How to Download Internet Archive Books as PDF or EPUB
The Internet Archive's book collection is enormous — millions of digitized volumes spanning centuries. Many are freely downloadable in multiple formats. Others are part of the lending library and require borrowing. The format you get and how you get it depends on which category the book falls into. This guide covers both.
Available book formats
For freely downloadable books, the Archive typically offers: PDF (preserves page layout, best for reading on computers and tablets), EPUB (reflowable text, best for e-readers and phones), plain text (raw extracted text, useful for research and text analysis), DJVU (an older format optimized for scanned documents — no longer generated for new uploads since 2016, but existing files remain), and DAISY (an accessibility format for text-to-speech readers). Some books also have page-level scan images (JP2 or JPEG files) available if you need the raw scans.
Downloading a free book
Public domain books, government documents, and Creative Commons works are freely downloadable with no account required. On the book's item page, find the Download Options panel on the right side. Click the format you want — PDF, EPUB, or others. PDF files may open in your browser rather than downloading; if so, use Save As (Ctrl+S or Cmd+S) or right-click the format link and choose Save link as before clicking. EPUB files will typically trigger a download prompt directly.
If the format you want is not listed in the download panel, it may be available as an on-the-fly generated file. The ia command line tool can request these: ia download [identifier] --on-the-fly generates formats like MOBI (for Kindle), EPUB, and DAISY dynamically. For the full ia tool reference, see How to Use the IA Command Line Tool.
Downloading a borrowed book
Books in the lending library show a Borrow button instead of direct download links. To access one: log in to your free archive.org account, click Borrow for 14 days (one-hour loans are online-only and do not allow downloads), then look for the LCP PDF or LCP EPUB download options that appear after borrowing. Clicking one of these downloads a small .lcpl license file. Open that file in a compatible reader — Thorium on desktop, Cantook on iOS or Android, or Adobe Digital Editions — and the app will download the actual book content. The file is DRM-protected and stops working when the loan expires.
For a deeper explanation of what borrow-only means, how the lending system works, and what changed after the Hachette lawsuit, see Can You Download Borrow-Only Books from Internet Archive?.
How to tell if a book is free or borrow-only
The item page makes this clear. Freely downloadable books show a Download Options panel with format links. Borrow-only books show a Borrow button with loan duration options. If neither appears, the book may be restricted for other reasons — see Internet Archive Download Button Missing: What It Means.
The Open Library connection
Open Library (openlibrary.org) is the catalog and lending interface for the Internet Archive's book collection. When you search for books on Open Library, it links back to archive.org items for the actual reading and downloading. The distinction between freely downloadable and borrow-only is determined by copyright status, which Open Library tracks. If you are looking for a specific title, searching Open Library first can tell you quickly whether it is available and in what form.
Choosing the right format
PDF is best when page layout matters — scanned books with illustrations, tables, or complex formatting. EPUB is best for reading comfort on phones and e-readers, since the text reflows to fit your screen. Plain text is best for research — searching, quoting, and running text analysis. If you want the most faithful reproduction of the physical book, look for the original scan files (JP2 or JPEG). If you want the smallest file size, plain text wins. For understanding which file is the original upload versus a generated derivative, see How to Find Original Files on Internet Archive.
Arkibber helps you search the Archive's text collections with clean filtering by date and media type. When you are looking for specific books or documents, searching through Arkibber first lets you evaluate what is available before navigating to archive.org to download.
For the general step-by-step download guide covering all media types, see How to Download from Internet Archive.