Most books contain three primary components: Front Matter (things like copyright and preface), Back Matter (things like index and appendices) and the Main Body (at least one part with at least one chapter). In Pressbooks terminology, a part is a container which can contain as many individual chapters as you want. It may be helpful to think of a part as a discrete section or unit in your book.

When a book is first created in Pressbooks it has a single part called “Main Body” which contains a default chapter called “Chapter 1”. You can add more parts, and rename or delete existing parts, though your book should typically always contain at least one part.

Add a New Part

To add a new part to the main body of your book:

1. Click Organize > Add Part from the your book’s left-hand admin menu (or the Add Part button on the Organize page)
2. Enter a title for your part on the Add New Part page.
3. Add textual or other content for the part itself, if desired.
4. Add a number to the Order field in Part Attributes to control its placement relative to other parts in your book (parts are displayed in numeric order, with 0 appearing first, 1 next, 2 after that, and so on.)
5. Click the Invisible option in Part Visibility if you’d like to hide the part itself from your table of content and part numbering. Part visibility does not affect the visibility of any chapters contained within a part.
6. Click Save.
   

Delete a Part

If you’ve created a part that you no longer wish to include in your book, you can delete it. To do so:

1. Click Organize in your book’s left-hand admin menu.
2. Hover over the name of the part you’d like to delete and click Trash.
   

Edit or Rename a Part

To edit or rename an existing part:

1. Click Organize in your book’s left-hand admin menu.
2. Under the name of the part you’d like to edit, click Edit.
3. Make the desired changes
4. Click the Save button.

You can check that your change is reflected by returning to the Organize page from the dashboard. For a visual intro to parts and chapters, check out our tutorial video.

Make a Part “Invisible”

If you’d like to have more than one part in your book but want a certain set of chapters to appear as though they sit outside of any part, you can make the part in which they occur “invisible.” To create an invisible part:

1. On the Organize page, under the name of the part you’d like to make invisible, click Edit.
2. Find the Part Visibility panel.
3. Check the box for the Invisible setting.
4. Save your changes.

Afterward, the chapters in that part should appear in the table of contents as if they do not belong to a part. Below is an example of what a table of contents may look like with an Invisible part:

Change the Part Label

As previously noted, the default label for the organizing unit which contains chapters is “part”. If you’ve chosen to display part and chapter numbers in your book, you can replace this default label with the name of your choice. To customize the part label in your book:

1. Click Appearance > Theme Options from the left sidebar menu.
2. Enable the Part and Chapter Number setting from the Global Options tab.
3. The Part Label and Chapter Label settings will appear. Enter your preferred part label.
4. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

The labels will change wherever they are used in the given format of your book. This includes the table of contents in some formats and the heading at the top of each part and chapter (in all formats).