Book Previewer

Preguntas frecuentes

Who is this plugin for?

Book Previewer is designed to enable authors and publishers to provide free previews of their book titles on their own WordPress sites. All previews are retrieved by using the Google Books Previewer API.

Why would I use this plugin instead of the Google Books Preview Wizard?

The primary reason would be because it’s simpler to use the shortcode within WordPress than to revisit, regenerate, copy, and paste scripts from the Google Books Preview Wizard page. That said, the plugin is most convenient for sites that have multiple titles for which to display Google previews. If you have only a single title and are not likely to add more, the Google Books Preview Wizard is available here:

https://developers.google.com/books/docs/preview-wizard

What are the terms for using this plugin?

By installing and using this plugin, you agree to allow the plugin to display Google Books branding (including images and text) on your WordPress site. If you do not agree to these terms, you cannot use the plugin.

Must my book be in the Google Books Partner Program to use this plugin?

Yes. This plugin displays book previews by using the Google Embedded Viewer API. In order to use Book Previewer, your title must be available for preview through Google Books/Google Play. If you are not a Google Books/Google Play author or publisher, this plugin will be of no use for displaying free samples of your titles.

How do I configure the shortcode to preview a specific title?

Issue the [bookpreviewer idtype="idtype" bookid="bookid" previewer="previewer"] shortcode in any page or post, where “idtype” is ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, or GGKEY; “bookid” is the actual ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, or GGKEY of the book you want to preview; and “previewer” is the type of Google Books previewer you want to display.

That’s a lot of typing. Are there any shortcuts to the shortcode?

Yes. The Book Previewer plugin adds a bookpreviewer button to the WordPress Text/HTML editor. A default bookpreviewer shortcode with an empty bookid parameter is inserted into your page or post when you click that button.

Is the `idtype` parameter required?

No, you are not required to issue the idtype parameter with the shortcode. However, if you do not issue the idtype parameter, the plugin will configure the idtype to ISBN by default.

What does the book preview look like?

Depending on how you configure the shortcode’s previewer parameter, the previewer can be any of the following:

• popup: a Google Preview button that, when clicked, pops up the previewer in an overlay in the center of your site

• link: a Google Preview button that, when clicked, redirects the user to the preview as it appears on the Google Books site

• embedded: an iframe of a custom width or height that is embedded in a specific area of your site

I’m using the embedded previewer. How can I control the height and width of it?

If you have configured the previewer parameter as embedded, the Google Books previewer will default to a width of 600 pixels and a height of 500 pixels. You can adjust this by issuing the width parameter and the height parameter with the shortcode. For example, to display an embedded previewer of 300×500 pixels, you could use the following shortcode:

[bookpreviewer idtype="ISBN" bookid="9781938271168" previewer="embedded" width="300" height="500"]

The width and height parameters can also be used to adjust the size of the popup.

Can I localize the Google Books preview?

To a certain extent, yes. By using the Book Previewer’s language parameter along with any of the codes from this page of documentation: https://developers.google.com/books/docs/viewer/developers_guide#Localization

I am a Google Books partner and have an established cobrand under that agreement. Can I use my cobrand with this plugin?

Yes, you can use the Book Previewer shortcode’s cobrand parameter to specify your Google Books cobrand name/ID.

What do the options in Book Previewer’s Settings page do?

There are three options in Book Previewer’s WordPress Settings that can be used to adjust how WordPress performs when Book Previewer is used on your site. These options include:

• Cache Expires In: The number of hours allowed to pass before Book Previewer cached information expires and can be refreshed.

• Defer Until Footer: This option causes Book Previewer to load all its JavaScript in the footer of your WordPress site rather than the header. Loading scripts in the footer can increase site performance. However, this option only works if your WordPress theme uses the wp_footer function.

• Clear Cache: This option removes Book Previewer cached information from your WordPress database. However, this option only works if you are not using a caching plugin. If you are using a caching plugin, you should clear Book Previewer’s cached information by using the caching plugin’s options.