Help:Books

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, OpenDocument or epub formats. 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 green 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: Download a book

Fig. 6: As of November 2014, you can only download your book in PDF format. This screenshot is obsolete.

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

• in your User pages or
• in the "community-maintained" Books namespace.

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.

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.

Further information

• Extension:Collection – how to organize personal selections of pages in a collection
• PediaPress – media on Wikimedia Commons
• WikiProject Wikislice – aims to help produce useful offline readers, wikibooks, and specialized pocket references