No download option

[cycojesus]

Today I bought an ebook and there was no download in my library. After a few back and forth with the support where the person stubbornly explained how to use Kobo Desktop I found the epub file myself where Kobo Desktop store it but I'm disappointed.

Ironically the ebook in question is explicitely DRM-free!

Is this the new way of Kobo?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cycojesus

Today I bought an ebook and there was no download in my library. After a few back and forth with the support where the person stubbornly explained how to use Kobo Desktop I found the epub file myself where Kobo Desktop store it but I'm disappointed.

Ironically the ebook in question is explicitely DRM-free!

Is this the new way of Kobo?

Basically, if the ebook's version as shown in the content.opf is 3.0, Kobo's automated system considers it an epub3 ebook and does not make a epub download available. The Adobe renderers are, so far, epub2 and you can get some rather unreadable results when attempting to read a epub3 ebook never mind a fixed layout epub3 or one that makes use of MathML.

For samples you can check Catto Creations and download their children's epub3 ebooks or Infogrid Pacific (azardi) and download some of their sample epub3 ebooks. Some of them will render happily on your Kobo ereader if you rename them to .kepub.epub from .epub to force use of the ACCESS renderer rather than the Adobe RMSDK renderer.

One recently over-discussed example was the lack of a download option for John Scalzi's Locked In which had no DRM. In content.opf, it is flagged as a version 3.0 epub so no epub download. In the Kobo Desktop's cache of kepubs, you can locate it, rename to Locked In.epub from it's naked GUID, open it with Sigil and find about the only epub3 feature used is setting the version to 3.0. and the addition of the epub3 navigation document in toc.xhtml though it also included the epub2 toc.ncx making it what is often referred to as an epub3/2 ebook.

That is pretty common to the majority of epub3 ebooks. In some ways, it reminds me of the old quote about “Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more 'user-friendly'.... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words, 'user-friendly' on the cover.”