Preparing and Putting a PDF File onto an iPad

Note: Throughout the entirety of this post, references to iPads should also be able to be generalized to the newest iPhones and iPod Touches.

Prior to the more recent iPad OS updates, it was quite difficult to move a PDF file onto an iPad for reading or reference.  It has now become very easy...as long as your iTunes and iPad software are up to date.

This is a great advancement. Any electronic document that you can save as a PDF is now available for easy digital storage and reading on an iPad.

By default, iBooks on the iPad will display the appearance of the PDF document's first page as its cover.   You can easily use Get Info (select file--then FILE: GET INFO or Command-i)  in iTunes to modify the name and author of a PDF.  In my experience (at the time of this writing), however, similar attempts to add cover artwork to the file will fail.

To work around this problem, use Pages (any word processor should do) to create a cover sheet for the document.   Making the font as large as possible to fill up the page, put in the title of the document, the author(s), and even the document's date if you wish.  You can even paste in an appropriate graphic--whatever you think will be helpful in identifying the PDF document on the iBooks Library shelf.  Here is an example of a cover sheet:

The file can then be saved out as a single-page PDF file.  Open it in its own window in Apple's PDF viewer Preview, and then open the main PDF document in its own window.  Make sure the navigational sidebars are showing on the right of each document.  Drag the cover sheet page from that file's navigation sidebar over to the top of the main document's sidebar.  As this is done, a blue horizontal line should appear at the point of insertion:

Once released, this page will become the new first page (and as a result, the visible cover of the document).  Save the change made to the document.

 Once your PDF document is ready and your software is up to date, simply drag your target PDF file onto your iTunes icon in your dock or into your iTunes window.  Don't worry, iTunes will put it in the right place (the "Books" section).

Once the PDF file is properly in iTunes, you may wish to use GET INFO to specify the author and title  the document displays in iTunes.

Connect your iPad to your computer and sync it.  If your sync settings are configured to "sync all books" (I believe this is the default), your new PDF document should now show up in iBooks on your iPad.  A button for PDF's should appear at the top of your iPad's Library screen.  Select it to see any PDF's you have moved onto your iPad.

Recent updates to Pages now makes it possible to export documents in the ePub format that iBooks uses by default for its electronic books.   This may have some advantages, yet when it is important just to quickly get a document on to an iPad with a minimum of effort and worries about formatting, using PDF is the way to go.   In fact, if you don't care about the appearance of the PDF on the iBooks bookshelf skip all the other steps in this post: just drag it into iTunes, sync, and read.  This is about as easy as can be.