DE offline on different computer?

[myAdobeUName]

Historically, I have read my eBooks on a laptop that has no connection to the Internet. I download PDFs (or Word documents) onto my desktop and then use a USB key to transfer the reading material to the laptop. If I have purchased an Adobe Digital Editions book and am able to open it on my desktop successfully is there any way to transfer and read the book onto my laptop?

From what I am reading and my understanding of it, I believe the answer to be no but would dearly love to hear a yes from someone who knows more about it than I do. Sitting at my desktop is not the most comfortable position to read for long periods of time.

[Frustrated in AZ]

It may be possible using 'old fashioned' transfer mechanisms.

PDF's are just that - portable documents. And ADE uses Adobe Reader

software to open and read the books. So, try copying them using your

desktop computer's utility software onto a USB thumb drive. Then, transfer

the drive to your laptop, and copy them to the library where you keep your

files/ebooks and try to open them using Adobe Reader.

This will not work the same way with any .epub books. You can transfer the

ebooks to your laptop the same way, but you'll need a copy of ADE installed

on your laptop. Then, you can open ADE in Library view, click the drop-down

box and then click on 'Add Item To Library'. You'll get a screen that will

allow you to set the location of your ebooks or browse for them. Once you

see the ebook, click on it and ADE will add it to your library. You can use

this method for adding PCF files to ADE on your laptop also if you'd rather

use ADE to read them than plain old Adobe Reader.

Hope this helps!

===============

[myAdobeUName]

The second paragraph addresses my question but I can't get to the point of being sure. I have a few questions related to the answer, but will start with one that precedes getting to the point described in the response.

How exactly do I install and activate ADE on the laptop that doesn't have a network connection and, consequently, no access to the Internet (except, as noted previously, through a USB key). I had previously downloaded the setup.exe (available through their support site) but upon reading the manual install instructions assumed that steps 2 and 3 suggested it was not possible to install ADE to a computer that did not have access to the Internet.

Manually install Adobe Digital Editions for Windows

1. Download the latest installer for Windows: Adobe Digital Editions 1.7.2 for Windows.
2. Click Run in the File Download screen to start the installation.           
   Note: If your connection times out, click Save, instead of Run, to save the installer to your desktop.
3. When a message appears asking you to trust the publisher, click Run  again. You can safely download the Digital Editions installer from  Adobe.
   
4. Follow the onscreen instructions.

However, given the response, I thought there might be some way around this and decided to give it a go anyway. ADE did indeed install but when opened it displays an error related to the activation. Not surprisingly it says:

"Activate Digital Editions

Error Activating

E_ADEPT_IO ActivationServiceInfo Error #2032"

I've tried to hit the Cancel button on the error message in the hopes there is some other manner of activating the software (you know, through a registration file I can download and copy over to the laptop separately like some software provides) but ADE simply closes. I haven't been able to find anything online that suggests an offline way to activate ADE.

Is there one that anyone knows of?

[Frustrated in AZ]

I didn't realize that your laptop did not have access to the Internet. I

just assumed that it did, given this day and age when everything is

'connected'.... So the error you're getting is one that relates to the

interaction ADE has with the Adobe website during activation: Adobe captures

some information about your computer and also transfers some information

from its website to your computer.

I am not sure that you're going to have any luck with transfers of any books

or documents that require Adobe Reader to your laptop because you have to

link to the Adobe website to complete the installation of Reader or ADE.

Maybe one of the Adobe employees who frequent this site will have a better

answer?

===========

[myAdobeUName]

Thanks for taking the time to respond and trying to help.

From everything I've read, I really don't think there's anything I can do; but many years of programming has taught me that it's sometimes useful to ask around on a forum somewhere. Lots of other people know a heck of lot more than I do and one of them might be aware of something that can help.

Cheers,

jtm