Codex

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Creating a PDF of a Codex Article

Goal

  • To be able to download relevant parts of the WordPress documents to read at their convenience.
  • To ensure consistent printing of WordPress documentation (WYSISWYG).
  • To merge multiple Codex pages into single documents.

PDF format will not replace the Codex, but provide another distribution option for WordPress documentation. If you are new to WordPress, start here.

User requirements

Creator requirements

  • Open Office beta. This is a 75+ MB download (installing to approximately 220 MB).
  • In Linux, most applications will allow you to print to PostScript, which can then be converted to PDF with the ps2pdf utility.

There are other programs that produce PDFs, but they must be free and they must be able embed URLs.

Typography

Open Office beta (NOT the current stable)

Heading 1: Georgia  20px
Heading 2: Georgia  14px
Codex address on front page: Georgia 16px / 14px
Textbody : Arial 12px
OO defaults for margins, page sizes

All typography is up for discussion based solely on user feedback.

How to Create PDF Using Open Office

  1. Open the basic template in Open Office.
  2. On the target Codex page, highlight all of the text and copy it.
  3. In the template, paste the text.
  4. Once the text has been pasted you will need to remove:
    1. All [edit] links. (Do a search/replace - it's faster)
    2. Any TOC.
    3. Any links such as 'Back to Administration panel'.
  5. Also check for formatting:
    1. Center images.
    2. Ensure the start of the document has consistent text.
    3. Where a single line at the very end is causing a new page, try to adjust any spacing to remove the new page.
    4. Check for any obvious spelling errors.
  6. Save the work as an Open Office file.
  7. Export as a PDF.

Be sure to keep a backup copy of the basic template -- just in case you overwrite it.