Learners like to have a glossary to refer to while they are studying new concepts. Learners also find it useful to have additional information in footnotes.^[1]

Create a Glossary

To create a glossary in Pressbooks, follow these steps:

1. In the visual editor, select the text to which you would like to add a glossary definition.
2. Select the Insert Glossary Term button on the third row of the visual editor toolbar.
3. Check that the term going into the glossary is correct. You may want to change the verb tense or change a noun from plural to singular.
4. Write a suitable description for the term.
5. Select “Insert”.
6. Select “Preview” and check that the definition is displaying the way you want it to.
7. From the Pressbooks Dashboard, under Organize, select “Add Back Matter”.
8. On the right-hand side of the Add New Back Matter page, under “Back Matter Type”, select “Glossary”.
9. Give the glossary page a name, such as “Glossary” or “Key Terms”.
10. Leave the content of the glossary page blank. This will ensure that the page automatically populates with the terms you insert into the book.
11. Select “Create”.
12. Click the glossary’s URL and view your glossary terms, listed in alphabetical order.

Edit Glossary Terms

You can edit the entries in your glossary by going to the Pressbooks Dashboard > Organize > Glossary Terms.

To edit a term, hover over it in the list and select “Edit”. From there, you can edit the term which is being defined as well as the definition. Changing the term in Glossary Terms will change the pop-up definitions and the definition in the back matter.

Insert a Footnote

Footnotes are easy to insert into your book. Follow these steps:

1. In the visual editor, place your cursor where you want to insert your footnote.
2. Select the footnote button on the third row of the visual editor toolbar.
3. A pop-up box will appear that says, “Footnote Content.” You can either:
   1. Type your footnote into the box, then select “OK”.
   2. Select “OK” without typing anything.
4. Short codes that look like “[ footnote ]information[ /footnote ]” will appear in your text. If you didn’t write out your footnote in the last step, do so now between the short codes. If you want to add any special formatting to your footnote, like boldface or italics, you can do this now (this is not possible in the footnote pop-up box).
5. Select “Preview” and check that your footnote is satisfactory.