Pressbooks Guide for Educators: Publishing

Owned by Juliet Wilhelm (Unlicensed)
Dec 13, 2022
2 min read

Summary

This guide offers an overview and introduction to Pressbooks for Boise State and non-Boise State educators. Resources are provided on using Pressbooks to create OER, curricular content, and interactive learning activities.

Publishing covers ensuring content is accessible, publishing formats, and book privacy settings.

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:

  • BCcampus Open Education Accessibility ToolkitThe Accessibility Toolkit provides the resources for creating a project that is truly accessible for all users. They include an accessibility checklist to assist with reviewing your project.

  • Color Contrast AnalyzerThis chrome extension analyzes web pages and provides a visual understanding of the contrast of your page and whether the text is accessible to users with visual impairments.

  • Accessible ColorsThe Accessible Colors tool helps check color contrast ratios for making accessible graphic elements.

Publish Your Book

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.