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Sameer G
Sameer G
Known Participant
April 11, 2012
Question

What's the procedure for backing up e-books in ADE?

  • April 11, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 9143 views

Hello!

Well, I have checked the FAQ section about Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) and found no answer to this question. Also, there is no documentation available for ADE. (You need to add this in Adobe.) Thankfully there is this forum available.

I am using Windows Vista Home Premium at the moment. Now, say I want to upgrade to Windows 7. And I want to do a custom, or "clean" install which results in formatting the entire system disk drive. I have 10 purchased books and 5 borrowed books in my library in ADE. How do I save these? If I just copy them over to an external disk drive, can I just copy them back to the system disk after installing Windows 7 and continue to read them? Or will I get an error saying that I don't have the rights, or that they are registered to different user?...

The FAQ can be found here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/faq/

I already have an Adobe ID and I have typed it in the first time I installed ADE, so I guess my computer is considered "authorized" now. What does this mean anyway? Is there some special license file that is downloaded to my computer or what?... In that case I assume I would need to backup this file for later use when restoring e-books and installing ADE. Or is this false?

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Sameer G
Sameer GAuthor
Known Participant
April 25, 2012

No answers yet?

When borrowing e-books from libraries I always get new files titled URLLink.acsm, URLLink (1).acsm, URLLink (2).acsm, etc. When I double-click on them Adobe Digital Editions opens up and downloads the actual e-book as a PDF file. But what do you do with the URLLink.acsm file? Is it safe to delete it? Is it required if you for example want to download the same book but on a different computer or another device? This type of book can be downloaded on up to five devices, right?

F
Frustrated in AZ
Participating Frequently
April 26, 2012

Hi Sameer

.ascm files contain information ADE uses to find the ebook, plus

information from the publisher/distributor about the ebook's digital rights

management. Once the ebook has been downloaded, ADE should be deleting the

.ascm file. If you have any 'left over', then it's possible that the ebook

was not downloaded. Use your computer's utility program to find the file

and then open it with ADE and see if that's the case. If it's already

there, ADE will tell you.

==============

F
Frustrated in AZ
Participating Frequently
June 1, 2012

Hi there!

I have deleted the ASCM files. No, Adobe Digital Editions does not delete the ASCM file automatically after it has downloaded the e-book document (PDF, EPUB, etc). Should it be doing that? I just borrowed a e-book from a public library to try this out and I can confirm that it does not do that.

No, Adobe Digital Editions does not care if the book is already downloaded and in the library. By double-clicking on the URLLink.acsm file the first time Adobe Digital Editions downloads the PDF document and adds it to its digital library. Let's say the file name of the book is Book_of_the_year.pdf. If I double click on the same URLLink.acsm file again Adobe Digital Edition starts up and it adds the same book to its library again. In addition to that, it creates a second copy of the book PDF file named Book_of_the_year_0001.pdf. It does this over and over again.

If you have clicked on the URLLink.acsm file 5 times then you will have 5 additional PDF files for the same book, and 5 additional entries in the Adobe Digital Editions library.

You would have:

Book_of_the_year.pdf

Book_of_the_year_0001.pdf

Book_of_the_year_0002.pdf

Book_of_the_year_0003.pdf

Book_of_the_year_0004.pdf

Book_of_the_year_0005.pdf

If one file is 5 MB in size, then 6 of them is 30 MB. Complete waste of space! Not to mention the clutter it creates in the Adobe Digital Editions library. Because all you really need is just one entry for one book.

I would suggest everyone to delete their URLLink.acsm files after downloading the book in Adobe Digital Editions. Don't expect Adobe Digital Editions to do it for you.

While the URLLink.acsm file gives you a quick way of downloading the same book, perhaps on a second computer, i.e. one for the laptop and one for the desktop, you can still do that by going to the publisher or library website or wherever you got it from and downloading the URLLink.acsm file again.

I have never been a fan of software applications that leave residue files like this after performing a certain task, especially when they leave it in the user space like the Documents folder. And I really don't like the way Adobe Digital Edition leaves the PDF file after deleting the book item in its library. It should at least prompt the user whether or not to delete the associated PDF file as well. But what can you really do about it as the end-user?... not much really, just learn to live with it or leave it, or understand the way it works and make it fit the way you like it.


Sameer, the commentary in your post tells me that your copy of ADE is not

registered or something is messed up with your installation. Here's why I

think so:

.ascm files are deleted automatically by ADE when the transfer is

complete. If they exist on your computer, then I believe your copy of ADE

is not registered with Adobe or it is not registered correctly.

ADE will check to see whether an ebook has been downloaded previously and

issue a warning message to you.

Apologies, but let me go over the proper procedure and what should happen.

First, you register with Adobe and obtain an Adobe ID and password. That

information will be embedded into Digital Editions when you download it,

and kept also on Adobe's computer. This information is checked when you

open Digital Editions.

Next, when you go to a website to download an ebook (whether it be a

publisher, distributor or library), the process will interrogate your copy

of Digital Editions to determine whether it's registered. If it is, then

the next steps will be for the website to create a 'tag file' ( .ascm) that

tells Digital Editions where to find the ebook. The website then will

initiate Digital Editions on your computer, and give Digital Editions the

'tag file' data: then the website will close. Digital Editions will then

go find the ebook, and when it has done so, it will ask you whether you

want to OPEN or SAVE the ebook. You reply, and Digital Editions takes it

from there. When it's done, Digital Editions will delete the .ascm file.

Obviously, you're having 'problems'....

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