Wikipedia Book Creator

[mouser]

With the book creator you can create a book containing wiki pages of your choice. You can export the book in different formats (for example PDF or ODF) or order a printed copy.

Gadgetopia says: "This is every bit as awesome as it sounds.  The finished book looks fantastic as a PDF."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Book&bookcmd=book_creator

from http://www.gadgetopia.com/post/7120

[herneith]

I've used this.  It's a good way of compiling many article into one.  You can drag and drop the articles into the specific order you want.  The PDFs are true to the articles format, all in all a handy tool.

[Renegade]

Nice! That will prove extremely useful!

I've been binding my own books/printouts since I moved to Australia. If I were in Korea, I'd just have it done there as it's very cheap to do. Here? I don't even want to ask.

Anyways, for anyone that's interested, here's a very quick "how to".

* Print out the book.
* Align pages.
* About 2 cm from "spine", put 2 paint sticks, 1 on each side
* Clamp the spine using the paint sticks and some kind of a clamp, like a vice or whatever works
* Sand the spine down. Use a fairly fine sandpaper, e.g. 240 or so.
* Spread & massage glue (binders glue or PVC) down the spine. Work it into the pages a bit.
* Let dry

You can search for better and more complete directions.

It's actually pretty fun to do. Massaging the glue in takes the most time.

I just did one last night.

It's also very handy to know if you order books in PDF format. WROX and some other publishers do that now. (They're double the price here in Australia, and triple often, so buying the PDF from the publisher is much cheaper.) Waiting for shipping is, well... annoying. So a PDF version gives you instant gratification, while binding yourself saves you time and money.

[Deozaan]

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of Wikipedia, though? Once you convert some pages to a book it's potentially out of date instantly.

It would be great if you could save your "books" for later and export them again in the future with all up-to-date wiki pages.

[Renegade]

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of Wikipedia, though? Once you convert some pages to a book it's potentially out of date instantly.

It would be great if you could save your "books" for later and export them again in the future with all up-to-date wiki pages.

A lot of things don't change significantly in the amount of time that you'd use the book(s), like mathematics, physical science, or (non-recent) history.

So being out of date isn't a great worry.

One problem though for a lot of topics in Wikipedia is that the expertise needed to write articles is esoteric and at the moment there are nothing more than tiny stubs of information. e.g. It's one thing to write an article about some song from a band, and entirely a different thing to write an article on FFT implementations. One requires significant knowledge and skill.

[zridling]

I'm impressed. I know someone who could use this right now in their job. Thanks!

[JavaJones]

Oo! But is this system available for use on our own private-hosted wikis? Please say yes!

- Oshyan

[CleverCat]

Ooh nice find! 

[mahesh2k]

Is it possible to use project gutenberg to create distributable books ? like wikipedia i guess even project gutenberg is also in public domain.

[J-Mac]

Very nice! I really like this!

I often print out PDF manual or ebooks too. Not usually entire books though, but specific chapters or sections. I can't sit at the computer for long periods - about 30 minutes max for me. So it is essential that I be able to print out some things so I can read them wherever. If there's a printed book with the same content I just buy that but many times there is no printed version available.

Thanks!

Jim

[Paul Keith]

Anyone know how to get this to work on Wikibooks? You know...that site with the actual less updated wiki contents where this feature would best be served.

[Gailin]

Thank you for highlighting this feature.  I did not know about it, but am finding it very useful.

This find alone made registering today worth it.  Now to try out some software instead of just forums