Pressbooks

Spec sheet

What it does

Pressbooks is a book content-management system for publishing webbooks and exporting EPUB, PDF and XML formats.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Product

Pressbooks is a book content management system for publishing books to the public web and exporting formats including EPUB, PDF, and XML.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Audience

Pressbooks identifies educational institutions, academic presses, small publishers, and individual authors as users.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Support

Enterprise customers receive onboarding, email support, typically one-to-two-business-day responses, training and guidance on publishing and integrations.Read 15 Oct 2026 · networkmanagerguide.pressbooks.com

Founded

Pressbooks says Hugh McGuire founded it in 2011.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Company

Pressbooks says it began in Montreal and its team is now fully remote across Canada, the United States, and beyond.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Accessibility

The service advertises fully accessible digital books conforming to WCAG 2.2 and says its VPATs cover authoring and reading interfaces at A and AA levels.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

API documentation depth

The API is self-describing through OPTIONS requests and a context=help schema query, with separate endpoints for books and the multisite root.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Book organization

Authors can structure books with front matter, back matter, parts and chapters.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Company founding

LinkedIn lists 2011 as the founding year, matching Pressbooks’ own account that Hugh McGuire founded it that year.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com

Company headquarters

LinkedIn lists Montreal, Quebec as Pressbooks’ headquarters.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com

Company size

LinkedIn lists Pressbooks as a privately held book and periodical publishing company with 11–50 employees.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com

Developer resources

Official developer guides cover local setup, PHPStorm configuration, branching, coding standards, unit testing, theme development and the REST API.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Editing and exports

Self-Publisher supports importing content, organizing books into parts and chapters, and exporting files including PDF, EPUB, XML, XHTML, and Common Cartridge.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Export dependencies

Self-hosted installations require tools such as Ghostscript, ImageMagick, Poppler utilities, PrinceXML or DocRaptor, EPUBCheck and xmllint for various export functions.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Export limitation

The open-source mPDF PDF-export plugin is no longer maintained, so the installation guide advises using it at the operator’s own risk.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Grade passback

Pressbooks Results can send scores from gradable H5P activities to an LMS gradebook.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Hosting options

Users can use the hosted Self-Publisher service, have Pressbooks host an Enterprise Network, or host and maintain their own network.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Interactive content

H5P can be used to create, copy or embed quizzes and other interactive activities.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Legal founder

Pressbooks identifies Hugh McGuire as its founder and says the team operates remotely across Canada, the United States and elsewhere.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Limit: customization

An independent review says the template-based design is less flexible than bespoke design software such as Adobe InDesign.Read 15 Oct 2026 · toptenpublishers.com

Limit: distribution

An independent review notes that Pressbooks does not distribute books to retailers, so authors must upload exported files themselves.Read 15 Oct 2026 · toptenpublishers.com

Limit: subscription cost

An independent review says recurring subscriptions can become expensive for authors publishing only occasionally.Read 15 Oct 2026 · toptenpublishers.com

Limit: Trustpilot complaint

The sole reviewer reported being unable to export without resubscribing, export errors, incomplete files and inadequate support.Read 15 Oct 2026 · trustpilot.com

Limits

Pressbooks says larger media such as videos should be hosted on a dedicated streaming service and embedded, and media storage is limited by plan.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

LMS integration

Enterprise networks provide IMS Global-certified LTI integration and Pressbooks Results for connecting content with learning-management systems.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

LMS integrations

The LTI 1.3 integration works with Canvas, Moodle, D2L Brightspace, and Blackboard after institutional LMS administrator configuration.Read 4 Oct 2026 · guide.pressbooks.com

Media and notation

Books can include images, multimedia, glossaries, footnotes, mathematics and scientific notation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Open-source licence

Pressbooks is released as free software under GPL version 3.0.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Praise: collaboration

An independent review highlights multi-user editing as useful for coauthors, editors, educators and academic teams.Read 15 Oct 2026 · toptenpublishers.com

Praise: professional output

An independent review praises Pressbooks for producing professional files for print, ebooks and webbooks without requiring advanced design skills.Read 15 Oct 2026 · toptenpublishers.com

Product update: April 2026

The April 28, 2026 release added Content Toolkit scan statistics, faster scans, failure reporting, LTI optimizations and single-dollar MathJax delimiters.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Product update: March 2026

The March 25, 2026 release added accessibility autofixes, expanded translation workflows, renamed the Andreessen theme to bell hooks and added custom-font uploads for network managers.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Rating on Trustpilot

3.2 out of 5 from 1 reviewRead 15 Oct 2026 · trustpilot.com

REST API

Pressbooks exposes the WordPress REST API with GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE and OPTIONS methods; authentication must be configured separately.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Security and maintenance

Enterprise networks include managed hosting and regular security updates; self-hosted users are responsible for software and security updates.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Security statement

Pressbooks says enterprise hosting includes regular security updates, while its data-processing terms describe technical and organizational safeguards and AWS hosting.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Self-hosting

Organizations can run their own Pressbooks network, but must install dependencies and handle ongoing software and security updates.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Social annotation

Hypothes.is integration enables social annotation of book content.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Software license

The Pressbooks software is free and open source under the GPL v3.0 license.Read 4 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

SSO

Enterprise networks can connect to institutional identity systems through SSO, with SAML and CAS plugins documented for self-hosters.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Supported LMSs

The LTI documentation names Canvas, Moodle, D2L Brightspace and Blackboard as supported systems.Read 15 Oct 2026 · guide.pressbooks.com

Themes

Self-Publisher plans include more than 20 themes for changing book appearance.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.com

Underlying platform

The software is built on WordPress Multisite with substantial changes to administration, presentation and export processes.Read 15 Oct 2026 · pressbooks.org

Plans and prices

Every Pressbooks plan and price →

Where Specifiction places it

• eBook Creation Software#7 of 288.6