Can I combine different iBooks Author templates?

Question

Hi there,
I want to create a book that is, at one and the same time, a book of restaurant reviews that includes replies and responses to these reviews, a recipe book and, I don't know, commentary/philosophizing/flights-of-fancy from the chef (who's something of a character).
I want to use some of the very slick iBooks Author templates, but the thing is, I don't want to be restricted to just one template, because my book (for better or worse) will be something of amalgam.
So my question is—can I combine some of these iBooks Author templates?  Any other advice re how best to proceed?
Thanks very much,
Malcolm

Answer 1

Sounds like a plan to me, Malcolm. I have used two image widgets in my simple layout. I have stopped trying to put photos into the text, which are called inline photos. It is much easier to use a image gallery widget which allows for many photos and images to be used. When they are clicked they will expand to the quality of the original image. If you are taking your own photos, they will fill the iPad screen. Each photo can have a very short caption. The other widget I use is called the interactive image widget. It gives you little tags that you can move around to label and explain whatever you want. The interactive widget is for one image only.
I don't see any problem with you using reviews, quotations, etc. That's just text stuff. Your text flows from screen to screen, so you just insert your image widgets into the text and keep on going.
Why don't you try a practice template and get the hang of it? The other thing I have gotten used to is that sections have their own rules. You can insert a section where you want. For chapters, the front two pages are special. The left side wants to have a big font title, some white space and a small text block. That text block does NOT connect to the pages which you add next. These pages all have flowing content. On the right page of the chapter opening, it wants to have one large image, filling the page. It doesn't want anything else. These are format issues. What I do is start with text from the material I have and put it in the first page little text box. You can adjust the size of that text box.  Then I continue with the text on the following pages. If you paste it in there, it will automatically add as many pages as are needed. I actually need a three step process as my original text comes from Adobe InDesign on a PC. I copy it into MS Word, and then export it from Word as Rich Text Format (RTF), which is as basic as it gets. RTF has no problem going into iBook. If you are writing directly into Apple Pages it will transfer over to iBook.
I am writing a history book, and have transferred over the first hundred pages into iBook Author, and am adding many copyright free images from Wikipedia. If you click on an image on Wikipedia, it will take you to the image page called Wikimedia Commons. They often offer the image in different resolutions. On my Apple laptop, I right click and place in the iPhoto library. I LOVE iPhoto Library. Your image comes in and you drag it up to the category you have created. The categories collapse into small bands, which you can open with a click. So it is extremely easy to keep track of your images and put them in as many categories as you like.  Then from iPhoto, you can drag your image into the iBook image widget.
One thing I would definitely recommend is to attach a second monitor to your laptop. This provides for much more flexibility in working with images and the internet.
Kira