Hi Christina,
If you want to keep your audio book tracks separate, just play them
from a playlist. You can create a playlist for your tracks by
selecting them in the songs table (Command-A), and then using Command-
Shift-N to create a new playlist from your selection. For audio books
with many tracks, a better option is to create a smart playlist with
Command-Option-N, and apply two rules: "Album is <Name of Audio Book>"
and "Play Count is 0", so that only tracks you have not listened to
remain on the playlist. Regular playlists are specified by selecting
tracks: you can add to playlists by copying track selections from the
songs table (Command-C) and pasting them onto the playlist in the
sources table (Command-V). Or you can avoid navigating to the source
table by using the contextual menu (VO-Shift-M) after selecting tracks
in the songs table, pressing "A" to go to "Add to Playlist", right
arrow to the submenu and then either arrow down or press the first few
letters of the playlist name to select your playlist, then press
return. Smart playlists are specified using rules, and by default
will "Live Update", which is why the "play count is 0" rule will
remove tracks you've listened to. So do the following:
1. Command-Option-N to create a smart playlist
2. VO-Right arrow to the rules section and interact (VO-Shift-Down
Arrow).
3. Create your first rule, "Album is <Book Name>". Press (VO-Space)
the pop up button, then press "A" and Return to change this from
"Artist" to "Album". VO-Right to the next pop up, press "i" and return
to set this to "is", then VO-Right to the text field and type your
book title (album name). You only need to type enough to uniquely
match the title and iTunes will complete the name -- just VO-Left and
VO-Right again to hear the field announced.
4. VO-Right to the "Add" button and press (VO-Space) to add a second
rule, "Play Count is 0". Press (VO-Space) the pop up button, then
press "P" and Return to change this to "Play Count". The remaining
fields will be set to "is 0" by default -- you can VO-left to the
start of the rule and VO-Right to review the rule.
5. Stop interacting (VO-Shift-Up Arrow). You can VO-Right arrow
through the rest of the dialog window and note the options to limit
the playlist by length, time, size, or number of tracks. Also note
that "Live Updating" is checked.
6. Press (VO-Space) the "OK" button to save the changes, and type in a
name for your smart playlist.
Now, if you play your audiobook from your smart playlist (e.g., select
it in the sources table, and press return), as you finish listening to
tracks, their play count will increment from 0 to 1, and they'll roll
off the top of your playlist. Your position in each track is kept,
because you checked "Remember playback position" on the options tab
when you made iTunes re-classify this as an audiobook (previous
post). Your current track is kept, because the smart playlist rule
with live updating removes tracks you've already listened to from the
playlist.
There's an annoying bug that appeared in iTunes 9 that contents of
smart playlists don't transfer correctly to your iPod or iPhone when
live updating is checked. If you want to play your audio book on an
iPad, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, or iPhone, you'll either need to use a
regular playlist or uncheck the live updating checkbox on the smart
playlist before you sync it, and play from that. Your tracks won't
roll off the playlist as they finish, though, until this bug is
fixed. When you want to re-listen to an audiobook, select the tracks
again in your songs table, and use the context menu (VO-Shift-M).
Press "r e" to choose "Reset Play Counts" and return. Your play
counts will be reset to 0, and you can reuse the smart playlist.
Another way to do this: if you only listen to one audio book at a
time, create a regular playlist from your selection and name it
something like "Current Book". Then make your first smart playlist
rule "Playlist is Current Book" instead of "Album is <Book Title>".
Whenever you listen to a new book, make the regular playlist named
"Current Book" and reuse your smart playlist.
The third-party solutions I listed are aimed at joining tracks, so
that your book is typically stored in just one or two files in your
iTunes library, but they also create chapter markers so you can still
navigate to individual chapters within each file. Support for chapter
markers is a feature of AAC format files in iTunes, so these programs
let you join individual tracks that you've already ripped, or else
directly from the CD, but they also convert the tracks to AAC format
if you start with MP3 files. That's fine if you play the resulting
tracks in iTunes or on an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, but if you want to
use a different MP3 player, or burn the book to an MP3 CD, you'll want
to rip your book the way you've done it, and use a smart playlist.
The chapterized audiobooks behave like Audiobooks purchased from
iTunes or from Audible.com: you can use Command-Shift-Right Arrow and
Command-Shift-Left Arrow to navigate within the tracks by chapter.
You can also find a Chapters menu on the iTunes menu bar (VO-M, then
either press "c h", or left arrow twice to the "Chapters" menu) and
arrow down to select any of the listed chapters.
Incidentally, all the playlist shortcuts (Command-N to create a new
blank playlist, Command-Shift-N to create a new playlist from
selection, and Command-Option-N to create a new smart playlist) can be
also be found under the File menu of the iTunes menu bar.
HTH. Cheers,
Esther
On 18 May 2010, Christina wrote:
Thanks that seemed to do the trick. :) I appreciate the time you
took to help me. I was not in the options tab but in the info tab
and that's why it wasn't working. :) I prefer to keep the tracks
for the chapters so at this time I don't plan to join all the tracks
into one. I am glad to know of this option as this may be an option
I need in the future. Will these other third programs give you the
option of keeping the book separated into tracks or will it join
them all into one track?
Thanks,
Christina
On May 17, 2010, at 10:35 AM, Esther wrote:
Hi Christina,
You wrote:
I cannot get an audio book to show up in my books of my itunes
library. I ripped a CD that came with a book and it's an
audiobook of the book. itunes categorized it as music and
therefore shows up in my music folder. I have tried selecting
all of the tracks at once and then going into info and selecting
it as a audiobook but it won't show up in my books folder.
It sounds as though you're almost there. Make sure that when you do
Get Info (Command-I) that you use the Options tab to change the
Media Kind pop up to Audiobook -- changing the genre on the Info
tab won't help here. I'll paste in the instructions.
1. Select the files of the audiobook in the Songs table.
2. Press Command-I to open the Get Info dialog box.
3. Select the Options tab.
4. Change the media kind to Audiobook.
5. Check the option for "Remember playback position"
6. Check the option for "Skip when shuffling"
You can select and process multiple files at once. Changing the
media
kind from "Music" to "Audiobook" will make the files show up under
Audiobooks instead of Music, but it will not keep track of your last
played position. So if you start listening to your Audiobook again,
you will start at the beginning. Checking the option to "Remember
playback position" turns on bookmarking behavior so that your play
resumes where you left off. Incidentally, if you sync audiobooks,
and
listen to the same tracks alternately between iTunes on your
computer
and on your iPhone or iPod, the bookmarked position will advance to
the furthest point on either, so you can seamlessly continue your
listening regardless of whether you are using your iPhone or
iTunes on
your computer. Checking "Skip when shuffling" will keep audiobooks
out of any "shuffle play" playlist options so you don't hear a
chapter
from a book in the middle of a song list.
A few other suggestions: as Matthew and Philippe have suggested,
there are programs for joining tracks and easily importing CDs as
audiobooks. I'll give you the links.
• Audio Bookbinder
http://bluezbox.com/audiobookbinder.html
• Audiobook Maker
http://audiobookmaker.sourceforge.net/
Both of those are freeware. Another package that is popular is
Splasm's Audiobook Builder ($9.95):
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/ipod_itunes/audiobookbuilder.html
If you import tracks yourself from CD using iTunes, you can join
all the tracks on the CD into a single track at the time of
importing. To join tracks, when the disc is inserted and selected
in the sources table, navigate to songs table (e.g, stop
interacting with the sources table and VO-Right Arrow or tab to the
songs table, or just use VO-J to immediately jump to the songs
table without having to stop interacting). Select all tracks with
Command-A, then join the tracks by navigating to the iTunes menu
bar (VO-M), then press "A" to go to the "Advanced" menu, arrow down
and press "J" to go to the "Join Tracks" option and press return.
Now when you import your CD it will do this as a single file. You
can select any of these joined tracks and make them show up as
audiobooks using the instructions given above.
HTH. Cheers,
Esther
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