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.
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Status last updated 19 August 2019.
Confused by the book tool? See this video guide on how to create a book!

What is a Wikipedia Book?

A Wikipedia Book 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.

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.

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

You can also 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 "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:

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