Add bookmarks, notes & highlights in an ebook

You can annotate ebooks with bookmarks, notes, and highlighted text. You can also organize your annotations into collections and share them with others. Annotations are available for most books.

Add annotations

Bookmark a page

1. In your browser, open a book.
2. Go to the page you want to bookmark.
3. At the top, click Add bookmark .

Highlight text in the book

1. In your browser, open a book.
2. Select the words you want to highlight.
3. Select a highlight color.

Take notes

1. In your browser, open a book.
2. Select the words where you want to make a note.
3. Click Add note .
4. Type your note.
5. To save the note, click Save.

Find & edit your annotations

1. In your browser, open a book.
2. At the top, click Annotations .
3. To change a note or highlight:
   • To edit your note, click the text and enter your change.
   • To move the note, click More   Move highlight.
   • To delete a note, click More   Delete.

Copy text

Important: Publishers control how much of their text content can be copied or pasted by Google Play users. If the publisher sets the percentage to zero, the book can't have these options.

1. In your browser, open a book.
2. Go to the page you want to copy text.
3. Select the words you want to copy.
4. At the top, click Copy.
5. Paste in your desired location.

Organize & share annotations through collections

Add annotations to a collection

1. At the top, click Annotations .
2. At the top, click More  Create collection.
3. Name the collection.
4. Click Create.
5. Add a new annotation, or click one you already made.
6. Choose the collection you made.

Share annotation collections

1. At the top right, click Annotations .
2. Select More   Share collections.
3. Next to a specific collection, click Share.
4. Click Shared.
5. Copy the link to share with others.
6. Click Done.

Tips:

• To restrict earlier access and share with different users, click Update shared link   Get new link.
• You can share all new collections that you create, but not the default collection.
• To make your collections private again, in the Share collections menu, select Private.

Remove a collection

1. At the top right, click Annotations .
2. Click More   Manage collections.
3. Next to the collection, click More   Delete .

Save, export & download annotations

Export all annotations to Google Drive

1. ​On your computer, go to your Play Books library.
2. Open a book.
3. At the top right, click More Save annotations to Google Drive.
4. Turn on Save annotations to Google Drive.
5. Your notes, highlights, and bookmarks are saved in a document specific to the book you’re reading.

Export a subset of annotations to Google Drive

1. ​On your computer, go to your Play Books library.
2. Open a book.
3. At the top right, click Annotations .
4. Click More   Export annotations.
   • You can choose to export specific collections or highlight colors.
5. Name the file where the subset of annotations can be saved.
6. Select where to save the file.
7. Click Export.

Find your annotations in Drive

1. On your computer, go to Google Drive.
2. Make sure you’re signed in to the same account you use for Play Books.
3. Open the folder you created for your annotations. 
   • By default, the folder is named “Play Books Notes.”

Edit an annotation document

If you edit an annotations document in Drive, the changes you made are deleted when you add more annotations to the same book. To edit and save to a synced document, make a copy of the document first.

1. On your computer, open the annotations document you want to edit.
2. Click File Make a copy.
3. Name your new document.
4. Make your edits to the new document.

Tip: If you add more annotations to a book, they’re saved in the original document. You can manually add them to the new document.

Find missing annotations in Drive

There are 2 reasons why book content doesn't appear when you export or copy or paste:

• No content appears: The publisher of this book didn't turn on the copy-paste feature.
• Some content appears: The volume of content that you'd like to copy or export exceeds the maximum limit that the publisher set for the book. 

Tip: Your notes should always fully export given that there's no copyright on them. 

Download annotations

1. On your computer, go to Google Takeout.
   • Make sure you’re signed in to the account you download data from.
2. Click Deselect all.
3. Check the Google Play Books box.
4. Click Next step.
5. Choose the file format and how to download it.
6. Click Create archive.
   • Your annotations are saved in a document specific to each book.