Share books from Play Books with students through Google Classroom

Teachers can share books from Google Play Books with students through Google Classroom.

When teachers share a book, students can:

• Read the book on a computer, tablet, or phone.
• Highlight text and take notes in the book.
• Organize notes into collections.
• Complete assignments.

What you need to get started

To use the add-on:

• Your organization must have the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Google Workspace for Education Plus. Learn more about Google for Education.
• Your administrators must turn on Google Books service for students and teachers, as well as Play Store service and Google Pay service for teachers only. Learn how to control Classroom access.
• Your administrators must install the Google Play Books add-on from the Google Workspace Marketplace.

This option is only available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Teachers and students must be in the same country. More countries may be available in the future.

Share books with students

Purchase books for groups

Important: The teacher or administrator who purchases the books must be in the same country as the students who read the books.

1. On your computer, go to play.google.com/store/books.
2. Sign in with the account you use for school.
3. Find the book you want to buy.
4. On the book detail page, select Buy for groups.
5. Choose how many books to buy:
   • If the book is no charge, there’s no limit on how many copies you can get if your account belongs to a Workspace for Education K-12 school.
   • If the book has a price, you can buy 10 copies at a time. To buy more than 10, make another purchase.
   • To purchase more than 100 copies, fill out this form. Include the book’s title, a link to the book on Google Play, the number of copies you need, and your Classroom account.
6. Complete your purchase.

Authorize other staff members to distribute books

1. On your computer, go to your Play Books library.
2. From “Your Inventory,” select the book you want to share.
3. Click More  Manage.
4. Enter an email address. You can share the book with individuals or a group.
5. Click Done.

To add managers to multiple books at once:

1. Select all the books.
2. At the top right, click Add managers.

Tip: After you authorize a book, teachers can add the book to Google Classroom assignments.

Add a book to an assignment

Important: Only staff members who are authorized to share a book can add it to an assignment.

1. Go to classroom.google.com.
2. Click the class Classwork.
3. At the top, click Create Assignment.
4. At the bottom right, under "Add-ons," select Google Play Books.
5. Select the book you want to add to the assignment.
6. At the top right, click Add.

Tip: Students can find the book for the assignment in Google Classroom. They have to click the book to claim the title. Then the book appears in the student’s Play Books library.

Create a link to share books

Important: Books at no charge have no license limit. Designated redemption link recipients (must be Google Accounts or Google Groups).

1. On your computer, go to play.google.com/books.
2. From “Your Inventory,” select the book you want to share.
3. Click More   Create link to give copies.
4. Add individuals or groups that you want to share the book with. 
5. Click Create Link   Copy Link.
6. Send the link to the individuals or groups. 

Clicking on the link will use a license to the book, and the number of available licenses in “Your Inventory” will automatically be reduced. The use of a link cannot be undone. We recommend using care when sending books to others, including verifying the recipient’s contact information before sharing a link.

View license history (purchases, manager adds, and redemptions)

1. On your computer, go to play.google.com/books.
2. From “Your Inventory,” select the book that you want to view the history of.
3. Click More   View history. 

Tip: If all licenses have been redeemed, the book will be grayed out and inactive in the license history window.

For more help with the Play Books add-on in Google Classroom, contact us.

Related resources

• Get help with Google Classroom
• Fix problems using Google Play Books
• Fix problems loading a book
• Add bookmarks, notes & highlights in an ebook