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June 26, 2007 5:25 PM PDT

Adobe Digital Editions: First Look

by Seth Rosenblatt
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Adobe's Digital Editions lets you manage your e-book collection with large icons taken from the book covers, an uncluttered interface, and the ability to create playlist-style "bookshelves." Released for both Windows and Mac, the iTunes-style management might just help make e-books the Next Big Thing.

In this First Look video, take a quick tour of the app from its unusual install process onward.

Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2. You can follow him on Twitter.
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Adobe Digital Editions 2.0
by johnchalk July 1, 2007 4:01 AM PDT
I've tried to down load an Adobe digital editions book numerous times (+15)
over this last weekend from Taylor and Francis electronic book store. This is the
first time I've used Adobe Digital Editions. The file size seemed modest enough,
5130 KB. But despite numerous attempts, I can't download the whole file. I've
had this problem before with other files in other programs, eg. audiobooks, and
can usually within Safari can pickup from where the file stops loading by
restarting. This program is frustrating because I need to start from scratch
every time. Any comments on how to fix this ?
Reply to this comment
Adobe Massares eBooks
by bushisanidioit August 17, 2007 1:59 AM PDT
I have spent thousands of dollars on eBooks of medical texts that I use on a
daily basis for my work. The pdf eBooks were great to use because I could
search thousands of pages in seconds, and I could easily print whatever
section I needed. All of this stopped when one day I tried to open an eBook,
and my web browser opened to the ?new? Adobe Digital Edition download
page. I followed the instructions, and instead of being able to read my
extensive and expensive library, I spent a week trying to get this program to
work. This thing is garbage. A big white page opened, and nothing
happened for the next 5 minutes. After another 15 minutes that dark
template of theirs started to appear by fits and starts to fill in that white
page. Things just went downhill from there. Not only could I not open any of
my eBooks, the software would not download and open any of their ?free?
sample eBooks properly. Their template kept freezing up whenever I tried to
select any of the menu options. I downloaded their program at least a dozen
times with the same result. I called Adobe tech support, and wound up
wasting hours on the phone with the worst kind of lack of support I've ever
seen. All they could say was "we don't have support for Adobe Digital
Edition"!! I was transferred to 5 people, wasting time going over the problem
again and again, winding up with the same response, ?we can?t help you, we
don't support Digital Edition.? Worst still is that this is a mandatory program.
Every time you try to open an eBook, Adobe automatically takes you to their
download page for this software. There are no options given to allow you to
use the old DRM validation, and thus access your eBooks is lost. As far as I?m
concerned this is equivalent to destruction of personal property by Adobe. I
don?t know if this program will ever work, and in the meantime I have a
library of books on my hard drive that can?t be used. I will never buy another
eBook again. If anyone has any info, please let me know.
Reply to this comment
by tdeloney November 22, 2007 3:43 PM PST
I have had nothing but trouble with Digital Editions since it was imposed on my system when I upgraded to CS3 Web Premium. All of my digital books, including the free ones I downloaded from the Adobe promotional library, are useless. The software failed to download fully initially, despite multiple attempts. Then it failed to launch completely on most attempts, failing to respond after 2 - 20 minutes. On the rare occasion that it launches, the library fails to completely initialize with my purchased and downloaded selections. I had been using Mac OS X Tiger, and have upgraded to Leopard on my Intel MacBook. I heartily encourage all to find cracking software to eliminate the Adobe "protection" and render their e-book selections as pure PDF files.
Reply to this comment
by tdeloney November 22, 2007 3:46 PM PST
I forgot to concur with the previous experience with "customer no-support". I also got the phone relay run around until told that Adobe doesn't support their product, with the suggestion that I go back to the original vendors to download my e-books again.
Reply to this comment
by funwithdouger January 5, 2008 9:40 AM PST
Cite is buisy hard to navigate. I can't tell what you want. I don't know what I am doing here.
Reply to this comment
by Newmediaranger December 6, 2008 7:44 AM PST
Guys I totally agree with you, this Adobe digital edition is a trap and crap. I am facing the same unacceptable situation of not being able anymore to open books I bought. This means losing money.

The only way to use Adobe is to read cracked document. What a paradox...!!!!! This is crazy. I suggest Adobe people to go back to work before it ends bitterly.
Reply to this comment
by jjorda99 February 4, 2009 10:50 AM PST
Agree with everyone, this is fustrating and a waste of money, I was buying ebooks but now I can't read them since I had to install the new version, I will come back to paper.
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