Help:Books/Feedback/Archives/2009/September

Hebrew prints backwards

Title says it all. CoolGuy (talk) 15:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Contributors list still necessary?

Now that Wikipedia is CC-BY-SA, article contributors no longer need to be explicitly listed in the PDF; only the URLs of the pages need to be included. Is there an option to suppress the output of article contributors from the PDF? Should this be the default since most readers/users won't care about the writers?

Also, is there a reason Wikipedia and its motto (i.e. "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia") aren't explicitly mentioned anywhere in the PDF? I would think the title page should have it under the subtitle, e.g. "based on [content from?] Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)" --Cybercobra (talk) 08:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Encouragement

I don't know why I never noticed the "Print PDF" link before, I have usually just clicked "Printable version" previously. I have now printed a few mathematiclally oriented articles as pdf instead of using the printable version link, and I must say that I am very positively surprised at the vastly improved look-and-feel there is with the PDF version.

It creates very nice results with an overall surprisingly good layout considering how little effort is normally being put in the layout of the wikipages (focusing on web layout and not printed versions). I like the licenses section at the back listing all the users who have contributed and the licenses of all media used in the article.

I realize that an immense effort must have gone into making the wikitext render so nicely in pdf, and this is just a thumbs up/encouragement to its creators and maintainers; although there are always numerous of small improvements and bugs to solve, the overall impression is that it is a professional feature of great value.

Thanks to all involved in making this!

--Slaunger (talk) 14:06, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the encouragement! Feel free to report the issues that you notice - this helps in improving the book tool. --Volker.haas (talk) 07:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Problem with References

On cs.wiki, where Colection Extension was just enabled, I found a problem with references for article cs:Úhoř říční (Euopean eel; see PDF export [1]) Many of listed references are not numbered while some of them are, even these are done the same way. I really don't understand what could cause it and how to fix it. --Reaperman (talk) 09:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out this bug. It's fixed now - the servers will be updated. --Volker.haas (talk) 07:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Bug: Book doesn't autosave

Affected pages: special:allPages

I spent 2 hours painstakingly putting together a book. Leaving my browser open, I went out for 2 hours, and came back only to find my book had mysteriously disappeared! One question: WHY DOESN'T IT AUTOMATICALLY SAVE IT BEFORE DELETING IT WILLY NILLY? And this is a bug, it is simply unacceptable behaviour.

/me spends another two hours getting back to the same point where I was before, then will probably lose it again :( --Muzer (talk) 19:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Faced the same problem. the save button is hidden inside the 'load book' section and is likely to be missed. when additions are by clicking on 'add page to book' instead of by editing book directly, such additions should be saved automatically.

sandy (talk) 06:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Inline <code> Element treated as a block (new paragraph)

This issue should be resolved after the next software update.

In several computer related articles, you will find a lot of computer commands used with the inline <code>-HTML element. In the PDF, however, they are treated as a block element, thus putting the code on its own line (line breaks before and after). The result is a somewhat difficult to read text (especially the standalone punctuation signs on a given line).

Examples (from Advanced Packaging Tool)

A major feature in APT is the way it calls dpkg - it does [[topological sorting]] of the list of packages to be installed or removed and calls dpkg in the best possible sequence. In some cases it utilizes the <tt>--force</tt> options in dpkg. However, it only does this when it is unable to calculate how to avoid the reason dpkg requires the action to be forced.

The most used <code>apt-get</code> commands are <code>apt-get install ''package name''</code> (frequently the <code>''package name''</code> is simply the name of the desired executable application), <code>apt-get update</code>, <code>upgrade</code> and <code>apt-get dist-upgrade</code>.

This is rendered as follows in the PDF:

A major feature in APT is the way it calls dpkg - it does topological sorting of the list of packages to be installed or removed and calls dpkg in the best possible sequence. In some cases it utilizes the --force options in dpkg. However, it only does this when it is unable to calculate how to avoid the reason dpkg requires the action to be forced.

The most used

apt-get

commands are

apt-get install package name

(frequently the

package name

is simply the name of the desired executable application),

apt-get update

,

upgrade

and

apt-get dist-upgrade

.

The problem doesn't happen with <tt> as shown above. A simple fix would be to replace the inline code-element with a tt-element, however I don't know whether the usage of both is standardized in wikipedia. If the change has to be made, then it would probably be a case for a bot. Defrenrokorit (talk) 21:41, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Another way to fix it (and I would say that's the preferred way) would be to treat the code element as an inline element when generating the PDF. Defrenrokorit (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Tiny iPhone font

Dunno if this is easy to address but thought I'd share my first book download experience since someone out there is doing neat things with the phones. The font is quite small on my iPhone and does not seem to be adjustable here or there. IDave2 (talk) 06:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

We are aware of this problem. It will be solved by either offering different size options when creating the PDF or (better but more work) offering to download collections in the EPub format. --He!ko (talk) 08:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Also, the math comes out sketchy even on a big screen. I've seen this in other TeX contexts and think Donald's default font (still) targets professional high resolution printing machines; it never did look solid on a screen without some effort. IDave2 (talk) 18:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)