The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for transmitting data using a codebook. The method includes: receiving current antenna configuration information of a transmitting end; obtaining a mask matrix corresponding to the current antenna configuration according to the current antenna configuration information; generating a codebook corresponding to the current antenna configuration according to a mother codebook and the mask matrix; selecting one codebook element from the codebook, and transmitting indication information corresponding to the codebook element to the transmitting end; and receiving data transmitted by the transmitting end. In the embodiments of the present invention, a mask matrix is obtained according to current antenna configuration information, and a codebook is generated according to the mask matrix and a mother codebook that is corresponding to the maximum number of antennas and the maximum number of layers that are fed back through channel state information.