You may not be new to creating and using OER—collaboratively or on your own. So you may be familiar with other platforms that are used to create OER. In this chapter, you will learn about some of the features that may encourage you to choose Pressbooks for your next OER project.

Flexibility of Formats

When you compose in Pressbooks, you are creating a web version of your book or OER project. Pressbooks calls this web version of your book a webbook. Your students can access this webbook online and also download it for reading offline. Additionally, the webbook can easily be exported as a PDF for print or print on demand or as an EPUB for most e-readers.

For more information on webbooks and on producing other forms of your book, see the chapters What Is a Webbook?, Produce Ebook (EPUB) Exports, and Produce PDF Exports in the Pressbooks User Guide.

Unlimited Editing and Revising

You can add to, rearrange, edit, revise, and update your Pressbooks webbook at any time. The visual (WYSIWYG) editor and text editor (which enables you to view and edit HTML) will be familiar to you if you’ve previously worked in WordPress and is easy to learn if you don’t have that previous experience.

For more information on the visual and text editors, see the chapter Edit Content with the Visual & Text Editors in the Pressbooks User Guide.

Ease of Reusing, Remixing, and Collaborating

You can clone an entire book from another Pressbooks network for reuse, revision, and/or remixing for your own class. You can import chapters from other sources, including material you have created yourself, into your book. You can easily add images and other media to your book. And you can work with other authors, including your students, on a book—in fact, more than one person can work on the same book at the same time as long as you are working on different chapters.

Integration of Media and H5P Activities

With Pressbooks, you can incorporate different types of media into your webbook. You can upload images to the media library and display them. You can add embedded content—content that is hosted outside of your webbook but that your readers can view and interact with within the book. Everything your students need is in one place.

Additionally, you can use H5P, an open-source plugin, to add interactive content to your book, including quizzes and other learning activities. You can create these activities yourself or import H5P activities from elsewhere into your project.