Help:Books

This Help page is about Wikipedia books created on Wikipedia.

For the Wikimedia sister project, see Wikibooks.

For notable books with articles about them on Wikipedia, see List of books.

For books in general, see Books.

For Help on downloading a page as a PDF, see Help:Download as PDF.

Wikipedia books

• Create a book
• Bookshelf
• FAQ
• Help for beginners
• Help for experts
• Post feedback

Play media

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: Download or order a printed book

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 This screenshot is obsolete.

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 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.

Linking to a book

You can add the booklink template to any page. This will add a sidebox with a link to your book. There is no agreed guideline, but it is suggested that you add it at the top of the See also section.

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

Printed Wikipedia Books

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 printed books can be found on the FAQ page, and at the Printed books help page, including cost and format details.

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

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