Scribd-Downloader

(I also found an online service https://dlscrib.com/ created by Erik Fong. It doesn't use this script as some people seem to think!).

This python script allows downloading of Scribd documents. It does not matter if the pages are blurred or require authentication, this script will still do its job.

There are two types of documents on Scribd:

• Documents made up using a collection of images and
• Actual documents where the text can be selected, copied etc.

This script takes a different approach to both of them:

• Documents consisting of a collection of images is straightforward and this script will simply download the induvidual images which can be combined to .pdf by passing --pdf option to the tool. Simple.
• Actual documents where the text can be selected are hard to tackle. If we feed such a document to this tool, only the text present in document will be downloaded. Scribd seems to use javascript to somehow combine text and images. So far, I haven't been able to combine them with Python in a way they look like the original document.

Installation

Make sure you're using Python 3 (Python 2 is not supported by a few dependencies). Then run these commands:

$ pip install scribd-downloader

or install the development version with:

$ python setup.py install

Usage

usage: scribdl [-h] [-i] [-p] URL

Download documents and books from scribd.com

positional arguments:
  URL           scribd url to download

optional arguments:
  -h, --help    show this help message and exit
  -i, --images  download url made up of images
  -p, --pdf     convert to pdf (*Nix: imagemagick)

Examples

Downloading text from document containing selectable text:

$ scribdl https://www.scribd.com/document/55949937/33-Strategies-of-War

(Text will be saved side by side in a .md file in the current working directory)

Download document containing images; use the --images option (the tool cannot figure out this on its own):

$ scribdl -i http://scribd.com/doc/17142797/Case-in-Point

(Images will be saved in the current working directory)

If you have a premium scribd account, you can replace by mimicking itself as a premium user! It can now also download the preview version of books. The below command will generate an .md file of the book in the current working directory:

$ scribdl https://www.scribd.com/read/189087235/Confessions-of-a-Casting-Director-Help-Actors-Land-Any-Role-with-Secrets-from-Inside-the-Audition-Room

Pass --pdf option to convert the generated output to a PDF.

Downloading complete books

If you have a premium Scribd account, you can also download the full version of books by intercepting the network requests your browser makes. However, this also requires some experience on your side.

When logged into your premium account on scribd on the web browser, setup a network proxy like Mitmproxy and install the SSL certificate so you can monitor HTTPS traffic passing through the browser. Now when reading some book on Scribd, your browser will automatically make network requests to a URL that looks something like https://www.scribd.com/read2/.../access_token. You need to inspect this network request, and replace the values for headers and cookies in the code here. You should then be able to download full version of books from Scribd using the tool.

Disclaimer

Downloading books from Scribd for free maybe prohibited. This tool is meant for educational purposes only. Please support the authors by buying their titles.

License

The MIT License