Help:Books

This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference.
Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. It was last substantively updated May 2021.

Shortcut

H:BK

This page contains helpful information about Wikipedia Books created using the Book Creator tool.

Alternative rendering services

For details of how to upload a Wikipedia book to one of the external rendering services, see: Wikipedia:Books#What alternatives are there?.

Restore a deleted book

For details of how to restore a book after deletion, see: Wikipedia:Books/archive

Historical page content

What is a Wikipedia Book?

A Wikipedia Book created using the Book Creator tool is a collection of articles or other pages from Wikipedia. It is stored as a single page which specifies the book title, the articles to be included and some other information. It has three uses:

As a saved reading list, simply by clicking through to the listed articles.
To create a softcopy of the entire collection, for reading offline. A new edition is created from the current articles every time you download a softcopy.
To send to a print-on-demand publisher where you can order printed copies of the collected book. The print edition will not usually be updated unless you send it to the publisher again.

Tips for creating great books

Topic and title

There are hardly any rules when creating a book from Wikipedia content. A good book focuses on a particular topic and covers it as well as possible. A meaningful title helps to give other users a realistic expectation as to the content of a book.

Length

Books should have a reasonable number of articles. One article is not enough, but books that result in PDFs with more than 800 pages are probably too big and may cause problems on older computers.

Be bold

If your book has a clear focus, sensible title and is a reasonable size, consider adding it to the list of community books. You can either save it directly to Book:Title, or move it there from your userspace.

Step-by-step guide

This page shows you how to create a book from Wikipedia articles in four easy steps. Books can be created in PDF or OpenDocument formats, or ordered for printing on the PediaPress website. It is possible to create books through editing as well.

Step 1: Enable the "Book Creator" tool

There is a link to the Book creator in the navbar near the top of this page.

Or you can click this link to open the Book creator

If you have hidden the book creator then see Help:Books/for experts#Hide and unhide book creator.

Step 2: Collect articles

Fig. 3: From now on, this toolbar will appear on top of every Wikipedia article. 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 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 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: Preview a printed book

Fig. 7: To preview a printed book, click on the "PediaPress" link. 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 Wikipedia user (see Why create an account? for a detailed explanation).

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.

The second option is only available if your user account is autoconfirmed (usually meaning at least four days old and 10 edits).

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

Linking to a book

You can simply link to the book's Wikipedia page in the usual way.

Revising your book

If you visit a previously saved book, the banner at the top of the page includes an option to re-open the book in the "Book Creator".

Books you have worked on will be listed in your contributions list, which you can access through the "Contributions" link at the top right of every page whenever you are logged in.

Printed books from PediaPress

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

Softcopy books from MediaWiki2LaTeX

MediaWiki2LaTeX is an external pull service which can convert a Wikipedia book to a range of softcopy formats including PDF, LaTeX, ePub (x/html) and ODT (Open Document Foundation Text). You can also choose from a range of page sizes.

Two complementary services are available:

For books up to about 200 pages, https://mediawiki2latex.wmflabs.org/ is recommended.
For books up to about 800 pages, use https://mediawiki2latex-large.wmflabs.org/ but be prepared to wait quite a long time.

Note that the software is still under active development and the two services may give different results.

To convert a book, go to the chosen service above and enter the full web url of your Wikipedia book. This is most easily copied from your url bar while on your book page, and then pasted into the service request URL field. If you are not sure what options you want, the defaults are a good choice.

Further information

FAQ – help with the Book tool
Feedback – for reporting and tracking of bugs
Help for experts – details about the advanced functions of the Book tool
Extension:Collection – how to organize personal selections of pages in a collection
PediaPress – media on Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia/Wikipedia Merchandise – the Wikimedia/Wikipedia online "gift shop"
WikiProject Wikislice – aims to help produce useful offline readers, wikibooks, and specialized pocket references
Wikis Go Printable – Wikimedia Foundation press release, 13 December 2007

v t e Wikipedia help pages
*Visit the Teahouse* or the Help desk for an interactive Q & A forum. FAQs (?) Reference desks (?) Noticeboards (?) Cheatsheet (?) Directories (?)**
About Wikipedia (?)	Administration Purpose Principles Policies and guidelines What Wikipedia is not Disclaimer (parental advice) Making requests Who writes Wikipedia?
Help for readers (?)	FAQ Books Copyright Glossary Mobile access Navigation Other languages Searching Students Viewing media
Contributing to Wikipedia (?)	Advice for young editors Avoiding common mistakes Etiquette Simplified Manual of Style Simplified rule-set "Ignore all rules" "The rules are principles" Style-tips Tip of the day Your first article (article wizard)
Getting started (?)	Why create an account? Introductions by topic Graphics tutorials Picture tutorial IRC (live chat) tutorial VisualEditor user guide
Dos and don'ts (?)	Accessibility Biographies Biographies (living) Categorization Consensus Discussions Disambiguation Images Leads Links Lists References Tables Titles (of articles)
How-to pages and information pages (?)	Appealing blocks Article deletion Categories Citations/references Referencing for beginners Citation Style 1 Cite errors References and page numbers Convert Diff Editing Minor edit toolbar edit conflict Find sources Files Footnotes Image deletion Infoboxes Linking (link color) Logging in Merging Page name Renaming pages Redirect Passwords Email confirmation Reverting Simple vandalism cleanup Talk pages (archiving simple archiving) User contributions WP search protocol
Coding (?)	Wiki markup Barcharts Calculations Characters Columns Elevation Hidden text HTML Lists Magic words Music symbols Sections Sounds Tables Templates Transclusion URL Visual files
Directories (?)	Abbreviations Contents (Encyclopedia proper) Departments Editor's index Essays FAQs Glossary Guidelines Manual of Style Policies Tasks Tips Tools
Missing Manual Ask for help on your talk page (?)