You can now build your own book of TechNet articles! For several product versions, the SharePoint IT Pro content team has published collections of TechNet articles as downloadable books that you can read offline and print. We've been able to cover only the most basic content sets. Each SharePoint Server or SharePoint Foundation environment is different, and none of the basic books exactly matches any environment.

Happily, our partners at TechNet have introduced a beta release of a new feature that you can use to build your own custom collections of articles! You can choose any articles (up to 100 per collection) from the TechNet library. That means that you can mix content from SQL Server, SharePoint Foundation, Windows Server, Office -- any content in the TechNet library. The functionality is in Beta testing right now, but it's accessible for public use and we encourage you to try it out. Here's how.

You'll need a recent browser. Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 work, as do the recent versions of other browsers. You'll also need a Live ID for signing in to TechNet to export your collection.
Make sure you're looking at the Lightweight view of the TechNet library. Go to the TechNet library home page. If you're in Lightweight view, you should see something like this in the upper right corner:
If you don't, click Lightweight in that corner to switch views.

To build a collection:

  1. Click the arrow next to the printer icon in the upper right corner, and then click Print Multiple Topics.
     
    The Help page will open.
  2. Read the overview on the Help page, and then click Start. The Print Multiple Topics toolbar will appear at the top of the window.
  3. Browse through the TechNet library, picking topics for your collection. Right-click a topic in the left pane to add it or it and its children to your collection.
  4. When you're finished, click Collection on the Print Multiple Topics toolbar.
  5. On the Manage Collection page, you can change the order of topics and organize them into chapters.
  6. To download or print your collection, choose your file format (XHTML or PDF) and click Export. (Here's where you sign in to TechNet by using your Live ID if you're not already signed in.)
  7. Right-click the link to your collection to download it, or click the link to open it.

To start a new collection, click Delete on the Manage Collection page. There's no way to have multiple active collections yet, so be sure you have a copy of the HTML or PDF file of your existing collection if you want to save it.

We hope you find this Beta functionality useful. Let us know!