A hands-on workshop for UC Berkeley faculty, students, and staff to understand how to use Pressbooks to publish digital books and open educational resources.

1. Publish Digital Books and
Open Educational Resources
with Pressbooks
Maria Gould
Scholarly Communication and Copyright Librarian
mgould@berkeley.edu | schol-comm@berkeley.edu
April 26, 2018

2. Today’s workshop ● Intro to Pressbooks
● Use cases & examples
● How to get started
● 7 basic skills
● Practice / Q&A

3. What is Pressbooks?

4. UC Berkeley
Pressbooks

5. Pressbooks is fast,
flexible, fancy,
friendly, and free!
● Publish immediately and often
● Export in multiple formats
● License work for reuse
● Choose professional templates
● Optimize texts for accessibility
● Easily migrate elsewhere
● Publish and host for free

6. What can you do with Pressbooks?

7. Use cases ● Textbooks
● Course modules
● Toolkits
● White papers
● And more!

8. Some examples ● Interactive language
learning
● Collaborative anthology
● Biology textbook
● Course module
● How-to guide

9. Interactive
language
learning

10. Collaborative
literature
anthology

11. Biology
textbook

12. UC Berkeley
course
module

13. Pressbooks
how-to
guide

14. Getting started

15. Create an account
❏ Username is permanent
❏ Use @berkeley.edu email
❏ Read terms of service
❏ Register book later
❏ Check email to activate
account

16. Add A New Book

17. 1. Webbook address
2. Book title
3. Privacy
Not changeable
Changeable
Enter book details

18. Dashboard view

19. Getting oriented

20. Dashboard view

21. Organize mode

22. Edit mode

23. Preview and save
● Click book title or
“visit book” to view
book
● “Preview” button
opens new tab
● Auto-save and
versioning

24. Privacy and other
settings
● Book-level and
chapter-level

25. General tips & tricks ● Many ways to do the
same thing
● Book-level and
section-level settings
● Keep tabs on your
tabs
● Everything is
reversible!

26. 7 basic things

27. 1. Add and format text

28. Using the text editor
● Similar to Word
and other tools
● Visual and Text tab
● Auto-saves
● Mostly WYSIWG
but always preview
online too

29. Practice:
Add and format text
1. Copy-paste
2. Heading styles
3. Linking
4. Tables
5. Text boxes

30. 2. Upload media

31. Tips for uploading
media
● Accepted file
formats: JPEG, PNG
● Consider copyright
● Include alt-text
● Use media library
● Videos: link instead
of embed

32. Practice: uploading
images
● Upload new image
● Insert image from
media library
● Resize image
● Adjust wrapping
● Add a caption

33. 3. Add and organize chapters

34. Adding and
organizing chapters
● Front & back matter
can’t be deleted
● Check privacy and
export settings
● Check permalinks
after changing
chapter order or
chapter name

35. Practice: chapters
● Add new chapter
● Delete chapter
● Add a new part
● Move a chapter to
a different part
● Add front matter
● Add back matter

36. 4. Add metadata details

37. Book metadata
● Title
● Author information
● Publisher
information
● Copyright & license
● Remember to save!

38. Licensing tool
● Choose license
● Book-level and
chaper-level
● License text
generates
automatically

39. Practice: metadata
● Change book title
● Choose a license
● Change license

40. 5. Add a cover image

41. Cover image
● Check sizing specs
● Cover generator
available
● If you want title on
the cover, add it to
file before upload
(or use generator)
● Remember to save

42. Practice: Cover image
● Add a cover image
● Try out the cover
generator

43. 6. Choose a theme

44. Themes
● Preview before
activating
● Change any time
● Affects chapter
layout, so always
check how it looks

45. Practice: Themes
● Browse themes
● Pick a theme
● Change the theme

46. 7. Export and publish

47. Exporting
● Check settings in
Text > Organize
● Check theme
settings
● Enable downloads
● Remember to
re-export after edits

48. Go beyond the basics

49. Cool add-ons
● H5P (interactive
elements)
● LaTeX
● Hypothes.is
● Markdown (coming
soon, hopefully!)

50. Collaborate
● Add a new or
existing user to
your book
● Different options
for roles and
permissions

51. Publish your work
● Berkeley Open
Books catalog
● UCB Library catalog
● Open Textbook
Library
● Directory of Open
Access Books
● eScholarship

52. Final notes

53. Final notes ● Don’t get overwhelmed
● Keep it simple
● Follow best practices
● We’re here to help!

54. Free play

55. Free play! ✔ Add a footnote
✔ Insert a table
✔ Insert a text box
✔ Insert a new part
✔ Add a collaborator
✔ Apply a section
license
✔ Practice exporting
Consult the workshop
materials in the folder for
more guidance

56. Thank you!
mgould@berkeley.edu | schol-comm@berkeley.edu
@UCB_ScholComm