Importing Content into Pressbooks

Owned by Nate St George (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Aug 31, 2022 by Juliet Wilhelm (Unlicensed)
2 min read

This article will provide help with importing pre-written content from sources such as Microsoft Word.

Copying and Pasting

Pressbooks will automatically clean up pasted text – if you copy and paste it in the correct way. If you are going to paste content into Pressbooks, please use the following steps to avoid making extra work for yourself!

  • Log into Pressbooks
  • Set up Chapters and Parts to emulate the structure of your current document
  • From the Dashboard, go to "Organize" and select the Chapter you'd like to add to
  • Select the text you'd like to copy, then use Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on Mac) to copy the text from your document
  • In Pressbooks, set your cursor in the body of the chapter
  • Use Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac) to paste the text into the chapter body
  • Click "Update" to save your changes

If you copy using this method from MS Word, Pressbooks will retain the styling that translates well to books (bold, italics, bullets, headers, and other common formatting). it will not keep span tags or other code that Word adds to your document.

Importing from MS Word

Using this method to import content will automatically create chapters and format your text. It will not, however, style the text. This means that while things like bold, italics, bullets, headers, and other common formatting will appear correctly, this will not import your font choice or colors.

Before beginning the process, clean up your Word document. Go to the Styles menu (not formatting menu) and apply the "Normal" styling to the entire document. Then, apply the "Heading 1" styling to your chapter headings.

  • In Pressbooks, go to Left Menu > Tools > Import
  • Select "File Type: docx"
  • Choose your file from your computer
  • Click "Upload"
  • Select which content or sections you'd like to add

  • Decide whether the content or sections are front matter, chapters, or back matter

    See the Front Matter, Text, and Back Matter page for help determining what content should go where.

  • Import the text
  • Check the imported text and make sure there's no unexpected formatting or issues

Similar steps to these can be applied to documents from Google Docs. Simply export as a .docx from GDocs and ensure the Styles are as listed above (Normal for all text, Heading 1 for chapter headings).

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