Google Books, how to access and read books?

Google, in addition to being one of the largest search engines in the world, offers some little-known facilities to its users. Today we're going to talk about a hidden treasure of Google, Google Play Books.

If you like to read or need to do a more in-depth bibliographical research, you cannot miss this platform.

Want to know how to use this tool in your next research or reading? Check out this article and learn how to use Google Play Books

What is Google Play Books?

Google Books or Google Play Books is a true digital library, where you can access a huge collection of e-books and audiobooks.

How does Google Play Books work?

On this platform, you can choose to read the book online, through the website https://books.google.com.br/ or through the Google Play Books application.

If you prefer to read offline, you can download the file in PDF format and read it on several other devices, such as a notebook, cell phone, tablets or even an e-reader device such as the Amazon Kindle, for example.

However, reading some free books should only be done online, since depending on the author they cannot be downloaded by Google Books.

Google Play Books is available for both Android and iOS devices.

How to read in Google Play Books?

The look of Google Play Books is practically identical to Google, which makes accessing the platform simple, since we are already familiar with doing searches on Google.

Therefore, to find a book, just use the initial search field, and search by title, author or keywords of the book. If necessary, you can even search for a book in a personalized way, using the search filters and search for books according to their edition or year of publication.

Also, if you're looking for a specific quote, just write a quote in the search and search field, then just click on the “view” field, and you'll find out at what point in the book that quote appears.

For those who want to read the book online, the platform has several tools to give you a better experience at the time of reading, so you can search for keywords or citations within the document. In addition to finding the summary and chapters of the book in a simple way.

To download books in the tool, just access the book and then click on the “download” option. When the download is finished, the PDF can be found in the menu in the “device downloads” part

After reading the book you can leave your impressions about it through a review. And if you liked the book and want to get the physical version, within the platform itself it is possible to purchase the printed version.

Google Play books also has the “My Library” space, a personalized space where you can create folders, organize your favorite books, save content and notes. Which can make it easier when doing a search for academic papers, for example.

In your library, you can also store other files a PDF. To do this is simple, just click on “My books”, then click, in the upper right corner on the “Upload files” menu, choose the file and that’s it, once the file is uploaded you can start your reading and take advantage of some of the Google Play Books reading tools.

Now, if you want to have the complete experience of reading a book with all the resources available on Google Play Books, you must purchase it through the platform. See how in the next topic.

How to buy books on Google Play Books?

To buy books on the platform and have a complete experience, with several resources, visit: https://play.google.com/store/books then search for the book you want to read, click on the price, select the payment method payment of your preference and finalize the purchase by clicking on “Buy e-book” and that's it, you can now enjoy several features.

Among the resources available in Google Play Books, is the possibility of configuring the mode where you can choose between viewing the text in a running way or pages as in traditional books, and also being able to skip pages, navigate through the summary and chapters or mark important pages.

It is also possible to change the Font and Layout settings, that is, you can change the size and style of the book's letter, and even the background color of the page, all this to give you more comfort and facilitate reading, making it more accessible.

For those who are doing academic work there are two very interesting tools made available by Google Play Books: the tool to quote a book or translate a book.

To obtain information about the book and quote it, just click on the menu on the left and click on “About this book”, then go to the bottom of the page and find the section “Bibliographic information”, on this page you have access to all information that can be used in your academic work to cite the desired book.

To translate an excerpt from the book, just select the desired text excerpt and click on “translate”, if the option does not appear, it is because the option is not available for that title, so look for another education.

Now that you know everything about Google Play Books, access the platform and enjoy!

Article By Sidney Matias

Casa de Livro Blog