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O
oblador-I9hgZA
Participant
March 20, 2013
Answered

How can I export or backup highlights and annotations that I've made in my ebooks using ADE2?

  • March 20, 2013
  • 3 replies
  • 11416 views

Hi,

I've made many annotations and I've highlighted a lot of paragraphs in my ebooks using ADE2.

Now I need to format my PC and reinstall Windows.

How can I export or backup my highlights and annotations so that I can keep them?

I only want to keep that information with me. How can I do it?

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer sjpt

I agree it would be good to have cloud managment and storage of the books etc you use under ADE, but I doubt Adobe will provide it.

Unfortunately, Adobe only provides very limited support for ADE and ADE related infrastructure:  I suspect just enough to be able to get money from vendors for use of Adobe DRM.  No online management of authorized devices, no proper product test (as shown by the huge number of bugs in ADE2.0), ....

If you are a bit technical and willing to play around a little, you could probably get the effect you want.

Use some cloud sync mechanism that allows you to specify your own folders.

Or, use something like Dropbox, and use a directory junction or symbolic link to make the Digital Editions directory part of your Dropbox.

OK, it's a hack, but as I say, you'll probably never get it if you wait for Adobe.

3 replies

D
default5ebeguakc1m4
Participant
February 23, 2021

How do I copy and paste from an eBook? I am using ADE 4.5. Tx. Joe

 

C
Cristina5FDC
Participating Frequently
January 13, 2021

Hi there! I created an account just to be able to answer. I found something that worked for me: 

 

- When the "lending" of the book expires, DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING. Just leave it on your library, like a zombie. 

- Download the book again (in my case, borrow it again from my university library). Now you should have two versions of the same book in your ADE library: the old expired one and the fresh new one. 

- Open the new version, highlight just anything and close it again. 

- Go to C:\Users\<username>\OneDrive\Documentos\My Digital Editions\Annotations (or something similar on your PC). 

- Find the ".annot" documents with the title of your book. There should be two, in my case "Risikogesellschaft" for the old version and "Risikogesellschaft-1" for the new version. 

- Replace the title of the new version to just anything (I didn't dare to delete it, you possibly could), and replace the title of the old version with the title of the new version (in my case, "Risikogesellschaft" becomes "Risikogesellschaft-1"). 

- Open the new version of the book on Adobe Digital Editions and check if the highlights and annotations are there. 

 

I really really hope this works! And I hope I didn't make any mistakes in the instructions 🙂

    A
    angelo_porciuncula
    Participant
    January 27, 2021

    Thanks! This worked! Now, we still have to figure out how to export the highlighted text. Any ideas? Because the .annot file is almost gibberish.

    R
    robs52109205
    Participant
    May 1, 2022

    It's xml, convert to csv and you can open in Excel

     

    https://onlinexmltools.com/convert-xml-to-csv

    S
    sjpt
    Inspiring
    March 21, 2013

    You will find most of the data under   C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Digital Editions

    If you back that up (and its subdirectories) and restore it to the new Windows installation, you should get everything back as it was before.

    The annotations are under C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Digital Editions\Annotations

    If at all possible, backup your entire drive before reformat/reinstall;

    there may well be other things you wished you had backed up and don't think of till too late.

    O
    oblador-I9hgZAAuthor
    Participant
    March 21, 2013

    Thanks for helping, but I hope Adobe finds a better solution for this situation. There should be an option to store highlights and annotations and export or backup them up.

    S
    sjptCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    March 22, 2013

    I agree it would be good to have cloud managment and storage of the books etc you use under ADE, but I doubt Adobe will provide it.

    Unfortunately, Adobe only provides very limited support for ADE and ADE related infrastructure:  I suspect just enough to be able to get money from vendors for use of Adobe DRM.  No online management of authorized devices, no proper product test (as shown by the huge number of bugs in ADE2.0), ....

    If you are a bit technical and willing to play around a little, you could probably get the effect you want.

    Use some cloud sync mechanism that allows you to specify your own folders.

    Or, use something like Dropbox, and use a directory junction or symbolic link to make the Digital Editions directory part of your Dropbox.

    OK, it's a hack, but as I say, you'll probably never get it if you wait for Adobe.

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