Help:Books

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Confused by the book tool? See this video guide on how to create a book!

Step-by-step guide

This page shows you how to create a book from Wikisource articles in four steps. Books can be created in PDF or OpenDocument formats, or ordered for printing on the PediaPress website.

Step 1: Enable the "Book Creator" tool

Fig. 1: First click on the "Create a book" link in the left margin. (Maybe you have to open the "Print/export" box first.)

Fig. 2: Click on the green button to start the book creator.

Step 2: Collect articles

Fig. 3: From now on, this toolbar will appear on top of every Wikisource text. To add the currently viewed page to your book, just click on "Add this page to your book".

If you open a category page, the "Add this page to your book" will change to "Add this category to your book". Clicking on "Add this category to your book" will add all articles in that category.

After selecting a few articles, you can click on "Suggest pages" and you will be presented with a list of articles that are related to your selection. This helps you to create a more complete book if you run out of ideas, or just want to make sure that you haven't forgotten anything.

Fig. 4: You don't even have to open every page, you want to add to your book. Just hover over a link for a few seconds and click on "Add linked wiki page to your book" in the yellow box that appears.

Step 3: Review Your Book

Fig. 5: Once you are happy with the articles you collected, click on "Show book" to manage your book. You can give your book a title and subtitle, change the order of articles, remove articles, or add chapters to distinguish certain sections of your book.

Step 4: Download or order a printed book

Fig. 6: You can export your book in PDF, OpenDocument, or openZIM format (for Kiwix). Just select the desired format and click the "Download" button.

Fig. 7: To order a printed book, click on "Preview with PediaPress". Further information about printed books can be found in the FAQ.

Saving and sharing your book with others

To save your book, you must be a registered Wikisource user (see Why create an account? for a detailed explanation). In addition, your user account must be autoconfirmed. Then, you can save your book on the "Book" page, which can be reached by clicking the "Show book" link in the menu on the left hand side or in the toolbar.

In the "Save and share your book" section you have to choose whether you want to save your book

• in your user page or
• in the "community-maintained" Books namespace.

Finally, you have to provide a title for your book collection and click the "Save book" button.

Printed books from PediaPress

By clicking the "Preview with PediaPress" button, your collection of wiki articles will be uploaded to PediaPress, a service that prints books based on wiki content. Further information about the printed books can be found on the FAQ page, and at Printed books (including cost and format details).

In 2007 the Wikimedia Foundation and PediaPress agreed upon a long-term partnership aimed to improve the availability of Wikisource and other wiki-based project content in the form of high-quality print products or text documents in the OpenDocument format.

Known bugs

2014-06-04 - From PediaPress Helpdesk
Wikisource uses the "proofread extension" which is incompatible with our book output.
The failed output can easily be spotted when previewing your title and so far, we never had any orders from Wikisource.
Best, Christoph
PediaPress Customer Service

The problem has been reported and will hopefully be resolved soon. Resolved!! January 12, 2012

The book creation tool is no longer incompatible with the proofreading tool (Resolved January 12, 2012). Some smaller bugs still exist however. At the moment, Labeled Section Transclusion is not supported by the book tool but widely used on Wikisource. This may cause situations such as chapters overrunning into previous or subsequent chapters of some books.

Further information

• FAQ about the Book tool.
• Help for experts – details about the advanced functions of the Book tool.
• Feedback – for reporting and tracking of bugs.
• Wikis Go Printable – Wikimedia Foundation press release, 13 December 2007.
• Deployment Guide
• Technical documentation of the Collection extension.
• PediaPress books on Wikimedia Commons