Part of my reasoning of purchasing the NC was to download my e textbooks onto it. I purchased them through B&N and have just found out that the books are not to be viewed on the NC. I tried again after rooting it and the books still will not load, this is a serious bummer. Do you think there is any sort of alternate e reading software that would work?
Nook and Etextbooks
- Thread starter tjbus
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There is no way for me to specifically find out, I tried right clicking and no properties box comes up and I checked on the BN website and it does not say either. The textbooks are supported by Adobe Acrobat so I am guessing a file type compatible with it. I also did a file search on my computer and viewed the files on my NC and was not able to locate the extension. Sorry, that does not make it any easier.
rico2001
Senior Member
- Dec 8, 2010
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Your comment sort of confirms what I've found so far. It looks like a majority of all etextbooks are in .pdf format (Adobe). Apparently the NOOK, (not NC) has .pdf support but some say it's stretchy at best. Since you are using a rooted NC, download and install "Adobe reader" from the Android market and/or convert your etextbook pdfs to .epub using Calibre, and load them to SD card or internal NC storage. If in epub format, the NC's default reader will be able to open the textbooks. Let us know if that helps.
thel8elvis
Member
- Dec 29, 2010
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NC supports PDF OOTB with quickoffice. It's poor support, but it exists, rooted or not.
As you know, Adobe reader only supports reading from the external sd card. So if the textbooks are on the internal, that won't work well. There are lots of other options. ezpdf is pretty good.
Most textbooks are DRM'ed (protected). Are these textbooks you bought DRM'ed ? Can you download them again from BN and read them on a computer ? (although I own a nook, never bought any books from BN :-O ) Usually you have to download and register adobe digital editions to read your purchased material. If your texts are protected with adept, see this thread for how to read them on the nook:Adobe Forums: Compatible with Nook Color?. Otherwise, you really should be able to open a plain pdf.
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thel8elvis
Member
- Dec 29, 2010
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Your other option is to strip the DRM off. I can attest this works fine for epub. I've not tried for PDF, but it should work the same.
i♥cabbages: Circumventing Adobe ADEPT DRM for EPUB
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I downloaded Calibre and tried to convert but because of the DRM protection it will not convert from pdf to epub. I put the pdf files on an sd card and placed it in my reader using the adobe reader I got from the Marketplace and got an error message saying the version of reader could not support the file and the textbook did not open. Gah! This is annoying. Rico, I will send you a PM with the pdf file of one of the books. It would be awesome if you could work some magic. Thanks for everything so far, I am learning a lot!
thel8elvis
Member
- Dec 29, 2010
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You have to use adobe digital editions to transfer the pdf to your nook. Or strip the DRM off by recovering your encryption key and decrypting the file using the tools outlined in the post I linked to. I can just about guarantee you those are your only 2 options.
From B&N info about eTextbooks:
eTextbooks
An eTextbook is a digital, downloadable, version of a physical textbook. It can be read on your PC and Mac with our free NOOKstudy application. An eTextbook will look exactly like the physical version so you will see the same graphs, charts, drawings etc. The best part is that you can read your eTextbook anywhere that you bring your computer without needing the internet! And, you have the option to purchase or rent it depending on your needs.
This would indicate that you must have NOOKstudy installed on PC (really just Windoze - no Linux version last time I checked) or Mac to download, then view the books. I think I tried to get such a book, and have not even been able to download it to mess with the DRM or format as I can with other B&N books. I keep forgetting to boot into Windoze to check out NOOKstudy...An eTextbook is a digital, downloadable, version of a physical textbook. It can be read on your PC and Mac with our free NOOKstudy application. An eTextbook will look exactly like the physical version so you will see the same graphs, charts, drawings etc. The best part is that you can read your eTextbook anywhere that you bring your computer without needing the internet! And, you have the option to purchase or rent it depending on your needs.
I understand the "requirement", but I was pointing out what I think may be a "blocking factor" - the B&N site seems unwilling to even download their eTextbooks unless you are using their NOOKstudy client. If I am wrong, and you can download the books to try hacking, that would be cool - can the eTextbooks be downloaded without NOOKstudy? If so, how?
TIA
thel8elvis
Member
- Dec 29, 2010
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From a brief review - nookstudy appears to be just be a BN branded version of ADE (Adobe - Digital Editions) , as BN is using adept now for thier epub encryption. Same method to decrypt as mentioned earlier. If they happen to be .pdb files, well those are BN encrypted files, also easily decrypted.
