Google Play Books There Was a Problem Retrieving Your Bookshelf

Now that the Google Play Store has established itself as a compelling ane-stop shop for movies, music, volume, and apps, it'southward easy to find yourself getting all of your entertainment from this one source. More than than merely offering a compelling retail experience, Google'due south Play Books service exists as a highly functional ebook reader as well. Google has worked hard to commodities on features wherever appropriate, and as 1 of the flagship apps for the new Fabric Pattern UI scheme it'due south easy to get sucked into this service every bit an Android user.

Using Google Play Books doesn't accept much in the mode of endeavor, but getting to know the features within may not exist a priority if you're already embedded in another platform. With that in mind, hither'southward a quick tour through what makes this ebook reader stand out.

Getting books to and from Play Books

Similar Android, Google Play Books is a mostly open organisation. You can purchase books from the Google Play Shop and accept them just appear in Google Play Volume, or yous tin can upload your ain from a number of different sources. Books y'all accept uploaded from other sources don't always look exactly the same every bit content purchased on the Play Store when looking at the "bookshelf" of titles available to you, but on the inside these books will almost always behave the same mode.

Learn more about calculation your library to Google Play Books

Possibly more important than calculation books from other sources is the ability to move books you lot've purchased on Google Play Books to other readers if you lot determine you've found something yous like meliorate. The Google Play Books website includes a download function that allows you to catch the volume in whatever file format it was uploaded past the publisher in, as long every bit the publisher has chosen to allow this to happen. As long every bit whoever sold y'all that volume has their content available to you DRM-costless and available to download, you lot can click on the three dots on the cover and download in whatever file format suits you best.

Enjoying your books

While a hefty feature gear up isn't usually what you lot have in listen when information technology comes time to sit down and swoop in to a good book, being aware of what options are bachelor to yous with that app you're using tin oftentimes brand the difference between casually reading when comfortable and never putting your phone or tablet downward. The primal features for whatever good ebook app autumn into 2 basic categories — readability and ease of use. It'due south not so much whether yous're going to use every feature, it'south about having the tools there when you need them.

All of the Play Book features for making sure you're able to actually read your book sit down hidden on every page in every book you read. Borer on the screen when in a book will reveal a panel of icons in the top right on the screen, and the A icon in that menu gives yous access to all of your readability tools. Google's offering here is adequately basic, and doesn't apply to every kind of book that exists in the Google Play Store, but covers the basics nicely. Offline dictionaries tin exist activated then you tin can expect upward words even when disconnected from the earth, though because that ways taking up extra space on your device y'all have to activate the function manually in settings. You accept color switching for those late night sessions where you want a blackness background and white text, command over the font — including text size and spacing between lines of text — and app-specific command over screen brightness. That last part is particularly useful if y'all're switching back and forth between apps, every bit the brightness controls will immediately flip back to system defaults when you leave Play Books.

Non all reading is done for the sake of entertainment, and that'due south where the bookmarking and skimming features of Google Play Books stand up out confronting other ebook readers. While bookmarking is naught special, Play Books makes tagging a page with a bluish bookmark equally simple as tapping the top right corner of a page, and when you move away from the page you are currently on you can access a sliding bar at the lesser of the app that lets you quickly jump from bookmark to bookmark as you see fit. While in this skimming mode, you get a smaller page view that lets you quickly glance around at the content near the pages you take bookmarked. Information technology'due south a cracking tool for things like textbooks and cookbooks particularly, but could easily discover its way into your day to day workflow.