How can I read my iBooks on my PC?

_PK_ wrote:

Every time I try to do what you are suggesting with one of my Purchased books I get the error message of

Your ePub-book is protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM). For this reason it can unfortunately not be opened.

That is what I see and that is the expected behavior. Someone who claims otherwise is either a) reading a free book, or b) reading books from one of the very few publishers who don't do DRM, like O'Reilly, or c) removing the DRM before trying to open the book.

Actually, with the Amazon Kindle books, you can use your Mac as well - you don't have to go to your "Windows side." You just us the Kindle Cloud Reader. Sign-in at a secure SSL site: https://www.read.amazon.com with a supported browser:

1. Google Chrome 11 and higher on Linux, MacOS X, and Windows.
2. Mozilla Firefox 6 and higher on Linux, MacOS X, and Windows.
3. Safari 5 and higher on MacOS X and Windows.
4. Safari on iPad with iOS 4.2 and Higher

and.........voila!....there are all of your book covers. You can keep all of your notes, bookmarks, highlights, etc.

I was looking for something similar for iBooks and have discovered it's a no go. Not even an app for the Mac or PC.

If you use the Chrome browser, you can try their MagicScroll eBook Reader:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghgnmgfdoiplfmhgghbmlphanpfmjble

Karen Chung

karchung@ntu.edu.tw
Taipei

karenfromtaipei county wrote:

If you use the Chrome browser, you can try their MagicScroll eBook Reader:

But that is useless for reading anything from the iBookstore that you pay for, which almost always have DRM, and that is what everyone wants to do here. It really only reads free books.

Yes, I see the problem. This is so typical of any of Apple's products - they simply do not mesh well with anything Microsoft or pc. I am now struggling with a similar problem accessing and updating Excel files on my iPad. Have you contacted Apple directly and asked for help? I think at this point they're the only ones who could do anything about this.

karenfromtaipei county wrote:

Yes, I see the problem. This is so typical of any of Apple's products - they simply do not mesh well with anything Microsoft or pc.

This particular problem is not really connected to Windows. You can't read paid-for iBooks on a Mac running OS X either. Only on an iOS device. Until Apple gets around to producing the necessary ereader software, the fix is to use other apps, like Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or Googlebooks.

_PK_ wrote:

Is it possible to read my iBooks on my PC

If yes, how do I do it?

If no - when is this going to be able to happen?

Thanks

I have a desktop PC with iTunes, but I have an Apple iPad with iBooks

I'm asking here in the iBooks forum as it relates to iBooks, I'll also ask in iPad because it relates to iPad as well

Yes, You now officially can! First download the addon and get it set up. Oh! And before I forget you also need to have Firefox installed on your computer! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/epubreader/ . Then what you want to do is left click the book and then right click it and select "Show in Windows Explorer" and then right click the file and select "open with" and then select Firefox and begin reading!

Your Welcome! Good luck and happy reading!

connor48 wrote:

Yes, You now officially can! First download the addon

Most people ask this question because they want to read best-sellers and other paid-for books from the iBookstore. Your addon will NOT let them do that, it will only work for free books (or those from the very few publishers which do not use DRM).

It is important not to mislead people about this, because your advice could make them spend money on iBooks when to read them on their PC they must in fact buy them elsewhere.

if you download the Kindle app and get your books
(kindle books) from amazon you can read them on both ipad and pc.

I have a first gen iPod Touch, which iBooks will not load onto. Does anyone have any idea how I can now read a book I purchased through iTunes if I can't even load iBooks?

orlok wrote:

I have a first gen iPod Touch, which iBooks will not load onto. Does anyone have any idea how I can now read a book I purchased through iTunes if I can't even load iBooks?

If it is a normal book with DRM from the iBookstore, there is no way to read it. Every purchase page normally says over at the left under Requirements that you must have an iPod Touch (2nd Generation or later). There are some publishers who do not use DRM, however. What is the title of your book?

Yes, I saw that after acquiring the book. Can't believe that there isn't a version of iBooks for earlier devices...

The book is Lee Child's James Penney's New Identity/Guy Walks Into a Bar short book which definitely has DRM, as I can't load it onto my Kindle. I am going to have to borrow my daughter's 4th gen Touch to be able to read this one.

Thanks for the reply.

orlok wrote:

definitely has DRM, as I can't load it onto my Kindle. I

I don't think a Kindle can read epubs even without DRM until you convert to another format.

http://techsupport.foreverwarm.com/how-to-read-epub-books-on-your-kindle

You are correct, but there are various software packages than can do the conversion, such as Calibre (as the article in your link points out...)

Thanks for the great tip, it worked! I had downloaded 2 books as files on the desktop (iPad starter and user guides), then click and dragged the files to Firefox.