Sharing Kobo Ebooks between two computers

[Guest]

Hi there,

I personally use Kobo on my phone, because essentially its free and why buy an E-Reader when my phone can do so much more. Now I also read Kobo books on my laptop, and got my dad into it and wanted to share my books with him. I followed these instructions:

"""of course there is a legal way to share Kobo books. You need to download a free software application from Adobe called Digital Editions (ADE). Once you download it and open it for the first time it will ask you to set up an account. Just pick a user name and a password and authorize your computer to that specific account. Now you must re-download your purchased books from Kobo using the Adobe DRM Epub button (blue) that will be located beside each book you have purchased. Find out where downloaded files go on your computer and the book will be in that folder. It will be labeled something like URLLink.acsm. You can over write that if you wish to enter the book name just keep the .acsm at the end. Now you open that file and it opens and up loads to ADE. You can open a book using ADE on up to 6 computers and 6 devices. So your friend now needs to download ADE but when he/she opens it for the first time they must use the same user name and password you did on your ADE account and authorize it for their computer. Once you both have the same ADE account set up you can email each other the .acsm files and they will open in ADE. With ADE open and the Kobo plugged in it should show up in ADE devices. All you have to do to get books onto the Kobo is drag them to the Kobo icon in the list view in ADE. Once you eject the Kobo from ADE, Kobo will update and the new books will be there. This is all legal and allowed by ADE and is explained by Kobo in their own help section. ADE is also the software you sue if you are downloading library books and it works the same way however you cannot share library books. They key is that all users intending to share books must authorize ADE to the same user ID and password. This means that you do not have to share your Kobo ID or password with anyone."""

The instructions worked, now the books are on my dads computer but they cannot be seen in Kobo because, quite frankly, it's not a device its just software. Is it possible to get the books into his Kobo desktop or should I just give up and teach him to use ADE?

[sjpt]

Kobo Desktop seems to be a very closed environment: I can't see any way to use it to open .epub book already on your PC.

I would have expected that the sync button (top right) would download all your Kobo books into Kobo reader without the rigmarole of going via ADE, but I can't verify that.

If your dad gets used to ADE, he will also be able to use it for other things, such as borrowing and reading library books.

And don't forget all the free (mostly older) books you can get from sources such as Gutenberg  http://www.gutenberg.org/

(he can read those on ADE, or Calibre, or most PC epub reading software except Kobo desktop).

[Guest]

I'm wondering if maybe there is a particular folder within the Kobo folders that it would automatically scan for book files because the books get downloaded somewhere when it syncs.

[sjpt · Accepted solution]

Just got a (free) Kobo book using a web browser. 

When I launched Kobo Desktop, it automatically downloaded it to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Kobo\Kobo Desktop Edition\kepub (under a silly name),

and I could read it on Kobo desktop.

When I renamed it to 'test.epub', I was able to read it on a regular reader; it did not appear to have any DRM associated.  Indeed, it wasn't a Kobo edition at all, but a Gutenberg one.  However, I've just experimented copying (nonDRM) .epub files into that same directory, and Kobo Desktop doesn't see them. 

So, back to your original issues.  It looks as if your Kobo books should just automatically sync to your Dad's computer when he opens Kobo Desktop, and he should be able to read them on his Kobo Desktop. 

He won't be able to read any books you aquire by other means on the Kobo desktop.

[Guest]

Yes well basically he wanted his own account, which Kobo are very strict on trying to enforce. I also tried placing the .epub and some .ascm files into the kepub folder which didn't get recognised. It would help if I knew the file types in the actual kepub folder because they have no extension and no details about them. Alas maybe this is not possible at this stage, Kobo has spent far less time (obviously) developing their free software than they have with their eReaders. Maybe if this issue arises enough they may attempt to fix the Kobo Desktop software so it is possible to add books. Who knows.

Thanks for trying to help.

[hennier]

Maybe this way about how to share kobo ebooks with friends can give you some good advice.

Not only between two computers, but also between kobo and sony, kobo and nook, and so on.

[Guest]

I am trying to open my purchased kobo ebook in my laptop.  I purchased the book straight onto my ereader. Is this why I cannot open on laptop. I keep getting a message saying 'already fulfilled by another user'