Google eBooks Get Better, Now Have Dictionary, Search and Translate

Remember the Google eBookstore, the one it launched in December, last year? Well, Google has been quiet on that front for a while after rolling it out with much fanfare in 2010. However, it recently introduced some useful updates to their eBook reader which has again (kinda) captured our attention.

If you have read eBooks from Google’s eBookstore then you would know that Google has its own web based eBook reader that provides a smooth reading experience for the users. It has now further enhanced the capabilities if that reader by adding dictionary, search and translate functions.

As you see in the screenshot below, double-clicking or highlighting a word in a Google eBook now shows up various options.

There’s the define function to look up words, translate for translating it to a different language and different ways to perform searches.

As you would imagine, it uses the Google Dictionary and Google Translate tools to perform the corresponding functions in the eBook reader.

The Search Book feature show up the results in a sidebar and help you jump right to that section of the book. The Search Google and Search Wikipedia tools will open new browser tabs.

The only thing you need to keep in mind is using Flowing Text mode (which you can select from the Settings in the eBook reader) because that’s where the features work. They won’t work in the Scanned Text mode.