Dec 18, 2010 13:55 GMT  ·  By

Thanks to a recent update to iBooks, you now have the ability to view, sync, and print PDFs right to your device. You can even view PDF e-mail attachments or PDFs from Safari, according to Apple - all within iBooks.

Before you start feeding your iOS device PDF books, there are a few things to note.

First off, iBooks 1.2 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch requires iOS 4.2 or later.

Also, viewing PDFs from Safari in iBooks requires iOS 4.2 or later, while printing PDFs requires iOS 4.2 or later.

With that out of the way, owners of an iPod touch (2nd generation), iPod touch (3rd generation), iTunes, iPhone 4, iPhone 3G, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad, or iPhone 3GS, can follow these steps in order to properly view, sync, save, and print PDFs on their device.

Opening PDFs with iBooks

According to Apple, PDF documents attached to an email, for example, can be opened in iBooks: “When you view a PDF email attachment, simply tap ‘Open in iBooks’, located in the upper-right corner of the screen.”

“iBooks will open and you'll be able to view your PDF using the iBooks app,” the company explains in a knowledge base article that’s been recently uploaded to the Support area of Apple.com.

The document informs iOS device owners that, when they use iBooks to open PDFs, the app automatically saves a copy to the user’s iBooks PDF shelf. “These PDFs will also sync back to your iTunes Book library the next time you sync your device with iTunes,” according to the Cupertino, California-based company.

Syncing and saving PDFs

In order to add PDFs to the iTunes library on a Mac or PC, users must simply drag and drop the PDF into their iTunes Book library. Here’s how it’s done, according to Apple:

To sync a PDF to iBooks on your device:

1. Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in the Devices list on the left in iTunes 10.1 or later.

2. Click the Books tab in the resulting window.

3. Ensure that the Sync Books checkbox is enabled.

4. If iTunes is set to only sync selected books, be sure to enable the checkbox next to the PDF you want to sync.

5. Click Sync.

Apple adds that “iTunes can backup your PDF files so they are restored to your iOS device after a software restore, update, or to transfer information to a different device.”

“When you use iTunes 10.1 or later to sync your PDF files to iBooks 1.2 or later on your iOS device, a backup of your PDF will be automatically created. A copy of the PDF will be added to your iTunes Books library.”

Printing PDFs in iBooks

Printing PDFs from the iBooks app is easy as pie.PDF

Simply ensure that you have iBooks 1.2 and iOS 4.2 or later installed. When viewing your PDF, tap on the arrow located in the top menu bar, and tap print. Select a printer, page range, the number of copies, and hit “print”. That’s it!