Wikipedia:Historical archive/WikiReader

This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. It was last substantively updated 23 August 2008‎.

WikiReaders are collections of articles from Wikipedia on a certain topic, in the form of PDFs published for download and intended to be printed, and also to be sold in printed form.

Their intention is to start a revision process on this topic and clarify the current state of this topic.

The state of the WikiReader project for other languages is at meta:WikiReader.

Currently, the German Wikipedia has three WikiReaders for sale, and several to download. The German Wikipedians are thus the pioneers of printing Wikipedia material. If you know German, read de:Wikipedia:WikiReader, and help us catch up and become "published".

Mirror of WikiReaders (mostly German now, since the other languages have to catch up first)

Wikipedia:Stable versions has the most appropriate articles for use in print.

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Frankfurt
• Scope - Frankfurt, Germany
• Editor - Qoop
• Release date - August 4, 2005
• Printed: This Wikireader is being printed by Qoop.com for Wikimania.

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Decade Volcanoes
• Editor: Worldtraveller
• Scope: Decade Volcanoes - those identified as the most hazardous and worthy of particular study
• v1.2 released 2 June 2006. PDF file here (1.60Mb). Please comment and give feedback!
• Printed: ?

• details and TOC: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Free Software and Free Contents
• current editor: User:TomK32
• release date: final PDF in August 2004.
• current preview-PDF: PDF (660kB)

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Gold Coast
• Editor: Nathannoblet
• Scope: Just about the gold coast
• Release date: Begun 2006.10.13. Close to first draft ready 2006.11.23.

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities
• Editor: Kevin Baas
• Scope: well 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities and sub-pages for starters. Also relevant laws, history, etc.
• Release date: Begun 2006.02.26. No release date.

• Details: User:Worldtraveller/Solar System WikiReader
• Editor: Worldtraveller
• Scope: Objects within the Solar System
• Release date: As soon as possible!
• Status: Getting the articles on the contents list up to scratch - several are featured, most have plenty of content, but general copyediting and polishing is required.

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Spoiler Warning
• Editor: Stbalbach
• Scope: The best of Wikipedia Spoiler Warnings
• Release date: project begun May 2005, no release date.
• Status: Looking for articles to be included!
• Note: Reader's Digest® is a registered trademark for a magazine and various books published by the company of the same name in the United States, and it will need a different name.

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/A History of the 20th Century
• Scope - Essentially Modern History, with a hopefully far broader scope than Wikipedia:World War II wikireader.
• Editor - Mark Lewis
• Release date - ?
• PDF - demo, with pics [1]

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Cetacea
• Scope: A collection of all articles concerning Cetacea (Species, Taxa, General)
• Editor(s): Achim Raschka
• Release date: 2005 (maybe printed)
• Status: at the beginning, a German Reader as a "template" exists

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader Methods of Molecular Biology
• Scope - Methods of Molecular Biology.
• Editor - Magnus Manske
• Release date -

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Poetries National and International
• Scope: A book of the articles describing and analysing 'poetries national and international', including the significant British, French, Irish, Urdu and Japanese categories within Wikipedia, as well as various lesser-known international poetries and poets.
• Editor: EuropracBHIT
• Release date: March 14 2005 (putatively).

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Software Engineering
• Scope:
• Languages: English, German
• Link collection: here
• Article improvement drive: here
• Editors: Hans-AC, ...
• Release date: unknown (end of 2005?)

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Best of Wikipedia Feb-March 2004
• Scope: Comprising each of the featured articles from the time period listed above.
• Editor: Lyellin
• Release date: None Set.

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Twentieth Century Hollywood
• Scope: Locates Hollywood in time and space (Part 1), talks about the people (Part 2-1 roles such as actors, directors, producers and cinematographers, while Part 2-2 concentrates on biographical data about the figures), the institutions (such as Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Paramount, MGM and Dreamworks) and the films that have made and shaped 20th century Hollywood, including Best Pictures editorially selected, as well as B-films and certain genres.
• Editor: User:EuropracBHIT
• Release date: Putatively, October 1st 2004. See Details for a more detailed timeline.

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/William Shakespeare
• Scope: About Shakespearan life and authorship and influence, as well as coverage of his most famous work
• Editor: ✏ SverdrupSverdrup
• Release date: Unknown

• Details: Wikipedia:World War II wikireader
• Scope - World War II-related topics - people, events, projects, devices.
• Editor - Raul654
• Release date - Postponed/no set date

• Details: Wikipedia:History of Latin America Wikireader
• Scope - History of the 19 countries of Latin America
• Editor - Youssef
• Versions - 0.2 in pdf not publishable, 186 pp all included
• Release date - Postponed/no set date

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Taipei
• Scope - Taipei related topics
• Editor - Students of National Taiwan University Computer Science and Information Engineering Department.
• Release date - Wikimania 2007

• Details: Wikipedia:WikiReader/The_Simpsons
• Scope - The Simpsons related articles
• Editor - cast_unshaken_kiloherz
• Release date - Postponed/no set date

• A compilation of Wikipedia's best unusual articles - suggested content list: Wikipedia:WikiReader/Encyclopaedia of the unusual
• A compilation of some of the best articles that have arisen from current events.
• A compilation of different sub categories from the Portal:Business and Economics (please move if wrong place Cryptonit)
• A compilation of articles related to The Beatles

OpenOffice.org is a free application that has been used for the first wikireaders to create PDFs.

There is an OpenOffice.org Template for German WikiReaders and there is a (unofficial) template in English. The English version is basically a copy (layout) of the German one.

The German Wikipedia project used Gynecology Reader use WIKI->PDFSkript to make a reader. This service was taken down in August 2005 because of software bugs, and has not been reactivated.

What worked:

• Basic formatting: bold, italics,
• Headers,
• Wiki-links and external links,
• Lists and indentation

What the script couldn't yet handle:

• Images
• Tables
• Templates

• Scribus is also a free text editor with PDF-export possibilities.
• The Eclipse Wikipedia Editor with PDF Exporter (proof-of-concept) uses iText, a free Java PDF library for converting HTML to PDF.

• de:Wikipedia:WikiReader
• meta:WikiReader
• Wikipedia 1.0 is a proposed version of the Wikipedia content on CD-ROM and paper. See User:Jimbo_Wales/Pushing_To_1.0 for earlier discussions.