Apple Launches iBooks Author 2.0

A new version of Apple’s iBooks creation tool is now available from the Mac App Store offering the ability to create portrait-only books, more interactivity with new Scrolling Sidebar and Pop-Over widgets, and a truckload of other features.

E-book publishers selling their content in the iBookstore have a reason to rejoice, as iBooks Author 2.0 is now available with a ton of new features and enhancements.

Writers who design their books to display just like a real hardcover can now opt to have their title displayed in wide-aspect only by using portrait mode editing.

“Starting with a Portrait Only template enables creation of books in fixed portrait orientation, and the orientation switching UI will be disabled in iBooks Author,” Apple explains.

“Instead of using the text flow format of a landscape book in portrait orientation, portrait-only books provide the same navigation, table of contents, and interaction as would be available to a landscape book in landscape orientation.”

Publishers can embed custom fonts into books for complete control over text appearance, add more interactivity with new Scrolling Sidebar and Pop-Over widgets and leverage the new support for mathematical expressions with new native equation editing using both LaTeX and MathML notation.

Apple advises authors and publishers to secure the appropriate rights to the fonts used, in keeping with similar rights for use of images, text, and other types of content.

Furthermore, iBooks Author 2.0 brings automatic optimization of media for iPad, and improved support for embedded audio. This also includes the ability to play an audio file by tapping an image, according to the release notes.

The update also improves publishing workflow, including automatic sample book creation and pre-publish checking, and offers additional Apple-designed templates. Other new features are listed below.

• Version numbering for books
• Enhanced to take advantage of the Retina display on the new MacBook Pro
• Performance improvements
• Usability improvements

All the good stuff is detailed in a lengthy support document dedicated entirely to this update at Apple.com.

Download iBooks Author (Free)