Adobe Digital Editions allows you to access e-Books downloaded to your computer in either ePub or PDF format protected with Adobe Digital Rights Management (DRM). The books you purchase or download on one device will appear automatically across all the devices you have ADE on.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a copyright protection for an electronic product that limits the length of the loan of the downloaded e-book, and the amount of copying and printing. You will usually be told what the limits are when you try to print or copy from e-books that are DRM-protected.
Many tablets/smartphones/e-book readers and applications now support Adobe DRM.
On a computer, the free Adobe Digital Editions is needed to access (read) downloaded Adobe DRM protected content on your computer.
Some eBooks can be downloaded and others cannot be download depending on the publisher’s digital rights.
Downloaded books can be read off-line for a certain period of time. It is like checking out a printed book from the library. Once the downloaded eBook reaches its expiry date, it will automatically be returned to the library.
If you would like to download an e-book to a computer:
You need to download and install Adobe Digital Editions (ADE)
If you would like to download an e-book to a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet:
You need to download and install a mobile reader app (Bluefire Reader) on your mobile device.
If you already have an e-reader on your device, you will need to transfer the e-books from your computer to the eReader device to access them via your phone or tablet.
The Bluefire Reader app supports Adobe e-book DRM and allows you to download e-books in both ePUB and PDF format directly to your mobile device.
You can also transfer e-books that you have downloaded to your computer to Bluefire Reader via ADE.