What is this?

This vendor-agnostic script is used to download pdfs (and covers) from different services.

State of features

service	pdf download	table of contents	pdf size	max logins	page labels	login expire	cover	rendered
Scuolabook	perfect	yes (very small)	excellent	very restrictive	yes	never	yes	no
MyLim	perfect	excellent	excellent	no	not yet/depends on vendor	?	yes	no
Pearson eText	perfect	(depends on vendor)/excellent	big	no	no/depends on vendor	very fast (30 min)	yes	sometimes
Pearson Reader+	yes	good/very good	big	no	yes	very fast (30 min)	yes	no
bSmart	yes	yes (very small)	very big (100+ mb)	no	yes	?	yes	no
Mondadori HUB Scuola	yes	yes	very big (100+ mb)	no	yes (disable because glitches)	?	yes	no
MEE2	yes	yes (very small)	good/excellent	no/1token4ever	no	never	yes (?)	no
easyeschool	yes	yes (very small)	excellent	no/1token4ever	no	never	yes	no
Zanichelli Booktab	yes	yes	good/average	yes	yes	?	yes	no
Zanichelli Kitaboo	yes	yes	average/big	yes	yes	?	yes	yes
Oxford Learner’s Bookshelf	yes	yes (small)	very big	?	not yet/no	?	yes	no
Laterza diBooK	yes	yes/(depends on vendor)	excellent	?	not yet/no	?	yes	no
Raffaello Player	yes	yes (incomplete bc no samples :-(	very big	?	yes	?	yes	no

Apps that I am aware of but I can't work with beacuse I don't have books:

• Appbook (might be a shitty html webview like booktab)
• HoepliAcademy+ (bsmart instance)
• Digimparo (giuntitvp instance)
• Vitalsource (american platform, very good protection)
• digibook24 ("The platform was developed by www.bsmartlabs.com"?)

TODO

• Add anonymous user
• Add ability to pass options to scripts
• Add "perfect" token checks
• General code quality improvement (better management of exceptions)

Installation

1. download the latest version of Python
   • on windows, when installing though the set up wizard, make sure to select the checkbox to add python to PATH
   • on linux and macos, use your package manager of choice (brew install python3 or apt install python3, etc...)
2. downlaod the pdfgrabber repo
   • using git: git clone https://github.com/FelixFrog/pdfgrabber.git
   • manually: download the zip (green button labeled "code") and extract it
3. open your local clone of pdfgrabber
4. open the terminal in that directory and run:
   1. pip install -r requirements.txt (takes care of installing every needed libraries)
   2. run the script
      • python3 main.py (linux and macos)
      • py main.py (windows)
5. once inside the pdfgrabber CLI:
   • press r: register a new account
   • choose what to do (it's listed):
     • to download a book: press d and follow the instructions.
     • the output file will be files/<service>/<id>.pdf

Quirks

Scuolabook

Scuolabook has a very strict login system, where you can have only 2 devices logged in and you only have 2 deletions per year. This means that you can only log in 4 times every year, with no way of downloading books (at least, the pdf version) if you have hit this limit. pdfgrabber should save the token for you, but you should also keep it somewhere safer such as a text document.

Pearson

If the download of an eText book gets stuck in loop where it infinitely tries to download, then that is a problem with too strict caching policies from pearson's servers. It is problematic even for the official app, where it just spits out an error. Just try again later ;-) Both RPLUS_PDF and RPLUS_EPUB books are stored in a password protected zip file. Python's ZipFile module doesn't do the decryption natively, so it might take a (very) long time for some big books in the "Extracting zip" phase. If you have found a decent workaround let me know.

Support

My telegram

Disclaimer

This script is provided "as is", without any type of warranty. I am not responsible of any harm or nuclear war that this may cause.