How-To: Import Audiobook CDs to iTunes
If you’re like me, you probably have a stack of audiobooks on CD. While CDs are okay, I’ve been looking for a convenient way to get these audiobooks onto my iPod using iTunes for the sake of portability.
After some searching and tweaking, I think I’ve finally got this down to a science - so take a look at this tutorial, and enjoy listening to your books on the iPod!
(This seems to be a legal grey area - but as I understand the law in the US, you can make a copy of a CD you’ve purchased for your own personal use, which is what I’m doing. Please don’t use these instructions to break any laws in your country.)
What You’ll Need
- A Mac computer* with OSX 10.4.x or better (last tested with 10.4.11)
- iTunes 6.x or better (last tested with 7.6)
- QuickTime Player 7.x or better (last tested with 7.3.1)
- Join Together 5.1.5 (donationware)
- Bonus: Apple ChapterTool and GUI-interface ChapterToolMe (if you want to make chapters in your finished audiobook)
Got everything installed? Great. Now for the steps:
In iTunes:
1. Navigate to Preferences > Advanced > Importing
2. Set the following preferences:
- On CD Insert: Show CD (or Ask to Import CD, your choice)
- Import Using: AAC Encoder
- Setting: (Spoken Podcast will save you some time and file size, but I use High Quality, so I don’t have to switch settings for music CDs.)
- Check Boxes: Automatically Retrieve CD Track Names from Internet (this will help, I promise!)
3. Insert the Audiobook CD you want to burn, and import it. If your Audiobook has multiple discs, import them all.
4. Find your Audiobook in your iTunes Library (click ‘Music’ on the left sidebar and scroll through).
5. Select all the tracks of the Audiobook (click the first, hold down the Shift key, and select the last).
6. Launch Join Together (if you installed the AppleScript that came with the app, select it from your AppleScript menu in iTunes. Otherwise, just navigate to the program in your Applications folder and open it).
In Join Together:
1. Make sure all the tracks are in the correct order (you may need to glance at your CD case to be sure - but if you got the CD track names from the internet as I suggested above, this should be easier!).
2. Type the author, title, and album as you want them to appear in your Audiobook list in iTunes. Some of this may auto-populate for you based on the CD track metadata.
3. Tweak your settings:
- Data Rate: 32 kbps should be just fine for spoken word - increase this for better file quality, but a larger file.
- Channels: Mono (again, this is fine for spoken word and will save space)
- Sample Rate: I left this alone. Tweak as needed.
- Save As: You MUST save it as a .m4b if you want to add chapters (see Bonus Section, below).
4. Hit ‘Proceed’, and your conversion will start.
In QuickTime:
1. Now QuickTime is going to start lining up boxes across your screen as it pulls each individual track from the CD together into one audio file. When it’s found all the files and started the conversion, you’ll get a progress bar, like this:
2. Depending on the size of your audiobook, QuickTime and Join Together should be doing their work for 20 minutes to an hour. Get a cup of coffee, read a book, keep yourself otherwise entertained for a bit.
Back in iTunes…
1. When the conversion finishes, open iTunes back up, and click on Audiobooks on the left sidebar. See your book?
2. If you want the audiobook on your iPod, plug it in and sync like you usually would, making sure to check ‘Audiobooks’ (or ‘All Songs and Playlists’) from the ‘Music’ tab.
Whew!
That’s it! Once you’ve done this once or twice, you’ll get the hang of it (I know, it seems like a lot of steps at first!), and you’ll be listening to your books on your iPod in no time.
Bonus Section: Creating Chapters/Bookmarks
Personally, I’ve never tried this, since I’ve never needed to use it, but audiobooks in iTunes can be paused and resumed from the same place, and can be broken into chapters. In case the bug strikes you, here’s a list of tutorials and resources to get you started.
- After Dawn Forums: Guide to Making Bookmarkable Audiobooks
- Aldo on Audiobooks: Why Do I Need to Make the Tracks Bookmarkable?
- California Fox: How to Make Your Audiobooks Bookmarkable
- Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes: The Fabulous Bookmarkable Matrix
For More Information…
This tutorial will be updated regularly as new versions of software are released. Any questions? Ask in the comments!
*Sorry, PC folks! I’m a Mac-savvy girl. I think this bit of software may help you out, though: MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter.
This post was written as a part of the Daily Blog Tips Tutorial Writing Project.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 17:25 and is filed under Lifehacks, Projects, Technology.
Find similar posts by selecting any of the following tags: audiobooks, ipod, itunes, mac, pc, software, sync.
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on 01.28.2008 at 14:02 Alderete wrote:
Thanks for the link to Aldo on Audiobooks!
Just a quick point of clarification: there’s a significant difference between making a track bookmarkable (the “Remember playback position” setting), and adding chapter marks to a track.
A bookmark is just an automated way to remember where you left off in a book. There’s only one per track, and it’s set dynamically; you can’t control it at all. So “bookmark” is not a perfect metaphor, an unfortunate choice by Apple. (Some other audiobook players offer a manual bookmark feature, which is more analogous to something you stick in a book, which can be useful.)
Chapter marks are something else entirely: fixed marks added to a track when it is created. There is no way to add them in iTunes or on an iPod, and they can’t be moved around. They are useful because they can be skipped to using the forward/backward buttons, and they can display extra title and artwork information, and are especially useful on the iPod Touch or iPhone, which display them in a table of contents-type view. They are most commonly added at either chapter boundaries (hence the name), or disc boundaries.
Adding chapter marks is something that the Join Together tool can do automatically, but it’s a lot of work if you want them at the true chapters. (When I did the Harry Potter books, with their whimsical chapter titles and chapter artwork, this was important.) A much better tool for those with my obsessive need to have things perfect is Audiobook Builder. It’s $10 instead of free, but if you value your time at all, it’ll earn that back after 3-4 books, easily.
on 01.28.2008 at 14:28 Britne Rockwell wrote:
See, I told you I’ve never tried the whole bookmarking/chapterizing thing!
Thanks so much for the information. I will definitely play around with it some more!
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