Apparently I'm Adobe Digital Editions challenged!

[dkperez]

I'm very new to the whole ebook thing, and wasn't sure where to put this, but I appear to be uncontrollabley inept at ADE......

I have a Nook Color. My wife ALSO has a Nook Color.

I went out to B&N and bought an ebook. I downloaded it to ADE. It showed up fine, displaying the cover. BUT, when I clicked the "library" the book didn't show up. It's not in "All Items", "Borrowed", "Purchased", or "Recently Read"... WHERE did it go?

Went back to my B&N Nook Library and downloaded it to a folder on my PC, instead of sending it to ADE. That way I know it got to the PC, and I can control where the file gets stored. Worked fine. There's a file on the disk, in the folder I specified...

In ADE, I clicked on "LIBRARY" and told it to do an "Add Item to Library", selected the file, and it added it..... BUT, it ONLY added it to "All Items", and the book doesn't show up in "Purchased", which it is......

SHOULD it show up in "Purchased"?

The file is <some long number>_epub.v2.epub, which means absolutely nothing to me when looking at it.... SO, I renamed it, adding
<name of the book><some long number>_epub.v2.epub

SHOULD I be able to add this to ADE, AND get it from there to the Nook? Or must the file remain with the exact name from B&N? I'd try this myself, but the file is already in ADE, and when I plugged in the Nook, it appears it also migrated to there, so I don't have a good way of testing this...


I've gotta figure I'm making this harder than it should be, but shouldn't a book I download to ADE show up? And do they normally jump automatically from ADE to the Nook? 'Cause I never dragged the book to the "Nook", but it's definitely on there... Am I missing something or is this as convoluted as I'm finding it?

Oh, the ADE software is 1.7.2.1131

[ATDrake]

You bought and got your book directly from B&N, right? Then you should drag the file straight to the appropriate folder on your Nook via the USB cable (or use the Wi-Fi/3G option to download it via the Nook itself).

ADE and B&N-DRM are different (although Adobe is partnering with B&N to include the B&N-DRM in future versions of ADE) and the actual Adobe Digital Editions app doesn't support B&N-DRM books just yet, which is why it doesn't see it.

Oh, and it doesn't matter what filename you give it. B&N changes the filenames depending on how you download the books (Nook app, directly from website, etc.).

Hope this helps.

[dkperez]

Tunnel vision..............................

I didn't even THINK about the idea that it WASN'T B&N that was asking me if I wanted to download the book into ADE...

Now that you've pointed it out, I realize I SHOULD do exactly what I did with the book I/my wife downloaded from B&N. She didn't have ADE on her computer so I just plugged in the Nook, it showed up as a disk, and I downloaded directly from B&N to that device......

<heavy sigh>Some days I sits and THINKS, and some days I just SITS!

Thanks for fixing me AGAIN.......

[tomsem]

The current version of Adobe Digital Editions cannot read books purchased from B&N (that are DRM protected). Note that if you have ADE installed, it may register itself with your computer's OS for opening '.epub' files - so it may certainly try to open them.

Also as others have pointed out, you do not need ADE to get things on your Nook. Adobe DRM has been 'augmented' so that storefronts have a choice about whether to offer 'classic' DRM (requiring registration with Adobe), or 'new' DRM (DRM key uses a 'ID/password'; in the case of B&N, they use your credit card number as the password). To date, B&N is the only storefront that uses the 'new' DRM, as far as I know. However, the current version Adobe Reader Mobile SDK (used by reader software) supports both, and presumably many non-Nook readers that have come out in the last year or so are using that as well (with the notable exception of Sony). For example Pandigital reader, and Bluefire for iOS can read B&N ebooks.

Adobe had announced ADE would be updated in late 2010, but it looks like that date has slipped.

There is a free B&N desktop application you can use if you want to read B&N books on your computer.

[Blue Tyson]

Nah, it isn't you. ADE just sucks donkey gonads, period.

[Fastolfe]

The day digital copy-protected files are as transparent, fool-proof and obvious to use as it is to buy a paper book in a shop, open it and read is, is the day they'll start having a vague chance of competing against unencumbered formats. Until then, they'll carry on being an insult to people's intelligence, patience and hard-earned cash.

[dkperez]

I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as the donkey gonads, but ADE is cumbersome, convoluted, and confusing. It got me goofed up.

What's a WHOLE lot worse, is I got my wife a Nook Color (we now have two) for Christmas, and had to teach her how to get books. What should have been a quick, simple process took a lot longer because of trying to show her ADE (the public library appears to be very attached to ADE).

Worse, we've got two Nooks, two Adobe accounts, and ADE doesn't want me to have both readers access the same ADE library. If I plug my wife's nook into my computer, ADE wants me to authorize her device with my email (which I believe is also the Adobe ID)...

This morning, I went ahead and "authorized" her device on my PC... Now she can't open her books on her Nook... The files are there, but opening a book gets the error "User not authorized"... So, apparently, THAT was not a good idea...

Either this software, or I, am really dumb.

[taming]

The trick for families that share books seems to be to have everyone use the same accounts--both Adobe Digital Edition and bookstores. It's a DRM "protection". This keeps you from sending your DRMd books to everyone you know so that then can use them on their readers.

[dkperez]

Blech!

That'll make keeping things working on two different Nooks really interesting...

Is there ANY other way to return library ebooks early? 'Cause if there is I'd be inclined to just not use ADE at all...