There are many resources online that allow you to find books in PDF format for free. There are two types of sources, those that are careful and respectful of rights and that only make books available that are free of copyright, and those that pay no attention to licenses and make all kinds of books available without paying.
Free books are those released directly with a license that provides for free sharing , or classics, whose license has expired because they were published more than 70 years ago.
We have already talked about the resources that make ebooks available in ePub, mobi and other common formats in the article dedicated to the best ebook sites which contains over 30 sites to download books for free to read with a dedicated reader (for example an ebook reader ).
In this article, we’ll look at services that make .PDF (Portable Document Format) books available, the hardware- and software-independent format used to view them.
Sites to download free PDF books
The portals listed in this paragraph are those that make books available for download, without violating the copyright rights of the author or distributor. For those generic sites, which make everything available, read the paragraph below:
1. Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is an important initiative born in the technologically distant year of 1971, with the mission of building a free virtual library . It goes without saying that the arrival of the Internet has greatly facilitated the work of volunteers, so much so that the library now has a catalog that exceeds 57,000 free titles.
Finding and downloading the title we are interested in is simple: just open the portal page, proceed with a search by title, author or language. Once we have found the book we want to download, just click on its title, and on the specific page, click on the PDF format. If this format is not available you can opt for the ePub format (free and easy to convert).
Project Gutenberg is trying to convert its catalog completely to epub and mobi format, given the spread of ebook readers .
2. Libgen
One of the most famous portals for downloading PDFs and free books in general. It is a gigantic library made available on the main site and its numerous mirrors (identical copies with different domain names).
The possibility of carrying out a search via ISBN (International Standard Book Number) which uniquely identifies a book is very interesting; it is a code that is present on every digital and physical work. Also on this portal it is possible to search for any PDF in Italian. In the results we have the year of publication, the author and various sources from which to download the file of our interest.
3. Free Freedom
This is another Italian project similar to Project Gutenberg, in mission and result. The Liber Liber archive has more than 3500 free books, mainly in our language .
Searching for a book in this large online library is simple, just go to this page (which is the home of the site) and click on the Books item at the top and then on List of authors and works. You will reach an index page where it will be easy to find the free book you are interested in. Once the author has been selected, it will be possible to go to the list of available works and choose the book that can be downloaded in PDF format.
4. ZLibrary
It is one of the most famous sites dedicated to free books , it tries to collect and index all those available online, i.e. those in digital format. B-Ok works very well and has a gigantic catalogue, made up of around 3 million books in different languages.
The site also offers a large collection of volumes also in Italian. Ebooks are offered in many different formats and there are also many PDFs. B-OK is simple to reach and use: on the home page there is a search form in which you can search for the book you are interested in (also by title or author).
The portal is not yet completely translated into Italian but it is still simple to use: for all free books in Italian, click on the filters and select “Any language” to be able to change the language and choose “Italian”.
5. Library of Italian literature
This is a site born from a very valid initiative by Pianetascuola and the publisher Einaudi who made the material created for a collection of 10 CDs freely available to everyone. Free PDF books are available on the site, freely downloadable: 342 works by 205 authors, from the thirteenth century to today, and beyond; there are also 121 essays on our literature and 33 commented texts.
It is an extraordinary teaching tool for those who need to learn or teach splendid Italian literature.
6. ManyBooks
It is an international site with a good section in Italian which contains several free books.
7. Free ebooks
It is a site that offers a vast collection of Italian books for download.
8. FeedBooks
It’s another good site that offers downloadable public domain books in PDF and ePUB formats.
9. Logos Library
It is another very good site with a large catalog where you can find books and novels in Italian (there are more than 7000), to download completely for free.
10. Amazon
Here you can find over 70,000 free books of various types, from detective stories to classics, from fantasy to modern books and even children’s books. The format of the books on Amazon is Kindle, which can be easily converted into PDF, as explained in our article on how to convert ebooks into different formats .
11. Google Play Books
Here too you can choose from a vast catalog of free ebooks to download to your PC, smartphone and tablet.
12. Google Books
Another valid resource is the Google search engine dedicated to finding free PDF books to download.
13. PDF Search Engine
Still talking about search engines dedicated to books, another excellent alternative is given by this site from which you can find a large quantity of free PDF books.
14. BookRepublic
It stands out for the variety of types of copyright-free books that are made available to the user.
15. My Book
It is an editorial service with a section of books to read for free, where you can leave your opinion. Every day it is possible to find many novelties of every literary genre.
How to convert books of other formats to PDF or compatible formats
If the format of the book you downloaded is ePub, Mobi, Txt or AZW and you want to convert it to PDF to be able to read it on your tablet without additional software, there is an excellent free converter online, which in just a few seconds and with just a few clicks will allow you to to do it.
- First open the following site: Convertio
- Click on “Choose Files”, as shown in the image below. You can upload files not only from your computer, but also to the cloud in the form of links.
- Once the file has been selected, for example in epub format, we click in the box alongside, which will open a drop-down menu with all the formats into which the file can be transformed. In our case we select Document and PDF next to it.
- Now all you have to do is click on the ” Convert ” button to start the conversion which will last a few seconds.
Convert files from Kindle to PDF
To convert from Kindle to PDF, or from AZW to PDF format, you will first need to remove the DRM and know the ( KSN ) or serial number of a Kindle device.
If you have a Kindle device, follow these steps:
- Log in to your Amazon account;
- Click on “ My contents and devices”;
- Now click on ” Devices“;
- Copy the serial number found next to the Serial Number entry. You can also find this serial number in your Kindle, in the “ Device Info” section, under the “ Settings ” heading.
Now that you have the serial number you can remove the DRM with software for Windows and Mac that you can download from the following link: Kindle DRM Removal . Paste the serial number of your Kindle, in Kindle Serial Number , and click on the File Browser button , selecting the book in Kindle format to load into the software. If the procedure has been carried out correctly, the file can now be downloaded in ePub version .
Connect now to the Zamzar online service where you can convert from Kindle to PDF format. All you have to do is click on “ Choose File ” and choose the previously converted ePub file. Press ” Convert Now ” and then ” Download ” to get your PDF file.
Our in-depth analysis of the best sites for downloading free PDF books has come to an end, we wish you happy reading! We also take this opportunity to thank our readers for the various site reports we received.
