Topic on Talk:Reading/Web/PDF Functionality/Flow

What are the obstacles to fixing this functionality? It seems to me like there should be sufficient demand for this feature to justify the cost of fixing it. The fact that it has been broken for so long suggests that there must be more obstacles to fixing it than just the technical issues.

I have friend with a PhD in history, who has written several books. I haven't seen them, but I believe they include substantive documentation to standards of modern historical research and include figures and tables to make it easier for people to read and understand. One in particular is a history of w:Robert Campbell (frontiersman)#Sublette and Campbell (1836–1845). He thinks the w:Campbell House Museum in St. Louis might like to sell his book as a fund raiser. He claims there is another "Campbell House Museum" in Northern Ireland, where the said Robert Campbell was born.

I've suggested he consider publishing his books on Wikibooks, where other scholars could potentially improve them.

However, an obstacle to that is how it could be converted into a PDF and printed. A PDF could be distributed via web sites associated with both Campbell House Museums and other interested organizations. A physical book could be sold to raise money for the museums.

I have other projects for which I'd like to be able to create PDF documents potentially from multiple articles with flexible options for font size, headers and footers.

How can I contact and perhaps join the volunteer developers?

Thanks, @DavidMCEddy

I presume you mean rendering whole books? This software package doesn't do that any more, strictly article rendering only (even if not as well as Firefox does it natively).

The official community has gone off the idea of book rendering. Neither the WMF who organise these things nor PediaPress who write the rendering software is willing to give it any kind of priority any more, it has just drifted for years now. The WMF tried to rewrite it and failed miserably, twice (which is why we only do single articles now), so instead they now say nobody used it any more so why fix it. Well of course not because it got so antiquated that we couldn't any more and it had to be withdrawn, but that logic is lost on them in favour of acid remarks about statistics and it's not their fault they can't do system design. PediaPress eventually knocked up a dodgy alpha of a replacement service but then left it to rot because they were too busy elsewhere.

Another guy did create an alternative, but in a coding language the WMF are frightened of so they won't support it on the grounds that he might do a runner. The logic that a service with one active developer is better than no service at all, is quite lost on them.

If you are able to contact the WMF's coding community, establish what languages they get warm feelings about and do some proper system architecting (I can help a little with that, if only with the occasional "I wouldn't do it ''that'' way after what happened last time), then we will all love you forever. All code is tracked on phabricator https://phabricator.wikimedia.org, but I don't know if that is an official point of contact. Steelpillow (talk) 21:33, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I am the guy who wrote the alternative that you can use to render whole books https://mediawiki2latex.wmflabs.org/

At least it is available on the Germany Wikiversity in the menu as Multi Format export. Anyway create a tailored book according to the prerequisites of the learner in Wikiveristy is helpful especially when learners add content to the generated book and do not want to expose their private content to the public (i.e. the learning results). Books are standardized and aggregate article can cover individual interest on the learner or additional articles that meet his or her needs, all the best, Bert

Thank you Dirk for sharing the tool with the community https://mediawiki2latex.wmflabs.org/ and thank you for allowing the Multiformat export on the german Wikiversity.