Cambridge University Press Higher Education Textbooks – Help and Guidance

Contents

You can select the headings below to jump to the section needed.

• Introduction
• Navigating to the Site
• Reading Online as a Guest
• Setting up a Personal Account
• Cambridge Spiral eReader and App
• Functionality and Accessibility of the Spiral eReader
• Final Points

Introduction

The Higher Education platform from Cambridge University Press hosts textbooks covering a wide array of subjects. Our subscription encompasses all textbooks published on the platform, with each text licensed to provide unlimited user access and a 20% print and copy allowance.

As guidance on how best to use different features is scattered across the platform, this blogpost draws together key information on how to navigate and use the site, including how to register for a free account and access texts on the Spiral eReader.

Navigating to the Site

Cambridge University Press Textbooks can either be accessed by looking under the ‘find ebooks’ tab on the ebooks@cambridge LibGuide, or by searching for a title on iDiscover and clicking the access link.

If you choose to access the platform via the ebooks@cambridge LibGuide, you will be taken through to the site’s homepage, where you can either search for a title or browse the textbooks available using the subject categories. If you select the ‘browse’ tab at the top of the page, you can also choose to ‘view all textbooks’ or narrow this down to ‘new textbooks’.

If you access the site via a title link on iDiscover, you will be taken directly to the title’s landing page, which will look like the image below. The landing page includes an overview of the textbook, a contents list, author information, and reviews. Some features, such as ‘add to bookmarks’ and ‘add to offline reader’, are only available if you are logged into your personal account for the site.

Reading Online as a Guest

You will be able to read texts online as a Guest without having to set up or log-in to your personal account. Selecting the ‘Read Online’ button on the title’s landing page will take you through to the online eReader. You can also open the online eReader to a specific chapter by searching in the ‘contents’ list, and selecting the little book icon next to the chapter you’d like to open. When using either of these methods, if you haven’t set up an account or aren’t logged in, a pop-up box will appear to open the online eReader, saying ‘you have read-only access to the textbook’ – clicking on ‘Open Textbook’ will enable you to continue through to read online.

The online eReader has rather limited functionality and accessibility. On the left side-bar, there are options to:

• ‘Search’ the book using keywords
• Access a ‘contents’ list
• Search for images and files within the text using the ‘Resources’ option.

On the top bar, there are options to:

• Change the ‘settings’ (font size and scrolling speed only)
• Use the ‘read aloud’ function

Please note, when using the online eReader as a Guest, you won’t be able to download any part of the ebook or copy the text.

Please note that the ‘read online’ function may not work on mobile devices. To read on mobile devices, you will have to download the Spiral App. Further information on the differences between the online reader and the Spiral eReader can be found on the Higher Education site.

Setting up a Personal Account

If you already have a Cambridge Core account, you can use the same email address and password to login to the Higher Education site. The ‘Log in’ icon is on the top bar of the site.

Alternatively, you can set up a personal account for Higher Education by selecting ‘Register’ on the top bar. The option to set up an account is also included in the pop-up box which appears when you select ‘Read Online’ – if you click on the statement ‘Login or Register to benefit from additional features’, you’ll be taken through to the register page.

You will be asked to enter:

• Your name
• Email address (please use your institutional email address)
• Location (select GBR)
• Whether you are affiliated with an organisation. Select ‘yes’ and enter ‘University of Cambridge’ (you can specify your department too)

Finally, you’ll be asked to create a password, and to tick a box agreeing to the terms of use. You will then be sent an email to activate the account – the link in this email will need to be clicked to activate the account.

Cambridge Spiral eReader and App

Once you have registered and logged in with your personal account, you will be able to access the Cambridge Spiral eReader, which has greater functionality and accessibility. This can either be accessed on your web browser, or via the Spiral App, which can be downloaded from either Apple’s App Store or Google Play, depending on your device. Desktop versions are also available to download for both Windows and Mac. Further information on downloading the app can be found on the site’s Students page. When you first open the app, you will be prompted to enter your login details.

Using the Spiral App will enable online and offline reading. The App will display your bookshelf, with recently read titles. Titles can be made available for offline reading by selecting the grey download icon in the centre of the book’s image within the app, and added to your offline bookshelf. You can have up to 20 books in your offline bookshelf at any one time. Books can also be added to your offline bookshelf from the title’s landing page on the Higher Education website – just click ‘add to offline bookshelf’. You will need to have installed the App before being able to use this feature. When reading offline, there is a ‘sync’ button which enables any annotations or bookmarks which have been added when offline to be synchronised with the online text. This is the same for online reading, where the ‘sync’ button on the top bar synchronises the online text to your offline version.

Functionality and Accessibility of the Spiral eReader

Once you have logged in to your account and opened an ebook either online, or offline via the app, you’ll have access to the greater functionality of the Spiral eReader. When opening the Spiral eReader for the first time, a tour of all the features will pop up which outlines each function and how to use them.

While reading, if you drag the cursor over the text a number of useful options will appear to benefit your reading and study. There are options to:

• Add a ‘note’
• ‘Highlight’ the text in colour
• Create a ‘weblink’ or ‘hyperlink’
• ‘Copy’ the text (you can copy up to 20% of the total text. Please note this does not replenish each time you open the ebook)
• Create a ‘flashcard’

On the left side-bar, as well as the ‘search’, ‘contents’, and ‘resources’ features that are available when you’re not logged in, there are also options for:

• See your ‘annotations’ (which shows all the annotations you’ve made within the text)
• View your ‘bookmarks’ (this lists all the bookmarks you’ve added using the bookmark function on the top bar)
• See your ‘Flashcards’ (which includes all the flashcards you’ve created)

In addition to ‘settings’ and ‘read aloud’ functionality, the top bar includes:

• A ‘sync’ button (this syncs annotations you’ve added between online and offline reading)
• An option to add ‘bookmarks’ (to add a bookmark, select the bookmark icon and click where in the text you would like to add it. The bookmark will then also be added to the ‘bookmarks’ tab on the left side-bar)
• A ‘print’ option (where you can print/download up to 20% of the text. Please note, like the ‘copy’ option, this does not replenish each time you re-open or use the ebook)

Final Points

Further information on how to download the apps, access the Spiral eReader and use the different accessibility functions can be found on the Student Guide for the Higher Education platform. Higher Education’s Accessibility Statement also provides details of the different accessibility features in place.

If you have any questions or need any help with the above, please don’t hesitate to contact the ebooks@cambridge team, we’ll be happy to help!

Taylor & Francis: New eReader – February 2025

Taylor & Francis have recently launched a new eReader with enhanced functionality and improved accessibility, allowing readers to now download ebooks in both PDF and ePub form. Currently, the new eReader can be accessed by selecting the ‘Download’ button on all ebooks which we have purchased access to, while the ‘Read Online’ button will take you through to the old eReader until 16^th February 2025. The old eReader will then be retired, and the new eReader will then be available through the ‘Read Online’ button too. Read on to find out more about the new eReader’s features, and any actions you might need to take before 16^th February!

The New eReader

PDFs, (Portable Document Formats) are a fixed format, with the pages arranged like the print book. They can be less accessible for users, as the font size and layout cannot be changed. By contrast, ePub is a reflowable format, where font size, page layout, and appearance can all be adapted to suit your needs. In the new eReader, you’ll be able to choose whichever form you prefer.

To access the new eReader, select the ‘Download’ button at the top of the page. If you click on the dropdown arrow, the option will appear to download the text as either a PDF or an ePub. Please note that ePub’s can only be downloaded as a whole book, and not as individual chapters. For now, Taylor & Francis are only offering PDF downloads for individual chapters.

ePub Reading Options

When reading the text as an ePub, the new eReader will allow you to change the font size and some style features (such as alignment and hyphenation) according to your preferences. If you select the ‘Reading Options’ dropdown along the top of the page, you’ll be able to alter these to suit your needs. For PDFs, the only alteration that can be made under ‘Reading Options’ is to reading flow, which changes the direction that text can be scrolled through.

Read Aloud Functionality

The new eReader also supports ‘Read Aloud’ functionality, both for ePubs and PDFs. To enable this feature, select the icon of a person with speech waves on the top right of screen. You can change the pitch and speed of the speaker, as well as the narrator’s voice. Please be aware that if you make any changes to the speed, pitch, or narrator whilst the ‘Read Aloud’ function is running, the narrator will go back to reading from the beginning of the page!

Further Features

Features such as Notes, Bookmarks, Highlighting and Search, will continue to be supported in the new eReader. Further tools have also been added, including integration with Reference Management Software. The Notes, Bookmarks and References features can be accessed on the left side toolbar. Notes can also be created by highlighting text, which gives the additional options of copying text, copying text with references, and exporting references.

What do you need to do?

As the old eReader will be retired from 16^th February 2025, any personalised settings you had will need to be copied over to the new eReader before this date. Unfortunately, Taylor & Francis are unable to transfer existing records to the new eReader, so this will have to be done manually by yourself. This includes any personalisation in your old eReader such as your Bookshelf, Bookmarks, and Notes.

Further information and help can be found on Taylor & Francis’ FAQ page. Please do get in touch with the ebooks@cambridge team too if you have any questions or any feedback about the new eReader which we can pass on to Taylor & Francis. You can also find more general information on how to use and download ebooks on our LibGuide.