User:Whiteknight/New Book Guide/Book Creation

Whiteknight's Book Guide

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Creating the New Book

Once you have your outline, there is a minor decision to be made as to how you are going to create the new book. There are two basic options:

1. You can move the page with the outline from your user namespace (if you have a page at all) into the main module namespace at the proper location. To do this, click the "Move" tab at the top of the page, and write the title of your book (using proper title caps) into the "To new title" box and click the "Move page" button.
2. You can create a new page from scratch, and copy+paste your outline into it, or type in the outline. To do this, type the new title of your book into the search box on the left and click "Go". This will bring you to the empty page where you can start editing like normal.

In either situation, a book could already exist at that location. In the case of a page move, you will not be allowed to move one page over top of another page. In the case of creating the book from scratch, when you click the "Go" it will take you to the existing book instead of to a blank page. You should either find a new title for your book, or else you should consider contributing to the existing book instead.

Moving the Outline

If you move the outline from your user namespace, the entire page history will be visible. This means that all the experimenting that you did on the outline will be available to people, including experimenting that you might have done which you don't want other people to see. Also, you will need to remove from the outline any "metadata" that isn't supposed to be part of the book. This can include comments and notes, questions, or options that don't need to be in the book.

Starting from scratch

If you want to start the page from scratch, without moving the outline from a preexisting location, you need to double-check that there is currently no book with that name (which there shouldnt be, if you have already done your research). If no page exists, you can jump right into it, or else you can employ a semi-automated tool for the purpose such as one of my Book Creation Gadgets.

Book Creator Gadget

Type the name of your new book into the text box and click "Create new Book". If you see the words "NEW PAGE AVAILABLE" at the top of the page, there is no page with that name and you are free to create your new book. If you do not see those words, the page already exists and you should not write your new outline there without checking it out first.

Double-Check Your Title before you click "Save". If you have a typo in this box, that's the name of your book and it will need to be changed. Make sure you type the title carefully in this box, following proper title-caps guidelines.

Book Creator Gadget (Version 2.01)
To start creating a new book, type the name of your book in this box, and some text will be preloaded for you.

If the words "NEW BOOK AVAILABLE" do not appear at the top of the edit window, the book already exists. You can try again with a new title, or you can contribute to the pre-existing book.

Remember that if there is currently a book with the same title as your intended new book, you might be better off just contributing to and improving the existing book instead of starting a new one.

Book Designer Gadget

If you want more flexibility, and are willing to install Javascript on your account to operate it, you should consider installing my Book Designer Gadget. It represents a series of useful tools for designing and creating a book. The installation and usage instructions for it are located on it's page.