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Pressbooks: Getting Started

Please, Ask Us for Help!

If you are a member of faculty at the University of West Florida are having trouble using Pressbooks or need assistance with other publishing resources, you can contact the UWF Library Coordinator of Scholarly Communication. 

For more information, visit our Scholarly Communication Guide or email us at pressbooks-group@uwf.edu

Introduction to Pressbooks

Apply for an Account

Pressbooks

Requesting and creating a textbook is a commitment to contributing your textbook to the Open Educational Resources community. We ask that you read the UWF Pressbooks Policy & Guidelines linked below.  You will be asked to confirm that you have read this information in the application linked below. Part of the application process includes a publishing consultation along with two workshops: Pressbooks Intro and Copyright/Creative Commons Licenses, and Pressbooks book review.

 

Pressbooks Application

Pressbook User Guide

Dashboard

The Dashboard is where you will control every aspect of your book. Use the menu on the left side of the screen to navigate and customize your book. Use the Catalog at the top of the dashboard to navigate between multiple books. 

The dashboard screen.

Add Book Information

The Book Info Page is where you edit and add the metadata--descriptive information about your book.

This Includes:

  1. Title, Subtitle, Short title (for the file name) 
  2. Author names
  3. Publisher
  4. Copyright & licensing 
  5. Cover Image

The book information appears on the front screen of your book, both in an abbreviated form and as the full descriptive metadata. 

Book info screenshot

 

 

The descriptive metadata shown on to readers of your book.

Add and Organize Your Text

You can add and organize your text on the Organize page from the left sidebar of the book's dashboard. From there, you can access all the book's chapters and content. Each chapter opens up into a WYSIWYG editor which allows you to add and revise the text.

Often, you have already prepared your text in a Word document or other text processor. Pressbooks allows you to import your text directly from your files--EPUB, Microsoft Office, Open Office, other Pressbooks, or web pages. Prepare your book for importing by structuring the document using Heading 1 formatting for all chapter titles. Watch the Pressbooks Demo to learn more. 

Structure chapter headings in your text using Heading 1

To import your book, go to Tools and Import. Select the document type and from there, you will be able to select which chapters to from the document you wish to import. You will be able to reorganize and edit them in Pressbooks from the Organize screen once they have been loaded.

Select chapters from your document to import into pressbooks

Your book includes three main sections:

Front Matter: The introduction, foreword, dedication, and more. 

Chapters: The main body of your work. 

Back MatterEpilogue, author's note, appendix, and more. 

Pressbooks lets you specify the types of frontmatter and backmatter to keep things organized. 

Choose Book Theme

There are 20 book templates to choose from which can be accessed by going to the Appearance tab and clicking on Themes. Under the theme details, Pressbooks has a set of recommended uses for each. 

Theme Options

Under Theme Options, themes (21 options) can be customized in a number of ways--page size, paragraph separation, colors, and labels with differing options for the Web, PDF, and EBooks. For more advanced options, users can also modify any theme's CSS. 

Pressbooks User Guide by Book Oven Inc. (Pressbooks.com) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where otherwise noted. Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

UWF Guide Adapted from "Pressbooks: Introduction" by Illinois LibraryUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is licensed under CC BY 4.0