800 page upper limit

[Andrew Whitworth]

How strict is the 800 page upper limit for printed books? Is there a
way we can increase this limit (possibly for a higher price point)? I
don't want to say it's common, but I've already found one book that's
larger. Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment, First
edition (there are three separate editions of it!!!) is a whopping 870
pages long, not including all the optional frontmatter that could have
been included. Obviously, for groups who have put so much effort into
their books, I would like to find a way for them to be able to buy and
enjoy them.

--Andrew Whitworth

[Heiko Hees]

Post by Andrew Whitworth
How strict is the 800 page upper limit for printed books? Is there a
way we can increase this limit (possibly for a higher price point)? I

No, this is a technical limit in the manufacturing process.

Post by Andrew Whitworth
don't want to say it's common, but I've already found one book that's
larger. Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment, First
edition (there are three separate editions of it!!!) is a whopping 870
pages long, not including all the optional frontmatter that could have
been included.

Since the printed books are typeset for A5 (8.5"x5.5") compared to the
PDFs in the wiki (A4), those collections would have even more pages
(maybe factor 1.5) when printed.

Post by Andrew Whitworth
Obviously, for groups who have put so much effort into
their books, I would like to find a way for them to be able to buy and
enjoy them.

The only solution I can currently think of is to split those books up
into 4-6 editions.

Heiko

[j.w. thomas]

Post by Heiko Hees
Since the printed books are typeset for A5 (8.5"x5.5") compared to the
PDFs in the wiki (A4), those collections would have even more pages
(maybe factor 1.5) when printed.

Could this explain the problem I've been having?
[[Collections:Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature]] renders a 622
page PDF. 1.5 times that is what... 911 pages? Jokes about 911 being
an emergency number aside, will exceeding 800 pages result in this error:

An Error Occured on the MediaWiki Site

Something went wrong on one of our servers. We're sorry and apologize
for the inconvenience! The problem has already been reported to
PediaPress staff. Please try again at a later time. Something went wrong
on the MediaWiki when your article collection was packaged.

Maybe if I divided the book into two volumes...

[Johannes Beigel]

Could this explain the problem I've been having? [...] will
An Error Occured on the MediaWiki Site

It shouldn't: The resulting page on pediapress.com should say "The
size of content exceeds our limitations" together with some
explanation text.

When the above error occurs, it means that an error occured somewhere
in the process when articles/templates/images are packaged on the
MediaWiki side and transferred to PediaPress.

About the problem with this particular collection
[[Wikibooks:Collections/Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book/Nature]]:
If you just load it and click the "Order book from PediaPress" button,
the error occurs. That's because at some point, the packaging process
for this collection had an error and the data is cached[1]. But if you
change something (e.g. enter a different title or subtitle) before
clicking the button, the packaging is triggered again and the upload
works (which *does* result in a book exceeding the current limits for
PediaPress books BTW :).

[1] How long the data is cached is configurable: It's a cron-Job that
has to be set up, which deletes all files that are older than N hours.

Maybe if I divided the book into two volumes...

It's definitely planned to offer this automatically to the customer on
PediaPress. Unfortunately, I can't give a timeframe for that.

-- Johannes Beigel