Wondering how to print a course that you developed using WP-Courseware? Oh… you can’t. Well, not until now!
During Q1 2020, I’ve been writing an online course. I am creating the content using a storyboard that I developed as a guide.
There is no document that contains all of the content of the course. The content exists only in the online database.
I am using a WordPress plugin, WP-Courseware, loaded on my own website to manage enrollments and deliver the course.
The course currently contains over 25 lessons spread over 7 modules. Now that I am managing a large number of lessons within a decent number of modules, I’m struggling to quickly determine whether I have mentioned something in another lesson or not. Sometimes, when I complete a lesson, I feel that it belongs in another module. I’m a visual person, and, while I appreciate the compartmentalization of the course building plugin, I’m more effective when I see everything at once and can plug-n-play.
I am close to bringing the course live. I want a print out so that I can determine whether it follows a good flow and makes sense. I want to read it all the way through, get away from the computer, get away from editing one lesson in a vacuum, then forgetting where I left off, and having to restart at a point which I had already read and blessed.
I connected with support at WP-Courseware. Asked them how to print out all the materials for a course. They have no way. I asked if they were aware of a plugin that prints out an entire course. No, they were not.
So I wrote a quick-n-dirty program. I mean quick-n-dirty. It does not meet WordPress standards for writing code. BUT – it prints my course so that I can take it and mark it up. Maybe I’ll cut it into pieces and move the lessons around. I don’t know, but, it is now in a form that I feel more comfortable with. I can make everything visible at the same time (on my living room rug).
Here’s the print your course code.
Process is:
- Add the code to your functions.php file.
- Edit the code to use your database prefix (replace yourDBprefix)
- Edit the code to print the course you want. I preset it to course # 1. You can change that to a variable and add an outer loop and print all of your courses.
- upload or Save the functions.php file
- Create a regular Page
- Add the shortcode ( [print_the_course] to the page you just created.
- Save the page and display it.
- Use the print in the browser to Preview it.
There is a New Page inserted before each Module.
Lessons print one after the other underneath the Module Description.
Caution: There could be a good number of pages. My course with 25 lessons printed on 35 pages.
I used this on a WordPress website running on Genesis framework. WP version 5.3.2 and PHP 7.3.
Good luck!