Help me with my 1st book please

[injapan]

I am new to ebooks and bought my 1st epub book online!
So far so good, I have it on my "adobe digital edition" (ADE) and I can read it there but I want to put it on my new sony reader (PRS 350)
I have tried and tried

to complicate things, I live in Japan (my OS is in Japanese) and I seem to be able to get ADE only in Japanese! This makes it hard to navigate!
I spent about 3 hours trying various things today with no luck

any advice would be welcome

many thanks

[wallcraft]

Books on Board have good on-line instructions. First you download Desktop ADE and register for an AdobeID. You may have already done this step, but you must have an AdobeID to authorize your Sony. The fact that you bought an ePub on-line and can read it suggests that this is working, but if you did not enter an email address and a password, that might be the problem (no AdobeID).

Then you plug in your Sony via USB and "follow the prompts". Follow the prompts isn't going to help you much. Their EZReader help page is a bit more specific, and I think the process is always the same.

[injapan]

Thanks for the reply
Yes, I think I have an adobe ID etc but I don't get any info when I plug in my sony e reader (ie I get no prompts after I plug it in)

[jashsu]

Originally Posted by injapan

So far so good, I have it on my "adobe digital edition" (ADE) and I can read it there but I want to put it on my new sony reader (PRS 350)

Is the PRS-350 in question a Japanese unit or NA/EU unit? IIRC, the Japanese units do not support Adobe DRM protected epubs (i.e. what you get from Borders Online, Kobo, Google ebookstore) and instead use a Japan-specific DRM format. If you have a Japanese reader, your best bet would be to crack the DRM off of your epubs (be sure to find out what the law in Japan says regarding cracking DRM for personal use).

If you have problems having the Japanese Sony eReader software recognize .acsm files (the links which direct desktop software to download the actual .epub files from Adobe Content Server) then grab a copy of Adobe Digital Editions. ADE can coexist with Sony eReader and other packages, but you need to be careful to specify which one will be used to open .epub files when you double click.

Copy-protected books: XMDF file (. Zbf,. Mnh)
Unprotected books: XMDF file (. Zbf), EPUB file (. Epub),
PDF File (. Pdf), Text files (. txt)

From: http://www.sony.jp/reader/products/PRS-650/spec.html

[Lyn2012]

I had the same problem, English langauge though. I don't know if it makes a difference but I use a Mac. My solution was to download and install Sony Reader software, open it with reader connected via USB, and drag and drop the ebook onto the reader icon on the left of the page. This authorised the reader and I had no more problems. I don't actually use Sony software now as I prefer Calibre. Hope this helps.

[injapan]

Thanks for the reply

Its a Japanese unit. (Bought here in Japan), is it true that the Japanese units do not support Adobe DRM protected epubs???

hhhhmmmm?

[viviena]

Originally Posted by injapan

Thanks for the reply
Yes, I think I have an adobe ID etc but I don't get any info when I plug in my sony e reader (ie I get no prompts after I plug it in)

Hmm. If you didn't get any prompts, you might have to install the Sony Reader software. Once that software is installed, ADE should recognize the device when it's plugged in. (See this post for more information.) Unfortunately I can't pull up the relevant links at the moment, but a Google search should point you in the right direction to download the Sony Reader software.

EDIT: Whoops, posted too late. Er,basically what was said above.

[injapan]

Originally Posted by Lyn2012

I had the same problem, English langauge though. I don't know if it makes a difference but I use a Mac. My solution was to download and install Sony Reader software, open it with reader connected via USB, and drag and drop the ebook onto the reader icon on the left of the page. This authorised the reader and I had no more problems. I don't actually use Sony software now as I prefer Calibre. Hope this helps.

Interesting, I will look into it, thanks

[injapan]

Originally Posted by viviena

Hmm. If you didn't get any prompts, you might have to install the Sony Reader software.

Yes, I have the Sony software installed too (thanks)

[injapan]

yes, it does seem that looking at the Japan Sony reader site, it does say that it supports epub with no DRM

LOL, are sony encourging your to download illegally?

[jashsu]

Originally Posted by injapan

yes, it does seem that looking at the Japan Sony reader site, it does say that it supports epub with no DRM

LOL, are sony encourging your to download illegally?

I don't think that's the right conclusion... Sony is expecting readers in Japan to read predominantly books from their Japanese bookstore. If you want to read predominantly books from NA/EU bookstores, then you should have purchased a NA/EU PRS-350.

[injapan]

OK, thanks, but I didn't know that, a little late

(frustrated with sony)

[lack]

wups, sorry to hear that, inJapan.
I think some thread already mentioned it, guess you missed those information.
Any chance of returning it?
I live in Osaka and ordered mine via Amazon couple of months ago and it is an non-Japanese version. It does not have Japanese menus, and ja-eng dictionary, and it can't read japanese ebooks sold by sony ebook store Japan, but no problem with DRM-protected epubs.

[injapan]

ok thanks for that

as I said, I am new to e-readers and had no idea, but we are going to Europe over the New Year. Might buy a new one

[jashsu]

Originally Posted by injapan

ok thanks for that

as I said, I am new to e-readers and had no idea, but we are going to Europe over the New Year. Might buy a new one

It's understandable to assume that a product with the same product code should at the least use the same file formats globally. However, if you think about it, the epub standard as it is isn't well suited to corner cases like languages that flow vertically with non-alphabetic glyphs and syllabaries. Also, Sony definitely treats its home market differently than the rest of the world.

Any way, I hope you get your issue resolved. I imagine that at some point some hackers will have figured out how to flash US/EU firmware onto a JP reader (my guess is the hardware is identical and the only differentiation lays in the firmware flashed at the factory).