Interactive book documentation (preview)

The Book module has been a staple in Moodle for creating multi-page resources that resemble digital textbooks. It’s simple and familiar, but it comes with a few limitations that are worth knowing.

Security is one of the biggest concerns. Students should never be allowed to edit books, because doing so could allow them to gain access to administrator accounts. The module is also quite static - it doesn’t support interactive elements like quizzes or embedded activities directly, though you can link to them externally. Tracking learner progress is tricky too, since the Book module doesn’t connect to any learning analytics tools. And if you’ve ever deleted a chapter with subchapters, you’ll know how easy it is to lose content - there’s no version control to help recover it.

There are also some persistent issues that users often mention. Navigating between chapters can feel awkward, especially in longer books or those with multimedia. Styling is another challenge - because content is written in HTML, it’s hard to keep a consistent look across different courses. And perhaps most telling, Moodle HQ hasn’t added any new features to the Book module in over a decade.

At MoodleMoot DACH 2025, hosted at Technische Hochschule Lübeck, the Book module came up in several participant-led discussions. I was genuinely surprised to discover how many people still rely on the Book module every single day to create content for their students. It’s clearly more alive - and more widely used - than I ever expected.