Use it in your iBook
Click Save & Preview to check the map widget’s appearance, then download it, unpack the Zip archive, and drag the widget file into your iBook. It’s branded with the Bookry logo unless you pay to remove it or write your own widget.
Write your own
It turns out that writing your own widgets isn’t all that hard; basic HTML5 skills are really all you need. Make a web page that displays what you need, such as a map, then use the guide at bit.ly/ ibookshtml to turn it into a widget.
A new perspective
Some third-party media tools have started supporting widget production too. If you have a 360° camera, Pano2VR has a widget-making template ( bit.ly/360widget) for embedding 360° panoramas in iBooks.