Wikipedia's Book Creator - Great Fun!
I have been playing with the Book Creator on Wikipedia because I wanted an eBook to giveaway as a download on one of my local directory sites. I included the pages of all the local communities in our region and compiled them in to one very nice eBook for site visitors to download.
You can create books in .pdf format, Open Document Text or you can have a real book printed for a very reasonable cost using the Wikipedia interface. I plan to use the book I created as a give-away for marketing conferences and events, etc. as well as offering it for a download from my website.
The files are a bit large for download purposes, but the books are wonderful. They are beautifully formatted and I think the links are all clickable in the finished version.
Here are the instructions on how to use the Book Creator:
Some other points to consider:
All PDF books created with Wikipedia are available under the Creative Commons License.
Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia - Wikimedia Commons
Wikipedia will store your books collection under your Wikipedia user directory. If you are not happy with the layout of your PDF book or would like to add some more information to the PDF, just edit the template and save the PDF.
If you don't want to print an eBook from Wikipedia pages, you can simply use the Book Creator to quickly download multiple pages and read them offline!
The only downside is that a .pdf file size is quite large.
I haven't played with the Open Document Text yet, but that is my next project. The title page has a lot of blank space in the .pdf version, so I'm going to try to add an image or two in the text version, etc.
If anyone would like to look at my latest creation about 'Lichens' (Hey - it's a beauty...) you can download the .pdf file here: (It's about 6 megs and has lots of images.) This eBook was created from just one page on the Wikipedia site.
http://renfrewcountyphotos.com/lichens/lichens.pdf
Here's more info from PediaPress: http://blog.pediapress.com/
You can create books in .pdf format, Open Document Text or you can have a real book printed for a very reasonable cost using the Wikipedia interface. I plan to use the book I created as a give-away for marketing conferences and events, etc. as well as offering it for a download from my website.
The files are a bit large for download purposes, but the books are wonderful. They are beautifully formatted and I think the links are all clickable in the finished version.
Here are the instructions on how to use the Book Creator:
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1. Start the book creator tool inside Wikipedia. Book creator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 2. Open any Wikipedia page that you want to include in your PDF book and click the “Add this page to your book” link. Repeat this step until all the pages have been added to the print basket. 3. Once you are done collecting Wikipedia articles, click “Show Book”, give your Wikipedia book a title and hit the download button to save your book as a PDF file. 4. If you want to have a hard copy printed book, select the option "Get a printed book from our print-on-demand partner 'Pedia Press.' This is a nice feature - you can choose the color and cover image for your book from the available selections. If you choose to have your book printed by PediaPress, you can share your book with other users from the PediaPress website. The book will get a unique URL that can be used to bookmark, email or share the book social networks like Facebook or Twitter. |
All PDF books created with Wikipedia are available under the Creative Commons License.
Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia - Wikimedia Commons
Wikipedia will store your books collection under your Wikipedia user directory. If you are not happy with the layout of your PDF book or would like to add some more information to the PDF, just edit the template and save the PDF.
If you don't want to print an eBook from Wikipedia pages, you can simply use the Book Creator to quickly download multiple pages and read them offline!
The only downside is that a .pdf file size is quite large.
I haven't played with the Open Document Text yet, but that is my next project. The title page has a lot of blank space in the .pdf version, so I'm going to try to add an image or two in the text version, etc.
If anyone would like to look at my latest creation about 'Lichens' (Hey - it's a beauty...) you can download the .pdf file here: (It's about 6 megs and has lots of images.) This eBook was created from just one page on the Wikipedia site.
http://renfrewcountyphotos.com/lichens/lichens.pdf
Here's more info from PediaPress: http://blog.pediapress.com/
Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.
My Sample Articles