How to Use iBooks for a Seamless Experience of Downloading and Enjoying the ACSM Textbook on an Apple Tablet

2 Ways to Read ACSM on iPad, Read ACSM with iBooks

Posted by Ada Wang on 5/5/2023 2:53:08 PM.

When we download ebooks from online stores, it’s common to find that many books are in ACSM file format. You may have read these files on your computer previously, but now that you have a new iPad, you want to be able to read your books on the go. However, you’ve tried to transfer these books to your iPad and open them, but have been unsuccessful. You’re now wondering why this is happening and how you can read ACSM files on your iPad. Don’t worry, this guide can help you understand the reasons for this issue and provide two useful solutions to help you solve this problem.

Read ACSM with iBooks After Removing DRM

In fact, there are two reasons why we cannot directly open ACSM files on an iPad. Firstly, an ACSM file is not an actual book file, but rather a download link that provides access to the complete EPUB or PDF book. Secondly, ACSM files are typically protected by Adobe DRM, which is not supported by the iPad.

Fortunately, the iBooks app on the iPad can be used to read ACSM files if we remove the DRM and transfer the DRM-free book to the iPad. Then we can enjoy acsm file via iBooks.

By following below steps, you will be able to read your ACSM files on your iPad using iBooks.

Tools you will need:

1. Adobe Digital Editions for PC/Mac

To get the actual book files, we need ADE on our computer to convert the acsm files to EPUB/PDF books.

DownloadAdobe Digital Editions for Windows : ADE for Win (8.13MB)

Download Adobe Digital Editions for Mac: ADE for Mac (23.2MB)

2. Epubor Ultimate

To remove DRM from ACSM files, we need a DRM removal tool to help us. Here I recommend you a powerful software–Epubor Ultimate --which can help you remove the DRM with ease.

Download Epubor Ultimate for Free

1 Remove DRM from ACSM Files

Launch Epubor Ultimate. Then it will automatically detect and upload your books. As you can see, all the books here are listed under the “Adobe” tab on the left side. Just drag and drop them to the right area. Then all the books will be decrypted immediately.

2 Transfer the Decrypted Books to iPad

Once all the DRM-protected books have been decrypted successfully, you can just click the blue output folder icon at the bottom-right or “Decrypted” at the end of each title to find your DRM-free books. Then you can transfer them to your iPad and read these books freely with iBooks. To learn more details, you can go through how to transfer books to iPad .

Read ACSM with a Third-Party Reading App

In order to read ACSM on iPad, we can still install a third-party reading app that support .acsm file, such as ADE and Bluefire reader. In this part, I will tell you the detailed information about how to do this.

1. Adobe Digital Editions App for iPad

First, please install ADE app on your iPad. Just open your App Store on iPad, input “ADE” in the search pane find ADE for iPad to download and install it.

Once you have installed ADE on your iPad successfully, you can transfer your downloaded ACSM files to your iPad.

Method 1 Use iTunes to Transfer the files

Connect your iPad to the computer with USB cable, open iTunes. Then tap the device icon on the left side of iTunes, select the “Apps” option and find “File Sharing” section. Click on ADE under Apps, tap the “Add” button to load downloaded ACSM files on your computer, and then just click “Sync” to transfer these ACSM files to your iPad.

Eject your iPad, open ADE app on your iPad. The “Library” will display all your transferred ACSM files. When you click them, the ADE will ask you to authorize your device. You just need to input your Adobe account information which is associated with your downloaded books, then tap “Authorize” to authorize your iPad.

After the iPad is authorized successfully, ADE will download the full content books for you. When downloading is finished, you can read ACSM files on iPad freely with ADE reader.

Click here

If you have opened ACSM files on your computer with ADE, it also downloaded the complete EPUB/PDF files for you. You can just transfer these downloaded EPUB/PDF books to ADE on your iPad. After you have authorized your iPad, you can directly read them on iPad with no need to download them again.

Method 2 Download the ACSM files on iPad directly

You can also directly download ACSM file from your iPad browser, then just select the ACSM, choose ADE to download EPUB files and read them.

In fact, I don’t like ADE app for iPad very much, because even if I have authorized my iPad, it cannot sync the books which are already existed on my computer ADE. What’s more, it cannot display the covers of my books very well.

2. Bluefire Reader for iPad

Bluefire Reader for iPad is a reading app which allows you to read eBooks in PDF and EPUB formats. The more important point is that it supports Adobe DRM, which means you can also read DRM-protected .ACSM eBooks on iPad with it.

Please download and install Bluefire on iPad at first. Then downloaded the ACSM files to your computer. Next please open ACSM files on computer with ADE to get the real EPUB/PDF books, and transfer the converted books to your iPad with iTunes. This is the same as the previous step for ADE app.

Once you open Bluefire Reader on iPad and tap the cover of the transferred books, it will ask you to authorize your device with your Adobe ID. Just enter your Adobe ID and password to authorize it. Then you can enjoy books with Bluefire Reader.

Note: No matter which app you pick up for reading ACSM files, please make sure it should be authorized with the same Adobe ID that is used for downloading the books.

Though Bluefire Reader can read ACSM files, sometimes there would apper some errors like “The request timed out” so that I cannot authorize my iPad successfully. This prevents me reading my acsm files.

Final Words

To tell the truth, I really don’t like to install any other reading app on my iPad. Through comparison, the method of reading acsm with iBooks after removing the DRM is so easy, right? No need to authorize our device, no need to download any third-party app to iPad. I really hope tha it does work for you.

Download Epubor Ultimate for Free

Make your ACSM files Readable on iPad

![author](https://www.epubor.com/images/uppic/1-22-2013 12-03-06 AM.png)

Ada Wang works for Epubor and writes articles for a collection of blogs such as ebookconverter.blogspot.com.

SHARING IS GREAT!

SAVE PAGE AS PDF

4 Comments

stephanie

Re:2 Ways to Read ACSM on iPad, Read ACSM with iBooks

04/12/2017 18:15:05

Thank you so much for this. I have been trying to upload a book for hours and this finally did it!

chait

Re:2 Ways to Read ACSM on iPad, Read ACSM with iBooks

04/20/2017 18:00:37

thank you for the help

Roslia Santamaria

Re:2 Ways to Read ACSM on iPad, Read ACSM with iBooks

03/18/2021 15:34:25

Hey, I was looking for useful information on iMac and just came across your blog and found it quite interesting, can’t wait to see your new post. You’ve been sharing really insightful posts and I’m an avid reader of your posts. Keep sharing the knowledge and adding value to our lives.

Epubor

Re:Roslia Santamaria

03/19/2021 10:57:57

Thank you for your comments. We are glad to know you like our blogs.

Discover Bits

How to Use iBooks for a Seamless Experience of Downloading and Enjoying the ACSM Textbook on an Apple Tablet