Husband. Dad to 5. Student Ministry Pastor. Follower of Jesus. Yatta yatta.

HOW TO COPY QUOTES OFF AN E-BOOK

I have 8 seminary papers due in the next 10 days.

5 of them are extensive book reports. In this case, being able to extract a quote and view my notes in a quick shot is mandatory.  But since I’m reading those books on my iPad, I have a choice: ibook app or the kindle app.

Simply stated, the kindle is the only way to go for writing reports or extracting info.  If I’m reading a novel, I’ll choose ibooks because I like the look better and rarely ever need a quote.  But if it’s non-fiction, or something I might want o cut and paste in to a sermon or paper in the future, I use the kindle.

Here’s why:

1. VERSATILITY:  I can read the book in one of 4 options on my mac products, all of which are free to download and cloud sync letting me pick up where I left off on the latest page I got to in any of the apps I read the book in.  I have 4 choices:

  • on the kindle app on iPad
  • on the kindle app on iPhone
  • on the kindle app on the Mac Desktop app.  (available in the App Store on your mac)
  • online on a kindle page designed specifically for my kindle. Go to kindle.amazon.com and login and you’ll be at your unique kindle page- yup, if you’re using a kindle or the kindle app, you have one of these already.   
2. COPY QUOTES:  It is so simple it probably should be illegal.  But don’t tell anyone I said that (unless you work for Apple, then tell everyone and fix ibooks) because it’s beautiful and so helpful.  Here’s how:
  • read the book on your mode of choice.  I prefer my iPad.  
  • make notes and highlights as you wish 
  • open the mac desktop kindle app
  • go to your notes on the left hand column
  • go to the highlight or note you want. Click the note and choose copy.
  • paste in your writing document and it will auto tag it’s location and bibliographical data too.
  • done. 
If you’d prefer to save or use your notes in evernote… here’s a web article explaining how to do that.   And here’s another one too
If you really really really want to use ibooks and you want to work to get your notes out, this is how I guess you can do that if you’re like a computer programmer guy too.   

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