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Adobe Digital Editions

Installing Adobe Digital Editions


Adobe Digital Editions


Commercial publishers' ebooks are often copy-protected. The free Adobe Digital Editions software is needed to read these ebooks. It must be installed before downloading the ebook.

Install Adobe Digital Editions on Windows. Read the instructions on Adobe's website .

Get Adobe Digital Editions

For a mobile device, install Adobe Digital Editions from the app store.

After a successful installation you should be able to open and read copy-protected ebooks downloaded from e.g. Ebook Central.

Authorize Digital Editions without an Adobe ID or create an Adobe ID account

Adobe ID is not needed if you read ebooks on a single computer. You can authorize Adobe Digital Editions without an Adobe ID. Click Help menu and select Authorize computer. Check the box "I want to authorize my computer without an ID".

Authorize the computer without an ID.

Why create an Adobe ID? With an Adobe ID account, various reader programs will identify you as the same user. If you want to read borrowed books on multiple devices, such as a computer and a tablet, you can use this ID to transfer reading rights from device to device. Adobe ID is usually needed on tablets and mobile devices.

There are two ways to create an Adobe ID account: on the Adobe website or after installing Adobe Digital Editions.

If your computer fails to open the ebook in Adobe Digital Editions

In some cases a computer may fail to open the ebook file filename.acsm (e.g. URLLink.acsm) in Adobe Digital Editions. Try re-installing the software or associate the .acsm file type with Adobe Digital Editions.

Associate the .acsm file type with Adobe Digital Editions

Instructions for Windows 10:

  1. Go to Settings.

    2. Go to Settings


  2. Go to Apps.

    3. Go to Apps


  3. Select Default apps and Choose default apps by file type.

    4. Select Default apps and Choose default apps by file type


  4. Associate .acsm with Adobe Digital Editions.

    5. Associate acsm with Adobe Digital Editions


If the method above fails, try this:

  1. Find the file filename.acsm (e.g. URLLink.acsm). Most browsers save a file to a Downloads folder. Right click on the file and select Open with
  2. If Adobe Digital Editions is not shown in the window How do you want to open this file, click Look for another app on this PC.

    3. Find the app

  3. Go to folder C → Program Files (x86) → Adobe → Adobe Digital Editions. Click the file name DigitalEditions and Open.

    4. Open the app

More information: