How the heck do you print from the Books app in iOS 16?

I’m using iOS 16.4.1 on the latest iPad Pro. I’m trying to print a pdf from the Books app. All the menu buttons that should be on the top line, like Print and Cancel, are simply not there! This makes it impossible to print anything from the Books app. The Apple Mail app does not suffer from this problem. Another Apple software fail, or an I being an idiot?

My guess is that the Books app is intended for reading books, which are copyrighted. Not allowing printing of copyrighted material seems logical. That the app can view PDFs isn’t a lot of motivation to add a print feature when it can’t be used with the primary purpose of the app. Imagine the complaints if the print feature was included, but disabled for books.

Well, I can do other things with a PDF from the Books app, like save it to Files and from there email it. The PDF isn’t at all copyrighted. If it’s not supposed to be able to actually print, then the print function shouldn’t be there at all. But it IS there, and is only half complete.

It is easy when creating a PDF file with dedicated PDF software to place restrictions on the file. Prevent printing is just one. Others include requiring a password to read, password to print, password change, etc. I am not a Book file user, but I would bet money the software creating Books files has similar restriction options.

I suspect it is possible to import files you create into Books. If you can do that, create a file to import and see if you can print that file. If yes, you are dealing with a restriction. If not you are dealing with a Book app issue. If it is a Book app issue, I suggest deleting that file and downloading a fresh copy.

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As an ultimate kludge, take a screen snapshot and then print that. If you only want certain parts of the text, take the screen snapshot, edit with the crude tools provided, then print that.
This is not easy, nor fun, but it will get you around the “no printing” barrier.

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Screen shots aren’t going to cut it for more than a page or two. And I can work around the problem now by saving the PDF outside of Books and printing it from Files.

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The Book app supports PDFs. You can load any PDF into it and read it there. And any PDF you click on from a web page first displays in Safari, and you have the option of sending it to Books. Also, you can convert any web page to a PDF and send it to Books. Even those are missing a way to print them from Books. If a PDF isn’t “print protected” (which I have no idea how to do), the Books app should fully support printing it. And if it thinks its “print protected”, then it should say so when trying to print it and disallow it. Instead, Apple has a half implemented print function within the Books app. It’s just incomplete which is simply inexcusable. The software is half baked, which I’m finding more and more with Apple’s (iPad) software. I am becoming more and more convinced that Apple will eventually not support the Books app any more, annoyed users of it be damned.

Google wasn’t “my friend” here and I found nothing about this issue there. Good thing I have loads of Apple stock to comfort me!

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While not a Books user, normally, I have some how-to eBooks in there, outdated, but reference, and from the Apple Discussion boards, it seems iBooks, now Books are set up as Readers, so the licensing of books is reading, not printing… I used to buy some Nikon manuals, but then take them to a local print shop and have then printed and spiral bound. They initially refused, but I managed to get a note from the author, allowing the manual to be printed… So that’s one way…

I once created a color drawing of the Directory Assistance Operator position layout I’d relocated in Napa, CA to the 2nd floor, made the mistake of putting a copyright note on it, print shop refused to copy it for them until I removed it… So some printers pay attention, they had it down up into a large image, framed it, pretty handy… But some are self serve, for even large format jobs, a thumb drive and away you of, but if personnel have to handle it, likely they’d refuse…

In the end whatever work-around works, but I don’t see it being opened up…

In the end whatever work-around works, but I don’t see it being opened up…

But again, Apple’s implementation is simply half-arsed. Not allowing PDFs to be printed from Books is one thing (and not good either), but having incomplete software like they do now is quite another, and that’s even worse. It screams incompetence, or at lease “we don’t care about the Books app anymore”. Not a great feeling to impart to Apple’s users.

You might to try an Android phone - my guess is the result would be the same. I say this because in my Windows days I used Adobe Professional to make PDFs and control them. When a PDF was created to not allow printing I did not get any warning from whatever the Windows PDF reader was.

Yeah, but… I do use an Android phone. I’m talking about my iPad here. And I can print these PDFs just fine from my Windows PC, and even from my iPad if I SAVE THEM OUTSIDE OF BOOKS first. Apple’s the problem here, releasing half-baked (or even worse - botched) and untested software.

Ahh, sorry, I was unaware of the 'Droid/PC world there… In any case, it’s not the Books problem, it seems to be the openness of the contents, which falls into the Copyright/Licensing world, so then it’s the workaround of screen shots, etc…

Old questions on the Apple discussion boards pretty much all led to the licensing as the issue…

weco - NO PC/Win since retiring in 2002! Gone, banished!

I guess I’m not making myself clear. Even PDFs created BY APPLE itself when one is sent to Books via the built-in webpage conversion action show a half-baked and incomplete printing interface. It’s simply borked. Apple’s fault, end of story!

Also, for what it’s worth, printing PDFs from Books works fine in iOS 15.7.5 on my old iPad Air 2. I rest my case. :slightly_smiling_face:

My suspicion is that Apple got some complaints from publishers or authors or agents or someone and deliberately crippled that function to people couldn’t easily “print a book”. Apple has threaded many copyright issues between music, Apple TV, and iBooks - and printing (unknown) quantities of pages is just something they didn’t want to deal with, so they disabled it. Just a hunch, but it would be unlike Apple to offer a feature and then “accidentally” delete it in a revision.

[I included the “screen snapshot” option because it appeared you were trying to print out a page or two of a manual, and that would serve. And it would not - obviously - be convenient for “printing a chapter of a book”, which is my point.]

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My suspicion is that Apple got some complaints from publishers or authors or agents or someone and deliberately crippled that function to people couldn’t easily “print a book”

Nope. True “books” have never been printable. There’s simply no option to do it. With PDFs, the option is deliberately present, it’s just half baked and nonfunctional in iOS 16. Works fine though in iOS 15.