Every student who opens the textbook is reading it one of two ways. Modern is the book rebuilt as an e-learning course: the same chapter, reflowed for a screen, with the hands-on QuickBooks work and the chapter checkpoint built into the page. Classic is the printed page itself, rendered as it appears in the published book. Both come with the book, students can move between them at any time, and you can pin your class to Classic if you would rather everyone worked from the printed page.
- Where
- The reader toolbar, on the right, a
Modernand aClassicbutton (icons only on a narrow screen) - Default
- Modern, on the books that have it
- Books with Modern
- QuickBooks Online Step-by-Step 2026
- Your control
Classic reader only, on the class page
The two modes at a glance
| Modern | Classic | |
|---|---|---|
| What is on screen | The chapter reflowed as a web page, one chapter at a time | The printed page, exactly as published |
| Best for | Working through a chapter on a laptop, tablet or phone | Following the printed book page by page |
| Sizing | Text resizes and rewraps; the column width is adjustable | The page zooms, like any PDF |
| Hands-on QuickBooks steps | Checkable cards in the flow of the prose | In the progress panel, opened from the toolbar |
| Chapter checkpoint | A card at the end of the chapter | Offered when the student reaches the review page |
| Page numbers | Shown in the running head as the student scrolls | Printed on the page |
The two buttons sit together in the toolbar, so a student can drop back to the printed page and return without losing their place, the reader captures the spot on the way out and re-opens on it.
What Modern gives a student
Modern renders one chapter at a time as a continuous, scrollable page. The prose, figures, tables and callouts are the book's, restructured for reading on a screen rather than photographed from it.
The chapter, built for a screen
Figures sit in the flow of the text that refers to them and open full size when clicked, with arrow keys to browse the chapter's other figures. Values a student has to type into QuickBooks (an email address, a web address, a street address, a phone number) render as tinted chips with a one-click copy button, so a mistyped address stops being the reason an exercise fails.
Hands-on practice they tick off
The book's hands-on exercises render as cards badged Hands-on practice, keeping the book's own printed step numbers. A student checks off each step as they do it in QuickBooks, the card shows a running done / total tally, and it turns complete when the whole exercise is done. Where a step's screenshot exists it renders directly under that step, rather than collecting at the foot of the exercise.
Where the book asks a question instead of giving an instruction, the step gets a text box to answer in. Those answers save as the student types and are not graded, but you can read them. Where the instructor's manual gives an answer, the student can click Show answer to check theirs against it, unless your class's answer support is set to The class works the problem. The dashboard counts written answers waiting for you and links to a page that shows each one with its question.
A checkpoint at the end of the chapter
The chapter's review questions are answered in the page rather than on paper, and they stay out of the way until a student asks for them: the end-of-chapter summary lists the quiz as a Required row with a Take the quiz button, and the questions open in place. Whether the student sees their score and which questions they missed is a separate group control, Release quiz results to students, off by default, which still tells them whether they passed while the score, the misses and the explanations stay with you.
A "Complete this chapter" summary
Every chapter with work in it ends with a short ledger: the practice quiz, each graded activity, and a tally of the hands-on steps. Rows are marked Required, Recommended or Passed, and the graded rows are labelled Smart-graded activity or Teacher-graded activity depending on how you have set smart grading for the class. It is where the practice quiz is started; for everything else it points back up to the work rather than duplicating it.
Progress inside the chapter list
In Modern, the left-hand chapter list is headed by a chapters-read count for the whole book and a next step line that names the one thing to do next, and it carries a done or in-progress marker on each chapter plus section-level marks inside the chapter being read. Each chapter carries a small progress dial in the left gutter, beside its Complete this chapter row and in line with the hands-on practice marks. Clicking the dial, or the chapter's number, opens that chapter's tracker, which lists the practice quiz, any chapter exam you assigned, the smart-graded activities and whether the chapter itself is finished, with a link straight to the Complete this chapter summary. That band appears when progress tracking is on for the class. The running head shows the printed page number and how far into the chapter the student has scrolled.
Read-aloud and reading settings
Read aloud reads the chapter in Modern and the current page in Classic, with a voice picker and a speed slider. Reading settings offers four themes (Default, Sepia, High contrast and Dark) four interface text sizes, reduce motion, and a dyslexia-friendly font. In Modern it adds a reading-width control (drag the right edge of the page) and the toolbar's + / − resize the text; on a phone the column fits the screen on its own. In Classic the same panel offers single page, two-page spread or continuous scroll instead.
Students can also flag a hands-on step or a quiz question that looks wrong. Those reports reach us, not you; when we answer one, the answer appears under the step for every reader.
What Classic gives a student
Classic is the published PDF: the page, its layout, its figures and its page numbers, unchanged. Students zoom it, or read it as a single page, a two-page spread or one continuous scroll. It is the right mode when the printed layout is the point, an appendix of completed screenshots to compare work against, or a class where everyone is looking at the same page of the same paper book.
Classic is not a stripped-down mode. The toolbar's progress button (Show your progress) opens a panel beside the page holding whole-book progress, the current chapter's QuickBooks steps to check off, and the launcher for the chapter's graded activity. It starts closed, so a student has to open it once. The chapter checkpoint is offered when the student reaches the chapter's review page. Highlights, notes, search, read-aloud and the reading settings all work in both modes.
When to pin your class to Classic
Classic reader only hides Modern and its toggle for every student in the class. Reasons teachers choose it: the class is working alongside print copies, an exam or lab requires everyone on an identical page, or your assignments are written page by page and you want no ambiguity about what a student is looking at. Turning it on removes none of the work. The practice quiz is still offered on its review page, and the hands-on steps and graded activities move into the progress panel beside the page.
Open the class
Open the Classrooms page (All Classrooms in the teacher sidebar), and open the class you want to change.
Open Class settings
On the class page, press Class settings in the row of actions under the class name.
Switch on Classic reader only
The change saves as you flip it and applies the next time a student opens the book.
Four of those toggles also exist at account level, as Your class defaults on the Groups page. They do not change a class you already have. They preset every new class you create.
- The setting applies to your students, not to you. You keep both modes in your own reading, including in the book your class is using.
- A student who belongs to more than one class inherits reader controls from the class they joined most recently.
- The setting follows the student across every book they open, not only the one your class is using.
Which titles have Modern
Modern is available on QuickBooks Online Step-by-Step 2026. The 2025 editions open in Classic, and no mode buttons appear for them. There is nothing for a student to get wrong. As further titles are converted, Modern appears on them without anything changing in your group settings.
What stays the same in both modes
- The chapter list, showing each chapter's printed page range, and a page box in the toolbar that takes printed page numbers.
- Search across the whole book: results jump to the page, and in Modern the reader scrolls to the matched passage and flashes it. Guests get the chapter list but need a free account to search.
- Highlights and notes, saved to the student's account.
- Read aloud, the four themes, text sizing, reduce motion and the dyslexia-friendly font.
- The Manual button, shown only to instructors entitled to it, which opens the Instructor's Manual over whatever the student-facing book is showing.
If you are deciding for a specific course, the fastest read is to open the book yourself and use the toolbar buttons to flip a chapter you teach from one mode to the other. Your own reading is never affected by a group setting, so you can compare both while your class stays as you left it.
Questions we get about this
- Can a student switch modes on their own?
- Yes, unless you have turned on Classic reader only for their class. The buttons sit in the reader toolbar, the choice is remembered in that browser and carries across the books they open, and switching keeps their place in the chapter.
- Do students lose the quizzes or the graded activities in Classic?
- No. In Classic the chapter checkpoint is offered when the student reaches the chapter's review page, and the hands-on steps plus the graded activity launcher live in the progress panel, which opens from the toolbar's progress button. What changes is where those surfaces sit, not whether they exist.
- Does pinning my class to Classic change what I see?
- No. Class settings apply to the students in your class. You keep both modes, including in the same book your class is reading.
- Will an assignment written by page number still work in Modern?
- Yes. Modern addresses the book by its printed page numbers and shows the current page in the running head as the student scrolls, so page-based assignments hold in either mode.