Help:Collections/Advanced

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Printed PediaPress books of Wikibooks content.

This page gives experienced users details on the advanced functions of the Collection tool. Among other things, it explains how the layout of collections can be improved and how collections are stored on Wikibooks.

Saving books

Format of stored book pages

When you save a book, it is stored in the format shown below.

{{saved book
 |title=
 |subtitle=
 |cover-image=
 |cover-color=
 |text-color=
}}

== Title ==
=== Subtitle ===

;Chapter 1
:[[First page]]
:[[Page 2|Second page]]
:[[Third page]]

;Chapter 2
:[[Fourth page]]
:[[5th page|Fifth page]]
:[[Sixth page]]

<-- The template appearing at the top of the page
<-- This is only used to generate a preview of the cover
<-- This is only used to generate a preview of the cover
<-- The default* cover image of the collection (see note below)
<-- The default* cover color of the collection (see note below)
<-- This is only used to generate a preview of the cover


<-- Title of the book
<-- Subtitle of the book

<-- First chapter's name (starts with a semicolon)
<-- First page (starts with a colon)
<-- Second page (renamed)
<-- Third page

<-- Second chapter's name
<-- Fourth page
<-- Fifth page (renamed)
<-- Sixth page 

*   These parameters are not currently supported by the printed book creation system
    but will be at some point in the future. In the meantime, these can be used to
    give a preview of what the printed book cover could be like.

You can also manually create a collection from scratch by using the same format. To create a collection from scratch, start a new page such as [[User:Myusername/Collections/Mybookname]]. Only autoconfirmed users can save collections.

Allowed syntax

Only the following syntax is allowed:

Title	The title is contained in double equals signs. `== Title ==`
Subtitle	The subtitles is contained in three equals signs. `=== Subtitle ===`
Chapter headings	Chapter headings are preceded with a semicolon. `;Chapter name`
Adding a page	A page is inserted as a wikilink after a colon. `:[[Book Name/Page]]`
Renaming a page	You can use a pipe ('\|') to rename the page in the collection. `:[[Python Programming/Classes\|Classes]]`

Location of collections

Books can either be saved in the user's namespace [[User:Name/Collections/Book Name]] or as a community book at [[Wikibooks:Collections/Book Name]]. To be recognized as a collection, it must belong to the category Category:Collections (automatically added by {{saved book}}).

Loading collections

To load a collection, simply click on the 'load collection' link in the banner at the top of each collection. If the banner isn't present, then add {{saved book}} at the top of the page.

Improving the book layout

Some wiki-markup can lead to problems in the generation of PDF documents as part of the book feature. This mainly applies to templates, which will be displayed differently in the electronic or print version compared to how they look in the online version of a page. This can be fixed by either substituting the current template or removing the template from the content that cause problems in the PDF. As a rule of thumb, all content (especially templates) that is not useful for an offline version of the document, should be excluded from the print version.

Identifying problems

The most efficient way to identify problems is to go on the individual pages of your book and view the page as a PDF (click "Download as PDF" in the "print/export" box on the left hand side of your screen, towards the bottom). Preview the page, and if something doesn't look right, chances are there's a problem. While the printed books and OpenDocument version will differ from the PDF version, they share a lot of similarities. If something looks weird in the PDF version, chances are it will also look weird in the printed book or OpenDocument version.

Usually there are three kinds of problems:

A template that is not content-related (such as a navigational box) is displayed. See below on how to fix this.
Something looks weird, such as 234+23
−21 looking like 234+23-21 in the PDF, or having superfluous whitespace. This is usually due to a template being coded in a non-standard way, or to a problem with the rendering software. You can try to fix this yourself if you know your way around templates. If you don't know how to fix it or are simply intimidated by templates, leave a message on the discussion page of the template, and place a notice at Help:Collections/Feedback and someone will look into it.
Content and style problems, such as spelling, grammar, different varieties of English, poorly worded sentences, ...

Fixing problems

There are four ways to resolve issues caused by templates:

Exclude templates: A template can be excluded from content by adding it to Category:Exclude in print.

Note: Many templates use other templates to function. Therefore groups/types of templates can be excluded by adding the commonly used template to this category.

Exclude certain specific content: By using Template:Hide in print, certain specific content, such as a few words or an image, can be excluded from printing.
This content will be printed. {{Hide in print|This content will *not* be printed.}} This content will be printed.
Include certain specific content only in print versions: The Template:Only in print can be used to insert content that shall only be visible in offline versions.
This content will be printed. {{Only in print|This content will only appear in PDFs or printed books, *not* with the browser.}} This content will be printed.

Content problems such as poorly worded sentences, or style problems such as variations in the citation style used, can be fixed only by editing the page.

Multi-wiki Collections

Using the extension it is currently impossible to create a collection of content from multiple different wikis. However, you can easily create books containing articles from multiple wikis using the bookmarklet offered on this page.