About Our eBooks

About our Programming eBooks

• Our eBooks are delivered by VitalSource, an industry leader. If you haven’t used VitalSource eBooks before, you’ll quickly see that they are not only easy to use but also provide all the features that you might want, including searching, highlighting, bookmarking, and adding notes.
• You can view VitalSource eBooks online from the VitalSource website by using their online Bookshelf app.
• You can also install offline versions of Bookshelf on two Windows or Mac computers and two mobile devices like iPads, Android tablets, or phones. However, only one device can be active at a time.
• If you use the online version of Bookshelf, your eBooks expire after 5 years. If you use an offline version of Bookshelf, your eBooks never expire.

Why you should install and use an offline version of VitalSource Bookshelf

• Although you can access and read your eBooks at the VitalSource website, the online version of Bookshelf has some limitations. In particular, it doesn’t let you display facing pages so you don’t get the instructional benefits of our “paired pages” approach.
  
• That’s why we recommend that you install and use Bookshelf on a Windows or Mac computer with the Page Layout set to Facing Pages. That way, you not only get the full benefit of our “paired pages” formatting, but also get all the features of Bookshelf. In fact, we believe that if you use our VitalSource eBooks in this way, they work even better than our print books.

Legacy support for LockLizard eBooks

• If you ordered eBooks before August 17, 2017, we fulfilled them with LockLizard eBooks, and you can still access them. For more information, please go to “Legacy support for LockLizard eBooks” below.
• A better alternative, though, is to buy the newest editions as VitalSource eBooks. For help with that, please contact customer service at murachbooks@murach.com or 1-800-221-5528.

How to get your Murach Programming eBook from VitalSource

• When your order your Murach book from VitalSouce, we will send you an email that provides a Redemption Code and a link to the VitalSource website.
• Then, you need to click on that link to go to the VitalSource website and sign in or create an account.
• Once you have done that, click on the Redeem Codes link and you can enter the Redemption Code from our email or login into your Murach account and view your order.

How to access your eBooks

• When you sign into Bookshelf on the VitalSource website, the Home page shows the books that you’ve purchased with the last book you were reading at the top of the page:
  
• If all of the books that you purchased aren’t shown, you can click on Redeem Codes and enter the Redemption Code associated with the eBook. If you have done that and it still doesn't show up, select Update Library from the Tools menu that's shown above.

How to open and display an online eBook

• To open one of your eBooks, you can click on it:
  
• Then, you can use the controls at the left and bottom of the screen to work with the eBook. However, you can’t control the size of the book page, except by adjusting the size of the browser, and you can’t display facing pages.

Why we recommend that you use an offline version of Bookshelf

Simply stated, the online version has some drawbacks. In particular,

• It doesn’t let you display facing pages so you can’t take advantage of our  “paired pages” presentation method.
• You have to be connected to the Internet to use it.
• The online versions of VitalSource eBooks expire after 5 years, but the offline versions never expire.

How to install an offline version of Bookshelf

Note: If you have an older offline version already installed, the screens will look different, but the functionality will be much the same.

• To install an offline version of Bookshelf, you start from the Home page of the online version of Bookshelf, and you click on the App toolbar button that’s shown below. Then, you click on the Download button to download the offline version of Bookshelf for the device that you’re using.
  
• When you install and start the offline version of Bookshelf for a Windows or Mac computer, all of the VitalSource eBooks that you’ve bought will be displayed:
  
• If all of the books aren’t shown, you can click the Refresh option at the top of the screen. That should download all your eBooks so they're available to you offline.  

How to open and display an eBook on a computer

• To open one of the books, click on it. Then, you can use the left and right arrows at the sides to move from page to page. You can also experiment with the controls in the toolbar to see how easy it is to to search, navigate, highlight, bookmark, add notes, and more. 
  
• To change the display of a book, use the Aa icon in the bottom toolbar. Here, for example, is the Bookshelf display for a Windows computer with Aa set to Facing Pages and the Table of Contents hidden:
  
• This of course is the layout that we recommend for our books because it lets you get the most from our “paired pages” presentation method. To page through the sets of paired pages when the Navigation panel is hidden, you can press the PgUp and PgDn keys.
• Note: If you have an older version of Bookshelf installed on your computer, you can use the View menu or Page Layout icon to set the display to Facing Pages.

How to use our eBooks on tablets

• Bookshelf for tablets works similarly to Bookshelf for a computer. Here, for example, is a figure page from one of our books in Bookshelf for the iPad, with the Aa option selected:
  
• Here again, if you experiment with the controls at the top and bottom of the page, you’ll see how easy it is to search, navigate, highlight, bookmark, add notes, and more.

How to use our eBooks on mobile phones

• You can download and install Bookshelf for a phone in the same way that you download and install Bookshelf for a tablet. You can also open and display your eBooks in the same way.
• In general, we don’t recommend using Bookshelf on a phone because you lose the instructional benefits that you get from our “paired pages.” For some types of review, however, it can work quite well.

Download and use an offline version of Bookshelf

• Since the offline versions of Bookshelf for Windows and Mac computers work better than the online reader, it’s worth taking the time to install an offline version. That also means you don’t have to be connected to the Internet to access your programming eBooks. And it means that your eBooks won’t expire after 5 years.

Use the Facing Pages layout on larger screens

• If the device you’re using for an offline version of Bookshelf has a screen that’s large enough to support Facing Pages, use that layout when you’re reviewing our books. That will help you see how effective our “paired pages” presentation method is for technical instruction.
• But remember that Facing Pages are only supported by the offline versions of Bookshelf for Windows and Macs.

Take advantage of our “paired pages” on tablets

• On tablets, you can’t display both pages in a pair, but you can display one full page at a time. Just remember that each text page in our books is matched with a facing figure page. As a result, you can switch back and forth between text and figure just by going back and forth between pages.

On August 17,  2017, we switched from LockLizard eBooks to VitalSource eBooks. If you bought LockLizard eBooks from us before that date, you will still be able to download your eBooks by opening the orders on your My Account page on our website. You will also be able to access the file that you need for registering LockLizard Viewers on your devices.

A better alternative, though, is to buy the latest edition of the book as a VitalSource eBook. That way, you’ll get all of the benefits that VitalSource eBooks offer.

How to install and register a LockLizard Viewer

Before you can read a LockLizard eBook on a device, you need to:

• Download and install the LockLizard Viewer for the device.
• Register the Viewer.
• Download the eBook and open it in the Viewer.

To do these tasks, you need to:

1. Go to your My Account page on our Retail web site.
2. Click on the “Legacy eBook Instructions” tab.
3. Follow the instructions in that tab.

How to download one of your LockLizard eBooks from our website

If you’ve already installed and registered a LockLizard Viewer on your device, you can download a LockLizard eBook to that device by using this procedure:

• Go to your MyAccount page on our website.
• Open the invoice for the LockLizard purchase and click on the Download Now button for the book.

For more information

• Please download our LockLizard eBooks PDF.