Extension:Collection/Walkthrough

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This is a help page for usage of the Collection extension. For installation instructions, please see the extension documentation page.

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

Tips for creating great books

Topic and title

There are almost no limits when creating books from Wikipedia content. A good book focuses on a certain topic and covers it as well as possible. A meaningful title helps other users to have the correct expectation regarding 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 500 pages are probably too big, and may even cause problems on older computers.

Be bold

If your book has a clear focus, meaningful 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

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 blue button to start the 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

Book downloads are not currently available. Printed copies may still be previewed.

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, on most sites you must be a registered Wikipedia user.

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 pages
in the "community-maintained" Books namespace.

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.