Pressbooks - Overview (UW-Madison)

Pressbooks is an innovative, open-source tool and is still emerging as an enterprise-level platform with predictable performance. Please take this into account when deciding to use Pressbooks for the creation of course and assignment materials. Learn@UW-Madison continues to track and document known issues with Pressbooks.

This document provides information about the content authoring platform Pressbooks, including tips on how to get started using the tool.

Pressbooks logo

What is Pressbooks?

Pressbooks is a content authoring platform that lets you create and host custom, interactive texts for the web and in formats like PDF, MOBI, and EPUB. Authoring in Pressbooks is based on Wordpress, so a basic understanding of HTML is useful but not necessary. In addition to embedding images, videos, and other media within a text, interactive features, such as in-text knowledge checks using H5P and annotations using Hypothes.is, can also be embedded into Pressbooks.

Getting Started

If you are affiliated with UW-Madison and would like to use Pressbooks, please contact the DoIT Help Desk for an account. In your request, please include 

  • Your NetID 
  • A brief description of what your goals are with Pressbooks 

You will receive an email when your account is created, which will include your username and a link to reset your password. Once you have an account and have reset your password, you can log in to Pressbooks at wisc.pb.unizin.org. 

Pressbooks Resources

If you'd like to meet with a consultant about Pressbooks, please contact the DoIT Help Desk and request a consultation with the Learn@UW-Madison team. There are also several self-help resources you can utilize:

See Also: