How to read a blueprint book on Beltworks

Many of the best Factorio shares are books: a labeled tree of blueprints for smelting, rails, malls, or an entire planet kit. Beltworks shows that structure on the print page so you know what you are about to import before you touch the game.

Blueprint vs book (quick reminder)

A single blueprint places one design. A blueprint book is a container—often nested—that groups many blueprints (and sometimes child books). Factorio still imports a book as one string. Beltworks copies that whole string; you do not download children one-by-one from the website.

What the print page shows

On a book listing you will typically see:

A type badge such as blueprint-book.

Title, author, favorites, and update time.

Optional screenshot or canvas preview.

A book tree: labels and nested children in reading order.

Entity / recipe chips extracted from the contents when indexing succeeded.

Use the tree as a table of contents. If the labels are clear (“Rails / Blocks / Power”), you can judge fit before importing. If labels are empty or generic, skim entities and the description instead.

What Copy string does for books

Copy string always copies the full book payload—the same blob Factorio expects. After import, open the book inside Factorio’s library to grab a single child. That is the reliable path when you only need one rail stacker out of a megabase kit.

Planners and special book types

Some community “books” are really upgrade planners or deconstruction planners wrapped in a shareable string. The print type and tree labels usually make that obvious. Import them the same way, then use the matching planner tool in Factorio—not the regular blueprint placement tool.

Version and mod checks before you paste

Books from Factorio 2.0 / Space Age may include foundries, agricultural towers, quality, or elevated rails. A 1.1 client will reject those strings. Modded books need the same mods enabled. Beltworks pages surface game version and entity lists when we have them—read those before pasting into a precious save.

Practical workflow

1. Open the book page and expand the tree.

2. Confirm the book matches your game version and mods.

3. Copy string → import in a sandbox save first.

4. Inside Factorio, duplicate the children you actually need into a personal book.

5. Favorite the Beltworks page if you will re-copy after the author updates the book.

Related guides

Pair this with Blueprint books vs blueprints, How to import a blueprint string into Factorio, and How Beltworks search works when you are hunting tileable kits.