Voyage, Voyage ...

Good news for all travel fans: Our PediaPress service is now also available with Wikivoyage, the free online travel guide that -just like Wikipedia- is edited collaboratively.

After a tumultuous history, Wikivoyage went live today as the twelfth official Wikimedia Foundation project.

We believe that Wikivoyage + PediaPress are a perfect fit and celebrate this with the famous song by French singer Desireless:

The E-book Export Feature on Wikipedia

From the creators of PediaPress:

The E-book Export Feature on Wikipedia

While printed books surely offer unparalleled haptics, smell and decoration, there are some situations where e-books are just are good enough. That’s why our team developed a feature that was missing so far from Wikipedia’s Book Creator: Standard compliant (EPUB) e-book export. Owners of a e-book readers will probably appreciate the difference this makes compared to the PDF export: With EPUB you are able to reflow and resize the content of your e-book to your own liking.

An introduction to EPUB export

The news were broken earlier this week on the Wikimedia Foundation Blog. Next to some traditional media like CNN, NBCNEWS the news were broadly re-published and commented by various tech magazines like The Verge, Life Hacker or Gizmodo. Wired sticked to its 5 reasons why e-books aren’t there yet and cluelessly ignored the news, while some mobile and e-book centered mags, welcomed the addition enthusiastically. Even here in Germany the news were spread by some of the most popular IT news sites like Heise and Golem (even twice).  We weren't expecting this at all and are very happy about the warm response for this new feature.

Behind the scenes: 

brainbot technologies - expert in remix publishing  

The software was developed by brainbot technologies, the company behind the PediaPress service.
brainbot technologies builds software and services for the transforming publishing industry. Our fields of expertise are topics like e-books, multi-channel publishing, print-on-demand, integration of community content as well as content remixing, bundling and un-bundling. 
So, if you would like to benefit from more than five years of experience in creating and operating a worldwide on-demand printing and e-book service for a top ten website like Wikipedia, or if you would just like to invite us for a drink (e.g. at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair): Feel free to contact us.

Custom Prefaces for Your Books

Starting today you can add a custom preface to your book. All you have to do is to navigate to our shiny new tab (aptly named "preface") after uploading your collection to PediaPress. There you can get your creative juices flowing and start writing.

Personalize your book with a custom preface!

The preface will appear at the beginning of your book. There is no limit on the amount of content that you can put into the preface. The price for your book will be adjusted by the estimated number of pages that you entered (by 4 cents per page).

You can check out the appearance of your preface in the book preview which will be automatically updated as soon as you edit the title or content field. You are free to use basic MediaWiki Markup to enhance the layout.

We consider the preface to be a part of the content of your book and use Arabic numerals (1,2,3,…) to count the pages. Only the table of contents will be numbered with Roman numerals (I, II, III, …). The chapter or article following the preface will always begin on a right (recto) page to distinguish it clearly from the previous section. This means that your book will always grow by at least two pages when you create a preface.

To remove the preface you have to clear both the title and the content field. You could use this for creating personalized gifts: Just create a headline and leave the content blank. This will basically create two (almost) blank pages. You can use these pages to insert a personal note or a dedication in your own handwriting.

Custom prefaces have been a "most wanted" feature both in surveys and helpdesk requests and we are glad that we are finally able to provide this new feature. How do you like it?

Collection Extension in Hebrew Wikipedia

Greetings from PediaPress to all Wikipedians who are currently attending Wikimania in Haifa.

Just-in-time for the beginning of the conference we are very happy to announce that the collection extension is now available in the Hebrew Wikipedia. This means that if you are fluent in the language of Canaan, you can now start collecting articles.

Right-to-left (RTL) writing really gave us some headaches and so far, only the PDF export works. A big thank you goes to all the local volunteers who reported bugs and helped us goyim understand what was going wrong.

New page layout for the Book Setup page

This week we updated pediapress.com with a revised layout for the book setup page.

We decided to change the page because we felt that the previous design was suffering from a messy layout and lack of structure - especially since we introduced the product options for hardcover and color last fall.

The new design introduces tabs as a navigational aide:

• Both tabs contain a preview for the cover image.
• The first tab contains only the editor, title and subtitle.
• The second tab sports a fancy color theme selector. Moreover, you can access all cover images without horizontal scrolling.

We worked on pretty much all elements of the page, but let me pick a few highlights:

• We used CSS3 effects for some progressive enhancements - the design for the tabs and the submit button are pure CSS.
• The previous color theme showed only one color - the background. The new one is designed like a small wireframe and gives you an impression of the color mix for the cover.
• The image selector shows the background of the currently selected color theme. That way you can identify even before clicking on an image, if it’s colors match the current theme.
• We reduced the text quite a bit to make the interactions clearer and worked on the flow of the page. For an example, take a look at the price and product options:

In the old version, the price information came first with a very prominent “Add-to-Cart” button at the top. In the new version, we turned things upside down and put the price and the button at the bottom. That way, your eye can just follow a familiar path along the calculation and you don’t have to look up and down to see the effect of your clicks.

The setup page has always been a challenge for us. We hope these layout changes make this page more fun and easier to use. Now upload a book, check out the new setup page yourself and tell us what you think. We would love to hear your feedback about the new design.

Personnel changes at PediaPress

Eva-Maria Biedenbach and Johannes Beigel have left PediaPress in order to pursue new challenges. We would like to thank both of them for their hard work and wish them all the best for their future and much success.

We are pleased to welcome Christoph Kepper as a new team member. Chris accompanied our company for many years as chairman of the supervisory board of our parent company, brainbot technologies. He will predominantly focus on marketing and sales.

Wikipedia Books On Medicine: A Doctor's Approach

Two days ago, the Journal of Medical Internet Research published a paper reviewing studies quality of Medicine articles on Wikipedia, and urging the medical community to contribute to the online encyclopedia (see Wikipedia: A Key Tool for Global Public Health Promotion). We have been noticing for some time that there is a high number of people actually producing books with Wikipedia content on the subject of medicine. So we dug a little further and asked some of those editors to give us their insight as to why and how they use the book tool in Wikipedia to produce offline material, focusing on medicine, but also on many other topics.

Our first respondent is John D. Current, M.D., Professor of Anesthesiology and Director, SRNA Clinical Program, who tells about his experience with PediaPress and the book tool. He made a book on the topic of "Physics Related to Anesthesia" which he distributed as reading material to his students for a lecture he was giving. Here are his answers to our interview.

PediaPress: How did You get to know PediaPress and its service?

John Current: I have been a contributor to Wikipedia, which necessitated frequent visits to their website. They prominently displayed the availability of the PediaPress services. When I had the need to print some course materials for my lectures I gave PediaPress a try.

PP: What was the first book You created?

JC: My first book on PediaPress was "Physics Related to Anesthesia." I was giving a lecture on this subject to a group of anesthesiology residents and medical students. In preparation, I sought material to help improve their background in physics and found that many of the Wikipedia articles were quite relevant, so I compiled this material in book form for their benefit.

PP: You have ordered, among others, your book "Physics Related to Anesthesia" 29 times and created a great series on "Pharmacology for Anesthetists". Do you feel that the quality of Wikipedia articles is good in that topic?

JC: I felt the quality of the physics articles were quite excellent. I have received many favorable comments about that material. I consider the PDF's to be quite beautiful.

PP: Are there any other topics in Wikipedia you would consider making books about?

JC: Yes, I have several interests that may result in books. I consider the articles in Wikipedia on combat aircraft to be particularly outstanding. I have edited a book on the topic "American Warplanes of World War II" , which turned out very well and I bought to give as Christmas gifts to my friends with similar interests.

PP: Are the books You created for you? For others? How do you (plan to) use the books (in what context?)

JC: Most of the books I'm compiling are meant as supplements to my lectures on anesthesiology given to anesthesiology residents, medical students and nurses in training. My philosophy is that college and medical textbooks are too expensive and I desire to make materials available to the students as cheaply as possible. I see collaborative efforts like Wikipedia to be a potential route to more inexpensive course materials.

PP: How do other people react to the books you create?

JC: I have received nothing but favorable comments from my students and colleagues. Most remark about the quality of the printing and the overall appearance of the books.

PP: Is there anything that you wish PediaPress would offer on top of the actual service proposed?

JC: I would like to be able to place additional material into these books to supplement the materials I am able to glean from Wikipedia. I would also like to be able to revise my books in the PediaPress catalog to at least correct typographical and other errors. Thanks for providing a valuable service.

We also asked Dr. Reinhard G. Runkel, Chief medical Anesthesiologist in Germany as well as a writer and editor of medical textbooks, to answer our interview [1]. He has made books about Medicine, but also other topics, and would have many ideas to create books in a format that would fit in a lab's coat pocket. An idea to pursue?

PediaPress: How did You get to know PediaPress and its service?

Dr Reinhard Runkel: I found out through the Wikipedia Main Page.

PP: Which was the first book you created?

RR: Hygiene im Krankenhaus - ein Kompendium (Hygiene in the hospital - A Compendium)

PP: You have ordered more than 40 Books through the PediaPress service. Among them books about Football, Politics and Economics, and Medicine. Do you feel that the quality of Wikipedia articles is good in those topics?

RR: Absolutely – where I doubt competence, I sort out. Otherwise, I add facts with the help of scientific citations.

PP: Are there any other topics in Wikipedia you would consider making books about?

RR: A whole lot - there is not limit put on creativity. I get suggestions from colleagues and friends.

PP: Are the books You created for You? For others? How do you (plan to) use the books (in what context?)

RR: 1) as reference books for myself and my colleagues (Medicine)

2) as surprise/present for friends, whose interests I know or could find out about.

PP: How do other people react to the books you create?

RR: "Where do you find the time?" is the question I hear most often. The effort is actually not so much of an effort. On the contrary, I have a lot of fun putting the books together and I learn a whole lot while doing so, especially with the English texts.

PP: Is there anything that you wish PediaPress would offer on top of the actual service proposed?

RR: The layout is great, hard covers and color content are an option that turned out very well. I would find it great to have a book format that fits in a lab coat's pocket (125x97mm), with smaller font size. I'd come up with many ideas for this format.

A big thank you to both Dr Current and Dr Runkel, it is always extremely interesting to get insight about how Wikipedia material can be used and distributed offline. If you have a Wikipedia book experience you would like to share, don't hesitate to contact us to tell it!

[1] note: the interview was conducted in German and translated into English