Step 3: Parts & Chapters

The Books4Languages writing interface enables you to create multiple sections within your TextBook.

Books4Languages TextBook contain at minimum three main parts of a book: Front Matter (things like copyright and preface), Back Matter (things like index and appendices) and the Main Body (the main content of the TextBook, typically made of up parts (Units) with chapters (Topics)).

By default, your TextBook will have these sections set up in the Books4Languages dashboard. Each of these parts of a TextBook is a container to which you may later add as many individual “chapters” as you want. Your TextBook may require different, fewer or more parts than the system default.

Parts (Units)

More information can be found at: https://guide.pressbooks.com/chapter/parts/

To add a part:

IF NEW PARTS ARE REQUIRED, BEFORE OR AFTHER THE UNITS.

• Go to any Chapter
• Click on Edit on the right side of the Header.
• Select the Add Part button (there are three buttons from which you can do this–on the left menu, on the top menu and between the main part of your book and the back matter). Clicking any of these will result in a new Part in the main body of your book.
• Enter the name for your part on the next screen. Ex: Unit 1.1.
• Add information about this part, if desired.
• Add a number in the box under Order to designate where your part appears (lower numbers appear higher in the book, closer to the front).
• At this stage, you can choose make the book part invisible, meaning you can use it to organize chapters behind the scenes, but it will not be noted in your book’s Table of Contents.
• Click Save.

To edit a chapter:

• Click on the red Edit button that aligns with the name of the part.
• Edit the title on the page that follows.
• Save.

You can check that your change is reflected by returning to the Organize Text screen from the dashboard.

To trash a part:

To delete a part: NOTE: You cannot delete the front matter or back matter parts of your book, but you can add or delete chapters within these parts, make these parts private or published and choose whether to include them in exports (more on this in Chapters). You can delete Main Body Parts. To do so:

• Click the red Delete button that aligns with the name of the part (Main Body, for example).
• Click OK on the popup that appears.

Chapters (Topics)

More information can be found at: https://guide.pressbooks.com/chapter/chapters/

To add a chapter:

1. Go to Organize from the left sidebar menu of your book’s dashboard
2. Click Add Chapter either within a part or from the left sidebar menu
3. Create a title and add content if desired
4. Click “Create”

To edit a chapter:

1. Go to Organize from the left sidebar menu of your book’s dashboard
2. Click the name of the chapter you’d like to edit
3. Make revisions to the content, the title, or the chapter settings
4. Click “Save”

To trash a chapter:

1. Go to Organize from the left sidebar menu of your book’s dashboard
2. Hover over the chapter that you’d like to place in the trash
3. Click “Trash”

You can also trash a chapter from the Status & Visibility menu, explained below.

To restore a trashed chapter:

1. Go to Organize > Trash from the left sidebar menu of your book’s dashboard
2. Find the title of the chapter or post you want to restore
3. Click the “Restore”button in the Action column

The post will automatically restore and be accessible from the Organize page.

To delete a chapter permanently:

1. Go to Organize > Trash from the left sidebar menu of your book’s dashboard
2. Find the title of the chapter or post you want to restore
3. Click the “Delete Permanently” button in the Action column

Once a chapter or any other post type has been permanently deleted, it cannot be restored or retrieved.

Reordering chapters:

To change the order of section in your book, you can hover your mouse over a section and click the Move Up or Move Down controls to move the section one step higher or lower within the order. You can also click and drag sections to quickly reorder content, and this especially helpful when moving Chapters between different Parts of your book.

Privacy

Each book section you create includes a check box in the “Show in Web” column, allowing you to choose if any given section appears as part of your webtextbook online. You might want to hide a single chapter if you are making substantial edits or adding a brand new chapter to an existing book. Clicking on “Show in Web” at the top of the column selects all of the check marks below.