Frequently Asked Questions

You can read e-books in VLeBooks and E-book Central within your internet browser by clicking the Read Online button. But you can also download e-books for a limited period of time.

You need to use Adobe Digital Editions to read downloaded e-books. You can download this software for free from the Adobe website. You can also download the Adobe Digital Editions app from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

If you want to be able to move e-books between different devices, you will need to authorise your device in Adobe Digital Editions with an Adobe ID. If you need help with this, take a look at this Youtube video.

When you download a book from VLeBooks or E-Book Central, the file will end with '.acsm'. Open this file in Adobe Digital Editions to read it. The file is small, but it will load the entire book.

VLeBooks

You can download a book for a maximum of 30 days. For some books, you can only download it for 1 day, so that other students can read it (like in a physical library). 

To download books onto an iPad or iPhone, please use the Adobe Digital Editions app.

E-book Central

You can find out how long you can view a downloaded book on the book’s page in E-book Central.

You can also download a limited number of individual chapters, which do not expire. You can do this with any PDF viewing software, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download for free from the Abode website.

Cambridge Core

Some books within Cambridge Core require a personal account with Cambridge in order to access some additional features such as printing and annotating. See our guide to creating a personal account for Cambridge Core. 

To read some Cambridge Core books offline you will also need the Cambridge Spiral e-reader app, which you can download to your mobile or desktop device from here. On the book’s page in Cambridge Core, click the ‘Add to offline bookshelf’ button and login with your Cambridge account if prompted. 

The book will then appear when you log into your account within the Cambridge Spiral app and you will be able to download it to your device and read it offline until the expiry date show in the app. 

Once the book expires (usually in 6-12 months), you can repeat the process to continue reading the book offline in Cambridge Spiral. You can have up to 20 books on your online bookshelf at any one time. 

If you have any problems downloading an e-book, please contact us.