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Pressbooks: Publish

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 Scholarly Communication Guide or email us at pressbooks-group@uwf.edu

Accessibility

Accessibility starts with your book's content.

  • Use chapters, headings, and subheadings to organize your book's content for easy navigation.
  • Add alternative text to images for people with visual impairments
  • Make sure your font is large enough to read--12pt for regular text and 9pt for footnotes.
  • Use high contrast colors for charts, diagrams, and text in graphics

Use these tools and resources to ensure that your book will be accessible for all audiences:

Review with Hypothes.is

Hypothesis is an open source web annotation tool that allows authors, editors, and readers to highlight, annotate, and discuss content on the web.

When you enable Hypothesis in Pressbooks under Settings, readers can both create and read annotations without installing the Hypothes.is extension as long as they have a user account. These public comments will be visible to anyone who views the book. 

You can control where Hypothesis is visible in your book--front matter, chapters, or only specific chapters--toggle whether highlights are on or off, and choose whether the sidebar is open by default.

Uses

  • Collaborative editing: Enable Hypothesis as part of your editorial workflow. Create a private group, leave comments, editing suggestions, and discuss changes to be made on chapter pages prior to the book going public.
  • Reader feedback: Use Hypothesis as part of the peer-review process or leave the option open for anyone who is engaging with your books. 
  • Student Engagement: Provide a space for students to interact with course materials and one another. 

View & Publish on the Web

You can view your book on the web by clicking on the title of your book on the top menu in Pressbooks, then clicking Visit Book. To make your Web Book public, go to Upgrade for the payment options.

You also have the option to share your book with individual subscribers or users which you add to the book. To do this, go to Settings > Sharing and Privacy Settings. Under Private Content make sure All logged in users including subscribers is selected. Then, under Users > Add New, you can invite new users to be subscribers by email. 

Export Your Book

To export your book, go to the Export page from the left sidebar menu of the book's dashboard. 

Supported Formats:

  • Print PDF
  • Digital PDF
  • EPub
  • Mobi

Experimental Formats

  • Epub 3
  • XHTML
  • HTML Book
  • OpenDocument
  • Pressbooks XML
  • Wordpress XML

Remember, you can import a Pressbooks XML file. If you create a Pressbook on a private Pressbooks.com account, you can re-upload it through your institution's hosted Pressbooks at a later date if needed. 

The Publish Tab

The Publish tab of the dashboard does not have to do with your book's visibility to the public or with exporting your book. What it does is help you market your book by adding BUY links to vendors like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iBooks to your book's home page

Export Your Book

Once you’re happy with the appearance of your book, you can publish it to the web as a webbook or produce exports for distribution or sale. To produce and download export files for your book, click ‘Export‘ from your book Dashboard:

 

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