How To Get PDFs to Display on Your iPad

I finally broke down and bought an iPad Mini after having both a regular Nook and a Nook Color.  Both readers were good-- the Nook Color in particular was great-- allowing my to read not only books I bought through Barnes and Noble but also PDFs I'd side loaded onto it and would read with EZ PDFreader.  I hated how the books wouldn't show up in one place though-- and they would only display as a list rather than how the books displayed in my Nook Book collection which looked like they sat on a bookshelf.

I also tried to read the Kindle books I had on my iTouch but I wasn't able to get the Kindle App on my Nook Color.  Kindle has a lot of books that Nook doesn't-- and vice versa-- so I didn't like the idea of locking myself with one or the other.

I didn't like the original iPads because they were both too big and too heavy-- holding a reader for a longtime made me appreciate how much heavier the bigger iPad was.

When they announced the iPad Mini my first reaction was why?  It just looked like the Nook Tablet-- and I wasn't in any hurry to buy that.

But a visit to the Apple Store changed my mind-- the iPad Mini was not only much lighter-- it was the perfect size.  AND it could support both Nook and Kindle purchases so I had the ability to read both as well as access the thousands of books (many of them free) in the iBooks catalog.

It was also a selling point that it talks to both my desktop iMac and my MacBook laptop.

In addition to those books purchased through traditional booksellers, I also have literally thousands of books, pulp magazines and comic books on PDF and with blind faith I assumed those would work on the iPad better than they did on the Nook.

On the Nook the PDF's didn't display as my regular books did-- and that irritated me to no end.

Getting your PDFs on your iPad is pretty simple-- and they will display just like regular books in your iBooks app.  You don't need a second program or app-- it'll work straight into your iBooks app.

1. Connect your iPad to your computer (I use a Mac but this should still work the same way with Windows).
2. Open iTunes-- your iPad should appear listed under devices.
3. Go to the folder that has your PDF files and drag them into BOOKS in your main iTunes library.  With Windows you might have to go to FILE>ADD TO LIBRARY and choose the files that way.
Make sure that SYNC Books is selected as an option.

4. If the authors don't display automatically (and they likely won't) you'll need to right click on the book and go to GET INFO where you can manually enter in the author's name.

While you're here, you should also check to make certain its loading correctly-- click on OPTIONS and select BOOK as MEDIA TYPE if its not already selected.

5. SYNC the books you want in your library to your iPad.  If the PDFs aren't showing up click on COLLECTION>PDFs and your side loaded PDF books will show up right there on your shelves like your "real" books.

Allow your books to SYNC completely before you disconnect your iPad but once its done you'll have your library on the go.