2

I need to regroup PDF which I have created into categories and to put them on my iPad. With mountain lion I used Calibre to create the categories and iTunes to put the PDF on my iPad as books. After the Mavericks update I realized that the books are now managed by IBooks. Unfortunately I can't use the categories created with Calibre in IBooks and I'm not able to create categories with IBooks. Do you have an idea to do that on Mavericks ?

Improve this question
3
  • I used that trick to uninstall iBooks and so I could reuse iTunes to manage my books (PDFs) robertsetiadi.net/getting-our-books-back-itunes-mavericks
    – Arnaud
    Commented Oct 8, 2014 at 9:23
  • I have the same problem: how can I add my own categories to iBooks (I am running Mavericks). This seems like a very basic level of user functionality.
    – wolfies
    Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 18:08
  • As far as I know you can't create categories with iBooks. You can uninstall iBooks and use Calibre (calibre-ebook.com) to create you categories
    – Arnaud
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 12:56

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Go to: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books and make a backup copy the file Books.plist.

Double-click Books.plist when it should open in Property List Editor, assuming you have Xcode installed.

Expand Root>Books and examine any item from Apple to see the format. Find the item containing your PDF (I'll call it 'itemX') and open it. If there is genre key all you have to do is edit the value field. If not, select 'itemX' and click on 'Add Child' at the top left to insert a new blank key/value pair.

Fill in 'genre' for the Key, String (the default) is correct for the Type, and for the Value insert the category you wish to associate with the PDF (you can invent your own).

Save, restart your computer, open iBooks, and your PDF should now have the category you assigned it.

Next you have to sync your iPad to your Mac with iTunes, but before you do that you need to delete the PDF files from your iPad, so that you have the 'new' versions with the changed categories. You may have to restart your iPad to see the changes.

A bit of a faffle, but it works for me on Mavericks with my iPhone.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .