Appendix C: Adapting this Guide

What is Pressbooks?

Pressbooks is a web-based authoring tool based on the WordPress authoring platform. If you have created a website using WordPress, you will find some similarities working with Pressbooks. Pressbooks allows you to create content once and publish it in many different formats. These export formats enable the resource to be easily imported and edited in different platforms, such as WordPress, wikis, and even learning management systems. The formats appear at the bottom of the web version of the resource to allow other users to easily export and adapt the resource. These features will allow the resources we are developing to be used, adapted, contextualized, and localized by different institutions and communities. Pressbooks will make the resource more available to different users by giving them the option of accessing it on the web or on their mobile devices, or exporting it as a PDF. By designing each part of the resource as a stand-alone guide, institutions will be able to select and adapt the sections to use, edit, and adapt for their context. These features will allow the resources we are developing to be used, adapted, contextualized, and localized by different institutions and communities.

Export Formats

• Print PDF: Allows documents to be easily shared while retaining the same visual formatting. It is page oriented and has a static layout. The print PDF is optimized for printing.
• Digital PDF: For digital PDF distribution. Contains clickable links and is a smaller file than the print PDF.XHTMLThis format allows the resource to be used and edited in different systems.
• EPUB: EPUB files are designed for portability. These files are used for most e-books and by most e-readers. The purpose of these files is not to provide editing capability, but to deliver a comprehensive package that contains all of the elements of a book, including text and images ­– like a zipped package – to a device for reading.
• MOBI: For Kindle e-readers.
• WordPress XML: These files can be imported into WordPress, and the resources can be easily adapted into an interactive website.
• Pressbooks XML: These files can be used to create your own Pressbooks copy of the book.

Ways that you can adapt this guide

Pressbooks is available to staff and faculty at all post-secondary institutions in B.C. here: British Columbia/Yukon Open Authoring Platform. This allows each institution, program, or course to copy this guide into your own Pressbooks account and adapt it to include local content, context, and resources. You can then export the guide you have created into any of the formats listed above. This will also enable you to add multimedia or even interactive components.