METHOD TWO: USING THE PAGE SOURCE CODE

The second of two methods used for viewing Scribd documents, this involves
using Mozilla Firefox to view the page‟s source code to gain access to the page‟s
info. As mentioned above, we‟ve experienced some hit or miss results with this
method, but since it only takes a couple minutes of your time to try, it‟s worth
trying anyway. You‟ll know this method has failed if you receive a message that
announces an invalid key error. Otherwise, let‟s get going with your Scribd
document. This was originally our top-recommended way to download Scribd
documents without paying for a membership, but we‟ve heard from enough users
having difficulty with this process to demote it to a backup method.

Start by navigating Firefox (we can‟t suggest using Chrome, as Chrome

generates a .swf file that never manages to download) to the Scribd document
you‟re looking to save to your computer. Though Scribd also carries full-length
novels and other works of fiction, we recommend only using this for nonfiction
documents and other sources for your projects, papers, and research. Inside
your document‟s preview, right-click the document and select “View Page
Source” from the menu. This will open a new tab in your browser, displaying the
source information for your Scribd target.

In this new page, hit Ctrl+F to open the Find in Page UI in Firefox. In this field,
enter the phrase “access_key,” and upon finding the result in the Scribd source
code, highlight and copy the code to your computer. It should be an
alphanumerical code, and appear as „key-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.” Now head back to
the original document page in your browser and look at the URL in the top of the
browser. This time, we‟re looking for the document ID number in the URL of your
specific page. Unlike the access key, the document ID is listed in the URL, and
consists of several numbers. The URL should appear as
“„https://www.scribd.com/read/NUMBER/DOCUMENT TITLE.” We‟ll be using the
number portion of that link in a moment.

Now, open up a new tab in Firefox. We‟re going to create a new URL using the
information provided us by both the access key, the document ID number, and
the following partial URL:
“http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=NUMBER&access_k
ey=key-ACCESS_KEY”. When you‟ve pasted this URL into your new tab, replace
the number section with the document ID and the access key area with the
access key you grabbed earlier. Following this, you‟ll have to wait a few minutes
for the page to load as your documents begins to download from the Scribd
servers. Once your document has finished loading, use the print option to print to
PDF, and your document will be saved to your computer.