Easiest (free) ways to read ebooks on your iPad
In five steps:
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Get yourself a free Dropbox account
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Upload your ePub files to Dropbox
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Download the latest version of Stanza for the iPad
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Browse to your Dropbox folder in Safari, select the ePub file, then hit the Stanza icon
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Go to Stanza and your ebook file should be there.
This is the easiest (free) way to get ebooks onto a suitable iPad ereader if you a) already own ebooks and b) prefer ePub files. If you’re into Kindle, then you’re probably better off just using the Kindle app; if iBooks are your thing (you sadist), then just use Apple’s own app.
Here are some other ways:
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Get yourself a Dropbox account and the Dropbox app. Anything in your Dropbox folder will appear in the app, and PDF, TXT and RTF files should be readable within Dropbox. You can also select a Dropbox file and hit the ‘Open in…’ button at the very top right of the screen to pump the ebook into Stanza or other compatible apps. Or…
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Get the Goodreads app, which is a better reader than Dropbox. You can use it to access your Dropbox files, as well as websites, FTP, Google Docs, IMAP servers, even WebDAV servers. Okay, so this isn’t free, but at US$0.99c, it’s near as dammit. Or…
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Advanced: Use Calibre on your desktop (Linux, Windows or Mac versions are available) to convert your ebooks into whatever format you need, then go to Preferences and start up the Content Server. Grab your iPad, load Stanza, then hit the Shared button at the top. There should be a link to the server running on your desktop, otherwise just add the IP address manually (usually 192.168.0.1:8080).
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Double advanced: Sync your Calibre library location to your Dropbox folder (via the desktop), so you can have all your bases covered.
Suggestions? Clarifications? Let me know.
