This is not my pulpit or iPad. Cool photo though....
I purchased the iPad in April of 2010. I was traveling full time evangelizing. One of the biggest problems for me when I traveled was not keeping a printer with me. I just didn’t have the room to haul a printer in the trunk of my car. So when it came time for me to print off sermon notes I was hoping and praying the Pastor’s study had a printer or that the church had an office printer. I want to give a shout out to those I emailed sermons and had you print them off for me and bring them to church. I hated hand written notes. My first sermons were typed and printed, so I became a creature of habit.
So when the iPad came out claiming to be able to read PDF files, and not only reading PDF’s but COLOR too!! The Kindle worked for me as a PDF reader for a few months, but it’s screen was too small and the plain black and white screen didn’t give me the emphasis points that I had typed. So I purchased the iPad with great hopes of being able to effectively preach from it. All of the other features of the iPad take a back seat to my being able to use it as a digital notebook. It’s been one of the greatest purchases for me in the last few years.
So I get asked many times on how I go about getting my sermon notes on my iPad. I have to say when I first got it, and I was trying to get my files from my laptop to the iPad I had a little difficulty based on instructions I read from the web and forums. But after finding several apps and using several key tips, I’ve found getting my sermon notes to my iPad very easy.
For this post I won’t cover how I prepare my sermon notes from my laptop, instead I’m going to focus on getting the sermon notes from laptop to iPad to which apps I use.
Step One-Preparing Your Document
After you have completed your sermon then it’s time to get it ready for transfer. I save my sermons into two peronal folders. As I’m typing out my message I save it into a “2011 Sermon” folder. I’ll explain how I organize my sermon folders in another post. The purpose behind two folders is that the first draft of my sermon is the one I’m saving to my laptop that will be for reference later. The reason for the second folder which is called “iPad Sermons” is that I have to adjust my sermon fonts, colors, and paragraphing to fit onto my iPad.
Now, I know some who don’t feel the need to do this, because you can enlarge your document on the iPad by just using the two finger enlarging trick. But my issue with that, is that once you turn the page of your document you have to enlarge again, and it can become quite difficult to turn the page once it’s enlarged, it’s not that great of a difficulty but when it comes to preaching I need my notes to be ready and quick to turn the page.
So after I save my document into my “2011 Sermon” folder I open it back up and then make my adjustments. I type out my message first in 12 point font. I just switched from Helvetica to Georgia font. It’s good to switch up fonts every once in awhile. When I’m preparing my document for the iPad transfer I go from a 12 point font to an 18 point font. As you can imagine this causes some paragraphing difficulties. So I have to go in and make those adjustments as well. I like to make sure each thought and point I have stays on one page. I don’t like my scriptures being split up from the end of a page and continued one to another, unless I have a really long scripture text then I’ll just adjust as needed.
Now that I’ve adjusted my fonts, changed some colors in the text for emphasis, adjusted the paragraphs due to font enlarging, I’m now ready to save my document. Since my first draft was already saved as a .doc in a personal folder, I now will save this adjusted document as a PDF file in my “iPad Sermon” folder. You don’t have to do two different folders you can save and move how ever you would like, I do this to keep organized and to see which sermons haven’t been saved as an iPad message. I’ll also add that some iPad reader apps will read .docs and PDF’s. So which ever app you decide to use to read your sermon with, may not need you to even save it as a PDF. More on that in Step Three!
So I’ve saved it in my “iPad Sermon” folder. Now let’s go to the next step of transfering from laptop to iPad.
Here are a few screen shots of how my folders are organized, what the first draft of the sermon looks like, and the sermon after the font enlarged, color changed and paragraphed.
iPad Sermon after changes
First draft of Sermon saved as .doc
What my file folders look like under "2011 Sermons"
Step Two-The Transfer
Once I have my sermon prepared it’s time to get it from my laptop to my iPad. There are several ways to get this task completed. I’ve tried many ways and the way I will explain suits me best. A quick and painless way is to email your notes to yourself as an attachment in the email, and to open your file from the email. My only problem with this is you can easily lose track of those emails, and not have a good file system on your iPad. Searching your inbox for that once used sermon may not be the easiest way to access it on the go.
For this process I use an app called Dropbox. You can download it from the iTunes app store. But the first thing you will need to do is download Dropbox to your computer. It’s a file sharing system that is priceless! Easily one of my favorite apps to use.
DropBox on Laptop as a Folder
So what is it? When you download the Dropbox app to your laptop or desktop computer it sets up a folder in your documents. You can share this folder with other people if you would like. I share a couple folders with friends and we drop files into it to share every once in awhile. But I have one folder specifically for my iPad sermon notes. Once you download the app to your desktop or laptop, you then need to download it to your iPad from the iTunes store. Follow the steps from the Dropbox site to make sure you do everything correctly, and trust me it’s as easy as I’ve already explained.
Now that you’ve downloaded Dropbox to your computer and to your iPad you’re ready to start transferring sermons to your iPad.
When you’ve completed your sermon notes find where you’ve saved your sermon notes on your computer. I use a MacBook so I can just click and drag into this Dropbox folder. But if you’re using a Windows computer you can right click and copy and paste into your Dropbox folder.
It’s as easy as that! The Dropbox is basically the “cloud” digital storage that is quickly replacing thumb drives and things of that nature. It’s pretty cool. Dropbox is an unbelievable app. You can get more “cloud” storage as you refer friends and they download the product. I’ve had at least 10 friends do this with me.
Step Three-Opening Up Your Sermon
You’ve saved your document, you’ve put it in the Dropbox folder and now you are ready to open it up on your iPad.
How your sermon will look on the iPad
Finding your sermon in the Dropbox app
Opening the DropBox App
On the top right hand side of the document in Dropbox, there will be a little arrow that you can push. When you push this “arrow” you will be able to open your document in any document reader app that you have downloaded to your iPad.
Choosing which App to open Sermon with
Step Four-Opening in Document Reader App
There are many document readers available in the App Store. Friends who use the iPad like I do for documents all differ in opinions on which app is best for this. I’ll give you my opinion and which I’ve found to be best for me and what I need.
iBooks- When Apple did the update for iBooks to be able to read PDF’s I jumped in! It is the main app I use to read my sermons from. The reason that I just can’t seem to go away from using iBooks is the little page selector on the bottom of the page.
How many times have you been preaching and you need that scripture text that is on the first page, and your currently on the last page? Well you don’t have to scroll back for three minutes looking for it, with iBook you can see each page number at the selector on the bottom of each page, you just click which page and you are where you need to be.
Readdledocs- Now I will occasionally use this app to read documents. The major upside to using this app opposed to iBooks is the filing system. iBooks lacks majorly a filing system for the PDF’s you have on the app. Readdledocs gives you the ability to organize folders into topics, programs, series, etc. I use Readdledocs to keep all my big files such as Bible studies, big PDF books, and church and school documents.
Another great tool for Readdledocs is while your sermon notes are up, you can put in little yellow notes, which is nice considering that you can’t edit PDF files.
How many times have you had a quick thought before you got up to preach and wanted to add that thought to your notes? Well Readdledocs gives you the ability. The downside is that once you’ve typed in your quick note, it goes to a thumbnail in your sermon and you have to tap it to bring it up.
Pages- When I first bought my iPad I immediately downloaded Pages. I love being able to type on Pages and to keep notes on Pages. But, scrolling and flowing through Pages while preaching will constantly keep queuing the keyboard. THAT DROVE ME CRAZY!!
I’ve found that I don’t use Pages quite as much as I thought I would.
Conclusion
Preaching from the iPad has been a lifesaver. I can’t imagine going back to typed out notes on paper ever again. It’s just too easy and simple.
I can remember as an evangelist having prepared a message for that evenings service, only to have the LORD quicken my spirit to preach something else. Well of course I panicked! A lot of the times it was something new that I had never preached before, or it would be something that I had already preached somewhere else. Without the iPad I would have had to go from memory or run to my car and scramble to find those notes. Which of course I never did go to my car I just had to go from memory. Now with the iPad I have all of my messages that I ever preached at my finger tips. And that is a precious commodity, you can glean from other messages, illustrations, texts and the like.
I hope you find this helpful. I know of course, everyone does things their own way. I just thought I would share with you how I go about preaching with the iPad.
I’m going to start working on a few posts on how I organize sermons on my computer, and how I prepare my sermon outline. Stay tuned!
Living the Dream,
NSW
Enjoyed reading your post. Have you ever try the app, Goodreader? That is what I use to open PDF’s and preach from. Goodreader has some neat features that u can markup sermon in your final prep.
Clint,
Yea I’ve seen Goodreader, but I’ve not used it. Friends of mine use it for their lead sheets in the music department.
Can you scroll from left to right?
Thanks for the comment!!
Great article! I am an evangelist in Norway and use iPad in the same way as you using Dropbox and GoodReader. Any ideas for a good way of organising the sermons into categories, preaching venues, dates etc?
Chris,
I just downloaded GoodReader and I’m impressed but I haven’t taken time to move everything over to it. In the meantime I’m still using iBooks and Readdledocs. In Readdledocs I’m pretty simple in organizing. I’ve made folders for my discipleship class, my Bible study class, and sermons. There are other folders which contain eBooks.
As far as keeping track of messages I’ve preached at each venue, I use Pages and have kept running record of each church, year and what sermons I’ve preached there. I can pull it up on my Mac or my iPad, which is nice when you’re not quite sure if you’ve preached the same message before to that congregation.
This week I’ll be relaxing a little bit due to Spring break, so hopefully I can start organizing those folders on GoodReader.
God Bless!
Bro. Nate:
Excellent post and one I will find useful as I just got a new iPad and mainly plan to use it for teaching, preaching and words to songs. I’m curious… are you still using GoodReader? If so, why do you prefer it? Or if you are using something else now, why?
Keep up the great work!
God bless,
Dexter
I’ve been trying to switch things over to GoodReader, I like that you can highlight and that it has so many options to edit the file. However, I’m still using iBooks to preach my notes from. I just love the page indicator on the bottom of the page. GoodReader and Readdledocs just don’t have that smooth interface just yet. I don’t like the file system of the lack thereof on iBooks for PDFs. But it’s all personal preference. I enjoy messing with all of them to try the best fit for me.
Which apps are you using to teach from?
I’m not yet. I just got it a few days ago and I’m still learning how to navigate on it. However, I can tell I’m really going to enjoy using it.
BTW, I have been using DropBox extensively for the past year, ever since you mentioned it to me after you preached for us last Mother’s Day. It has really simplified my transfer of files between computers. Obviously it will continue to assist me as I begin to use the iPad.
Thanks again!
Unparalleled accuracy, unequivocal clarity, and undneiable importance!
Thanks Dolly! Spread the word…
Thanks for the article. I have started using google docs for creating and storing all my lessons. On my IPad use QuickOffice Pro HD. It is a great office suite, but has built in google docs and dropbox support. The app is something like $15 but well worth it in my opinion.
I’ve been working on transferring over all of my files over to GoodReader. They have made some great updates. I love being able to write on my document, being able to highlight, and with the new scrolling option at the bottom of the page this has greatly impressed me!
Thanks for the comments and additional information!
When using the YouVersion Bible app, if you hold it in landscape mode you have the option to use it as a parallel Bible, which is Great if your anything like me and always keep switching between ESV and KJV.
I didn’t know you could do that. I may have to try reading it like that. Thanks for the tip Travy!
Hi Pastor,
We just created an app called Sermonotes with preachers and Christians like you in mind. It’s a notepad with built it bible. It autocompletes verses as you type. As believers ourselves we took a different approach. Do try and let us know.
Link: http://goo.gl/cYbGB
First I just wanted to thank you for this blog I stumbled onto it by accident! Now I am going back and reading the rest of you valuable information. That being said have you tried the Doc to go by Data vitz? I have found this app to be the best for me for preaching, as I can transfer from pc to iPad with no format or other issues. The best feature for me was the one continuous page, eliminating the swiping left to right leaving you to only need to scroll up or down. Once again thank you for what your doing.
Thanks, Jason. I have not used that app before. I will certainly look in to it. Thanks for checking out the blog, hopefully there’s some other writings you will enjoy.
Nate
This is very helpful.
Thank you, Vic! I hope you have a great new year.
Good article, I just created a step by step tutorial for those who want to hook their iPad up to the apple TV and present wirelessly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9NIkLAW5aY
Check it out and tell me what you think.
Thanks, Chip! We actually are now getting set up in our church to do this very thing in our class rooms. This video will be very helpful for future reference.
Nate
Pretty cool that two years later this post is still helping pastors! Just got my first Ipad for Christmas and am just starting to figure out which app to use to preach from!
Thanks for this post!
I’m glad it helped! Preaching from the iPad is so nice. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! Thanks for the comment!
I guess it’s pretty good when a 2-year-old post is still getting comments. iPad + Dropbox + GoodReader =