Help:Books/Feedback

Status last updated 23 August 2020.

Template:Nav book tool

How to report issues	How to escalate issues
please check whether this issue is already known provide a link to an article that is affected by the issue report only one issue per section select a descriptive title consider prefixing the title with Bug, Proposal, Question, Comment, Task ... remember to sign your post with ~~~~ consider warning readers of the problem by placing |bug=... in the {{saved book}} template of relevant books	There is a central page at meta.wikimedia.org gathering all major issues with this extension. Issues that can't be solved and are not yet covered on the page at meta should be added there. For obvious bugs the issue tracker is the preferred place to directly issue and check tickets. At IRC #pediapress some immediate support might be available.

Book Splitting

Wikipedia clearly warns new editors that the Book Creator does not support large books with more than 500 pages. However, an alternative option is to fork a book just prior to the 500 page limit, by saving it under a unique title (or revision), prior to proceeding to adding more pages and subsequent topics, although later saves of the book may fail. Again, as already indicated, this method is highly likely to error out for many users and is not recommended. This is not a problem with technology, it is a problem with editorship.

For instance, most users cannot plan their book out in advance, such that each saved volume contains 500 or fewer pages (give or take), because most books grow in an utterly random fashion similar to the Bell Curve of a pile of dung dripping from a cave ceiling, but with a tail that skews to the right. In other words, book size (as number of pages) grows non-linearly as a function of numerous random variables, including the grow of semantic topics included in the book. Perhaps the correlation closest to a linear relationship is the growth RATE in pages, against the growth rate of topical scope, although this would be difficult to operationalize. Thus, central topics fill more pages added, in early-stage book growth, with topical scope widening at a fast rate, then narrowing again at a slower rate (of pages added per change in scope). Additionally, more fringe topics tend to fill in gaps between central topics, at a nearly steady rate per click throughout the process of book creation, but represent very nearly the only added pages, near the final stages of book creation.

It is significant to note here that most users [whether planned or not] alphabetically organize their books, as a last step before saving them, although almost half of all books do not get saved permanently, and another smaller percentage of books never even get saved. This is theorized to represent compensation for lack of organization of the book. However, a much better method for compensating for lack of organization, is to actually organize the book, which might require segmentation into more manageable chapters and volumes first. Thus, for a typical non-linear, poorly planned, and unpredictable 'non-central growth' model and given the likelihood that few pages will be deleted from most created books, either as drafts or in a final pruning or quality control stage, editors can save lower quality final works as multiple volumes instead of higher quality single volumes, and still retain the option of future refinement, without any immediate compromise in total pages included.

The best approach to content splitting (for the average editor) is to save a work-in-progress multiple times (under 2 titles), and then delete pages from each volume accordingly, prior to adding pages to each volume. By such a method therefore, a multi-volume book might grow indefinitely through iterative splits. For example, at 500 pages, one could save one's book with the title "Big:Volume 1", and then immediately save exactly the same book again as "Big:Volume 2" (still, with exactly the same 500 pages). Next, the user would delete pages 250-500 from Volume 1, and delete pages 1-250 of Volume 2. Then the user could proceed (once again) with the task of randomly surfing and "filling in" their book with accidentally discovered candidate pages for each of the two volumes (technically, now two separate books), via the navigation patterns of click-through behavior documented by web analytic research. Of course, an even superior method (albeit unlikely) would simply be to plan one's editorial work out in advance, in terms of topical coverage, order, audience, goals, etc., and use an iterative PAGE-DELETION methodology with at least two drafts, thus excluding less critical pages and creating a final piece of higher value.

Can't find the way to include pages from different languages in one book

(I'm sorry if this should be reported elsewhere but I couldn't find this information neither in FAQ nor in Help pages). I'd like to include Wikipedia pages from different languages to single book, but it seems that Book creator is always initialized independently for each language and pages are added independently as well - does it mean that there is no way to combine such pages? Maybe it's worth to include the answer to the FAQ. Thanks.

Non 0 exit code after progress reaches 100%

It is almost November 2015 and when I click in "Download as a PDF" on the following article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessel_function, I got "Status: Rendering process died with non zero code: 1". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.225.71.160 (talk) 19:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

It would be nice if someone would create a response to this problem, like the one I see when my browser fails, "Well this is embarrassing . . . ," because it is. I've been ur for 24 hours trying to do something I've done frequently, but now cannot do to save my life. Say what? How dumb is this? Very! I'm sure I won't get a response, so I take it, it doesn't matter what I say here. Dissatisfied user, Kkhemet (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, just to make this section as complete as the Wikipedia itself (!) : This bug is still present today (Aug 2015). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vbbhasti (talk • contribs) 18:04, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I am trying to create a copy of this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Machine_Learning_-_The_Complete_Guide). I tried 3 times but the result is the same. After the progress reaches almost 100% the process fails with a non zero exit code.

May I know whether I can do something? Thanks. Sarmadys (talk) 20:07, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I have been trying to download a book that I compiled and every time I try to download, when it reaches 100%, this pops- up "Generation of document file has failed. STATUS: Rendering the process died with non zero code: 1". I have tried this over a few times and the results are still the same. I hope this problem can be solved in the near future. 119.94.5.46 (talk) 12:31, 17 December 2014 (UTC) Maue Zamora

I am having the same error, progress reaches almost 100% then fails with: "Rendering failed \ Generation of the document file has failed. \ Status: Rendering process died with non zero code: 1". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.0.63.254 (talk) 03:58, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

There are more of us experiencing the same issue is there a size limit if so please let us know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rjdrescher (talk • contribs) 20:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Same problem: Rendering failed Generation of the document file has failed. Status: Rendering process died with non zero code: 1 Return to Book:Machine Learning – The Complete Guide — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.83.184.121 (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I have the problem with the code "Rendering process died with non zero code: 1"
The link of the book is "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Michaelt1964/B%C3%BCcher/P%C3%A4pste"
It is a more complex book with 20 chapters divided into 3 main sections. The error code appears after completion massage "100%". Thanks for response.

Kind regards Michaelt1964 (talk) 11:21, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I am having the same problem with "Rendering process died with non zero code: 1" after completion of 100% of rendering of a book to pdf. the book has about 40 articles/wikipedia pages and i made a table of contents with about 6 chapter headings. Some of the chapters have tables in them, (e.g. wikipedia articles in English on "Plant", "Green_algae", and "Bryophyte"). I've tried changing paper size (A4/letter), changing table of contents settings (auto, on, off), and changing columns (1, 2) but alway get same failure to render to pdf with above message. Thank you for any assistance. Here is the book saved on my wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SinkingCreek/Books/A_Survey_of_Plant_Diversity best wishes, Tim. Jan 16, 2015 "SinkingCreek" — Preceding unsigned comment added by SinkingCreek (talk • contribs) 00:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

HOW TO FIX ??? Same rendering error - Rendering process died with non zero code: 1. Most likely a heap size issue or generation issue on incompatible content. Why can't we get the detail errors listed as an option instead of the return code?

If this is a free service, why can't we get error feedback in the browser so we can edit or split the book to resolve the issue?

I don't think this is because your files are too big (although I suppose it could be), because this exact same thing is happening to mine, too, and it's just 14 articles, several of which aren't even that long. I just took each article found at https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/E-government and re-compiled it into a collection in the order of the book table of contents listed there. I wish some people would fix this issue as it seems to stretch at least as far back as 2014 October, or at least that's the timestamp for the first bug report shown here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SarahTehCat (talk • contribs) 00:31, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm having the same problem in April 2015. I'm not sure these Help pages are being monitored by anyone who can fix this problem. Pulamusic (talk) 13:54, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

This problem is persisting through late April 2015. Hopefully it'll get fixed, but looking at the history here, I doubt it. Harnessedsea (harnessedsea) 19 April 2015 — Preceding undated comment added 15:40, 18 April 2015 (UTC) I am getting the same error for almost third of the Wikipedia books I tried to download (computer science books) and the ones I tried to create (complexity problems and unsolved problems in computer science). Most of the times it happens both at size A4 and Letter. Sometimes it fails for one size but succeeds for the other. I prefer letter paper size (Canada) but sometimes I only was able to generate A4 and most times neither. These are the Wikipedia books listed under category computer science and also those under computational problems. This bug is marked as low. It should be raised to high. This is Apr 27 2015. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.245.234.120 (talk) 17:43, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

It is June 16, 2015, and the problem continues (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Folder1/Books/John_Barrymore). I attempt to save as PDF and get this error message:
→ Rendering failed.
→ Generation of the document file has failed.
→ Status: Rendering process died with non zero code: 1.
Well, yeah, I noticed. It's a simple book: 36 pages. Have tried adding/deleting articles, saving the book with a new name. The rendering process continues dying. Umpteen different "help" documents on Wikipedia about creating, saving, printing books; no answers in any of them. Have looked for answers on non-Wikipedia sites, without success. Does anyone at Wikipedia even care about this bug? It's like talking to air… Username: folder1 / Real name: Peter F 22:16, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

It's my opinion that Wikipedia ceased to be a vibrant community of responsive editors years ago, when the tide turned towards Deletionist trolls, and every article had to be defended against ad hoc standards of notability. Since then, the enormous body of knowledge we created in the early years has been degraded, becoming less and less usable. That's why I stopped editing. Ok, climbing down off my soap box. Yes, I'm having the same problem generating a book. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin (talk) 20:39, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I am having a similar problem and can't seem to find a solution to my problem anywhere, which is, attempting to download book as a PDF, during rendering it stops at progress: 36.67% status: creating attribution page (wiki page: enwiki:[Parsoid]) and it freezes here. I try refreshing the page as is suggested and it only reloads to exactly the same page in the same spot. I am not able to progress any further. I tried the back button numerous times and each time the rendering stops/freezes in the exact same place every time. I would really like to download my book could anyone please help me with this problem??? CuriouslySeeking (talk) 16:38, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I have a temporal, but unsatisfying solution: Save your book and try edit the pages with page creator. Just delete some of the pages, each for each (be sure you saved it before) and try to render it. After you delete the page which produces the error (? such like "messiah" in my case) you're able to render and download it - without this page. Hope it helps. Lugsciath~enwiki (talk) 11:00, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Same error, "Status: Rendering process died with non zero code: 1," continues (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Algorithms ). I have tried to render the book a month ago, but the problem is on going. The progress has stopped at the PDF compiling stage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.67.246.163 (talk) 13:31, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Possible cause

November 25 2015 - I think I might have accidently discovered the problem. I was creating a pdf on early civilizations and got the same error message as everyone else. After trying a few dozen times, I decided to just download each page as a single pdf and merge them later. Every page worked.

Except one: Babylon.

When I tried to download that page I received this message: "! Package polyglossia Error: The current roman font does not contain the Syriac"

I removed Babylon from my book...and it worked perfectly.

Could THAT be the problem?

Justin

This piece of wikitext is causing it: {{lang-syc|ܒܒܠ}} (lang-syc of course indicates Syriac characters, as per the error message). I copied Babylon to a test page and the pdf failed with the same message. Then I clipped the offending code and the pdf worked just fine. So it looks like you are on to something. Cool! and Thank you!! All we need now is a coding expert willing to work for free.... — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:22, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah I think that's it! I tried to download a book about the world's largest companies and I failed. I then removed all of the Chinese Companies and it succeeded!- York12321 (Talk) 11:15, 75 November 2015 (UTC)

You are right as it seems problem is actually linked to some specific code in some specific page. I experienced same issue with French Wiki page on Plasence town when compiling a book on Estremadura. I am not experienced enough to make somme accurate testing but there is no such alphabet issue there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB00:67F:8600:B422:DE64:CE64:3F75 (talk) 18:58, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Another similar problem I recently found was down to broken HTML code in the page, where it contained <em>something<em>, creating two open em containers, instead of <em>something</em> which closes off correctly. The best thing is to copy the page to your sandbox bit by bit, clicking the "Download to PDF" link each time to see where it crashes. Then take a close look at that piece of wikitext. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

February, 19th 2016: I've had the same problems and it worked when I selected 2 columns instead of one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.96.45.110 (talk) 12:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit also fails due to this code File:LavabitCourtDocuments.pdf I am trying to figure out how to fix this but it seems like good HTML code. You will have to look at the source of wikipedia's article on Lavabit to see what I mean. Any thoughts? Josiah.k.powell (talk) 12:31, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Is it Time to create a code bounty using Bountysource? Where does Wikimedia take direct funding for fixing specific issues?Unfortunately, phabricator wikimedia's bug reporting tool is NOT supported on bountysource as yet Long story short, if we want something, we'll have to pay developers/coders to fix this issue.DennisDaniels (talk) 14:03, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I was told about Wikipedia Books years ago. I've been trying it for the last couple of days, and it still can't do the only thing it's supposed to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.36.243 (talk) 23:42, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Infoboxes and tables do not appear in PDFs

I wonder why the infoboxes and tables do not appear in the PDF version of articles, after rendering. I tested a few articles in Wikipedias in English (en) and Portuguese (pt), and the problem persists in both versions. Thanks in advance! Fúlvio (talk) 22:41, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Same problem on my Mac 10.6.8. PDF rendering worked fine till a couple of weeks ago, then consistently leaves out infoboxes and tables. Have I accidentally changed PDF preferences? Djbcjk (talk) 10:53, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

As you say, it doesn't work currently. There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 131#Download as PDF does not print infoboxes. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:08, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Now when I go to 'Downland as PDF' it returns a message 'Book rendering failed'. What on earth is going on? Is anybody fixing this mess? Djbcjk (talk) 11:32, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Looks like it went to village pump technical and got a kiss-off. Apparently they changed the software or something and are now hoping for magic volunteer genies to fix what WMF broke. But as I said there, this still a problem. The tables and infoboxes are still not appearing. I tried this on two different featured articles, and as anyone can see if you do a "download as pdf", critical information is omitted. On Appaloosa, where the breed infobox and a critical illustrated chart of coat color patterns is omitted, and on California Chrome the pdf version omits the infobox and a chart of all his racing statistics (material that is really not easy to render in a simple bulleted list.) I'd say that if WMF broke it, they need to fix is and not wait for volunteers to do it. Montanabw^(talk) 20:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Tried rendering List of mountains in Seoul and the table (the whole reason for this article BTW) did not appear. Both tables and info boxes play a big role in the book I am putting together on Korean mountains. Kellnerp (talk) 06:28, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Since it looks like it's been a few months since anyone said anything about this, I just thought I'd mention that tables and infoboxes still don't seem to be showing up on the PDFs even now. Alphius (talk) 20:53, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

bump --Trödel 21:12, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Bump again 194.47.243.183 (talk) 10:28, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Vorrei sapere perchè le tabelle non esistono nei pdf o nei libri con più pagine. Esistono intere pagine che si basano solo sulle tabelle (un esempio lampante è la pagine sull'elenco dei passeggeri del Titanic. In realtà è un insieme di tante tabelle. Che ovviamente non appaiono nel pdf) e molte altre pagine che hanno dati e informazioni importanti nelle tabelle. PRETENDO di poterle vedere sia nei pdf che nei libri!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.211.214.206 (talk) 06:45, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Translation: "I would like to know why there are no tables in pdf or books with more pages. There are whole pages that are based only on tables (a prime example is the page on the list of passengers on the Titanic. It is in fact a series of many tables. That of course does not appear in the pdf) and many other pages that have important data and information in tables. PRETEND you can see them both in pdf and in books!!!!." — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:04, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Si prega di leggere il messaggio di avviso nella parte superiore di questa pagina di aiuto. (Translation: Please read the warning box at the top of this help page.) — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:04, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

This still seems to be broken. Is anyone working on this? How do we get some visibility on this to get it fixed? Bkellihan (talk) 06:12, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

You find a developer willing to work on it as a volunteer. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:31, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Or persuade the Wikimedia Foundation to expend scarce resources on it. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:39, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

At the least, a warning, or some kind of sign should appear in the page to tell you that the content is not rendered. And a warning in book creator itself, so you know before you go to print it that it won't include some content. I find the only workaround is to show the printable form of the page, and then print that as pdf. 106.154.28.39 (talk) 00:40, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Problems and Suggestions regarding wikibook

Thanks for this feedback pole on Wikibook. Here I post, the problems that I’m facing as user.

• 1. When the book is open, but not under edit in book-creator (eg. edits just saved) ; the pages/links are allowed to clicked to add (+’d ), shows signs as-if they are successfully added; but they actually doesn’t get added in the book. Even after opening book-creator and several reloads, they doesn’t appear. The only way to include them, is remembering those articles, then clicked to remove (-’d) , then starting edit with book creator; then adding (+) the pages again.

So please ensure successful inclusion of links into the book, when-ever and where-ever the options for add (+) and remove (-) page is available.

• 2. After adding a link (while editing is on) each time, it need to Reload the page.

Please include the new-entries automatically, without reload.

• 3. On clicking remove (-) icon on links/pages, the respective page on book are so easily getting deleted. So, erroneous or accidental click on remove (-) icon on pages, often deletes important pages.

So, please do-not allow so-easy deletion of entries. Show at-least 2 warnings, and may also provide “turn off” the page removal button. On the book, keep a trace of pages deleted from outside/inside the book.

• 4. While re-ordering the pages on book, I need to drag the heading (sometimes scrolling) ; across all-other headings(page-names) . That confuses where to place the heading. Also, when the mouse fails to drag accurately, some-other heading get scrambled and misplaced. That is terrible.

(Surprisingly, I’m seeing, book-creator can recognize dragging error, and place such wrongly-dragged page-name into the initial zone. However, sometimes it acts on correct-drags also. )

So, a simple, effective remedy could-be taken: Please provide all the new-entries on a separate, Side- Palette. They could be scrolled separately. Then we could scroll the existing book-content to find the proper place, & then click-and-drag the respective new-entry into proper-place of the book. This-will help to avoid scrolling through so-many headings(page-names).

• 5. There are also many-other problems with Click-and-drag.

i. The page-names, often change their place automatically. Causes I don’t know.
ii. The page-names, change their place automatically, if I replace a page-name >1 times on a single edit-session.
iii. While dragging 1 page-name, sometimes, >1 page-names get moved, simultaneously. Causes I don’t know.

So , please ensure the chapter-names don’t change their place automatically. If this is caused by problems with temporary auto-save ( … I guess), then there is a simple way.
Instead of temporary-auto-save, use temporary-manual-save. Provide option like “lock it” or “Stepple it” or “pin it” or such, that is to be manually selected by user. Once placed, if the user again wants to change place of a page-name, the user must have to manually select an option like “unlock it” or “remove stepple” etc. Thus, the computer/server will easily understand, which-one change is done by the user. Thus, the automatic dance of the chapters could be avoided.
Before proceed to change place of another page-name, user must-have to Lock the the previous page-name.

Also, several-pages (under a chapter-heading) could be “grouped” manually, so-that all-the pages in a chapter, stay together. If someone want to move a whole chapter (with all its pages, maintaining sequence), this “manual” grouping would help.

By this way, usually, I don’t need the “arrange alphabetically” option. More-over, accidental/ erroneous click on this option can destroy months or years of labor to re-order. So, please keep an option to turn-Off this option, and also display warnings.

• 6. Many copies of the same book, generated. There are 2 folders/drives to save the books. They often become different.

Please ensure, while saving the last-edit, both-copies get updated simultaneously and automatically. Warn, if I start edit an old-version. Notify, I’m editing on latest revision. Please display, conflicts in recent edits, specially, if there are some-pages more in older-versions, those are absent in newer version.

• 7. Some informations such-as book-descriptions, problems(bug command), copyleft cover etc. doesn’t get saved after few-edits. They’re to be set again and again.

Please automatically add them to next edits

RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 10:02, 3 April 2016 (UTC) RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 05:58, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Not Satisfied with PDF Download. PDF output Missing important portion of Article.

Recently I downloaded a PDF copy of the article Electrical connector , and it struck my eyes that an image present in the main article Electrical connector#Keying the 3 images of examples for keyed connectors, are absent in the PDF output. Though it is important part at the interior-portion of article. (I didn't checked, is there any text-portion missing. But I well-checked the 3 images are no-where in the PDF) .

I repeatedly downloaded >1 times, and every time the exactly-same, error-containing output obtained.

If there's any way to submit the PDF-file for further examination, I can send the file to Wikipedia. Please inform me

Now, I logically assume , this-kind of error can taking place every now-and then.

So please diagnose the error. It was a single Wiki page. But the same could occur in a Wikibook. if in 1 page there could occur 1 mistake, in a printed-book, >1 mistake can occur.

RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 16:11, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Please read the WARNING in a large box at the top of this page. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:47, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Informed in Village pump -> Phabricator. RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 14:37, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Gently drawing attention of Wikipedia and Wikimedia foundation to Re-start the management process in a near-future

If

The Book Creator software has been crippled since it was rebuilt in 2014, the management process is inactive, and no fixes are in sight.

Then

What to do?

Is there any way to re-start that management process?

Why the softwares could-not be updated? Does the experts (Who developes and curate data on Wikipedia) don't know the structure of the programs? is that possible? If it is not so, then, is there any sign of start of a management process in a near future?

I did-not meant to take it as a pressure. Please. Rather I friendly tried to gently draw attention on this topic to experts and Wikimedia foundation.

Thanks and all the best wishes. RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 15:19, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

There is a very simple way to re-start the management process - volunteer. Or at least, persuade someone else to. The Wikimedia Foundation do not currently see it as a priority for the limited resources they have available. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:55, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Import a list of Articles

There is also a previous user’s request for importing a list from browser bookmarks. The 500 page issue will need to be addressed first before my request is addressed (even if I do it by letter, A, B..).

I download all my liked articles, so far I have 2,516 of them. It would be good if I can bind all of (the updated versions of) them as explorer takes a while to open the folder. I can extract article list from the command prompt (output goes to file instead of screen, then use npp to replace characters so I can column delimit properly in excel), all I need is somewhere to dump them… I know that there is a wiki disk download but my articles are more than just a taste of a subject. Charlieb000 (talk) 08:12, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

"The Book Creator software has been crippled since it was rebuilt in 2014"; "the situation is not going to change"

Frankly I'm wondering how these two statements can be justified together. If the system is broken, it should either be abandoned or fixed. My particular concern is consistemt failure to render equations in the right hand column in such a way that they don't fall off the right hand side of the page in PDF and get truncated. For many pages, this issue renders the PDF essentially useless. Indeed, since the web page is single column, why convert to two column for the PDF at all?

212.159.59.5 (talk) 06:58, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Well you could also argue, why even have PDF rendering software any longer. Any mac and modern windows machine can just "Print" to a PDF file right from the Print menu. :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:59, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

I have now restored a previous version of the warning which explains that the management process is inactive - the WMF have things they care about more for the foreseeable future. The maths issue is known. Two columns are common in article-based publications of large (e.g. A4) page format, but it is far from universal and I agree that it would be good to be able to override it. I would invite TheDJ to prepare an entire bookful of articles for retail publication, using only their web browser. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:41, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

My point was that if your goal is to print to A4 PDF, that there are some fine solutions out there. When it comes to book print, then it is a layouting issue and a browser, PDF and Latex are all just layouting engines, neither of the three defines an actual layout in itself and definitely not the rules for converting between the 3 different layout systems. I think it's rather clear that WMF and PediaPress are not investing in book print right now, so if this is your interest, you will have to make investments yourself to perfect that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:32, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

The Book Tool No Longer Appears Above Article Pages

I recently discovered the Book tool a few days ago, and after I enabled it, the interface tool appeared above all of the articles. However, due to time constraints, I elected to save creating a book for later. Now, I went back to try to create a book, and the interface box no longer appears above articles. I am still able to add links directly to the book when I mouse over them, but without the interface box, I am unable to look at, organize, or purchase any book I make. Is this an issue that other people are having, and if so, how can I fix it? Jionunez (talk) 00:53, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

@Jionunez: It works for me. Does Special:Book work for you? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:49, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Yeah, that page works, thanks. It's still annoying that the box still doesn't show up, but at least I can work on the book. Thanks! Jionunez (talk) 02:44, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

@Jionunez: You probably clicked "[hide]" to the right of the tool above the article. You should be able to get it back by deleting a cookie in your browser. The method depends on the browser. See e.g. http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-delete-cookies-in-chrome-firefox-safari-and-ie/. Delete the cookie "dismissSiteNotice" for en.wikipedia.org. You can also delete all your cookies or all your browsing data but this may have many other effects on the websites you use. Or you can use another browser where you haven't clicked "[hide]". If you want to keep a book you are working on then save it first. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:44, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Thanks, that fixed it! Seems like more of a hassle than is should be to get it back, but its back now. Jionunez (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree it's complicated. It took me some time to work out and I haven't found an easier method than deleting the cookie. I'm a volunteer editor and not a developer. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:54, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Content in wikitables will not render

As an experiment, I created a book about Lecrae, and the content part turned out fine. However, anything in a wikitable, such as his filmography, discography, and awards, will not render at all, leaving many sections blank. Is this a known issue?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 06:18, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

@3family6: Yes; see the warning box at the top of Help:Books. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:00, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Filed as issue https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T140414 . --Wikinaut (talk) 01:36, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Draft namespace

It seems like this tool was never enabled in the draft namespace. Is there any reason it shouldn't be, and barring any, could it be enabled? --AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 23:28, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Drafts are by their nature below publishable quality. Why would we want to make unpublishable-quality books? Better to get the pages published first and then tweak them for better book rendering. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)