Downloading google books
This tutorial will teach you how to download books from books.google.com. Some remarks:
If a book is marked as “Full preview”, full download is guaranteed
If a book marked as “Limited preview”, full download is possible, and it depends on your luck.
This tutorial is an updated version of an old passfans tutorial about the same theme.
Getting tools
Point your browser to http://googlebookdownloader.codeplex.com/ and download the latest version of
GBD. You need .NET Framework 3.5 for correct work of this tool
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=333325FD-AE52-4E35-B531-
508D977D32A6)
Running downloader
First of all, find your book on googlebooks:
Remember that googlebooks usually lies about real page count and in its original preview window you
cannot read more than ~40 pages.
Copy book address to clipboard and run Google Book Downloader. It’s main window looks pretty simple:
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Select File>Add book, paste book URL to an editbox and click ”Search”, then “Queue”
After pressing this button, book will be added to download list. After that click on a book with your right
mouse button and select “Start”:
A downloading process should start immediately. When book status switches to “Finished”, select
Export>PDF and enjoy.
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Advices
Sometimes googlebooks detects that you are hammering its servers with large amounts of
requests and asks for captcha (some weird symbols you should recognize and type). It depends
from book’s page count, proxy server load and your luck. There can be no captcha at all.
Usually googlebooks lets you download 80-99% of book. Non-downloadable page numbers are
random and constant in ~1 month period. So do not forget to update your partially downloaded
books periodically.
Some books are limited to be previewed only from US. GBD uses a large internal list of proxy
servers from the entire world, so before downloading try to set up usage of US-only proxy
servers in book’s advanced settings (accessible on right-click)
While previewing books, you should see some pages marked as “Hidden”. These pages are
removed from google’s original preview window, but still accessible by GBD.
Also do not forget to use the latest version of GBD because Google often changes some things in
its inner structure which can stop GBD from working.
Google also limits a total amount of downloadable pages per IP, so GBD uses proxy servers to
obey this limit (This technique compared to different Firefox add-ons lets you download more
pages)
Common problems
GBD infinitely asks for captcha while adding a new book. This situation happens when
googlebook inner structure is changed. Check for a new version of GBD, usually it’s updated in
one day.
GBD receives channel timeouts and doesn’t want to download anything. If you are behind a
proxy server, downloading of books is impossible with this tool.
GBD performance is very poor. Check GBD settings: there is three types of channels for
downloading books. If you are experiencing connection or speed problems, try to switch on/off
different methods – it may help:
o Direct. The tool connects to google directly, the fastest method but it doesn’t let you
download every possible page.
o P2P. The tool uses other GBD user’s computers to access google (much like in torrent or
edonkey protocols). Average speed.
o Proxy. In this method GBD uses internal proxy list. Low speed and so on.
GBD is searching for hidden pages for too much time. It’s happening on some books because of
some strange page numbering used by google. Pages are numbered not as 1,2,3,4,5,… but as
PA1..PA10, PP50..PP70, PA700-PA790. Page intervals and also interval names can be much
different even in one book! So just wait for GBD to finish it’s work.
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