Star Trek Fact Files The Official Star Trek Fact Files was a Paramount Pictures - licensed partwork magazine series , distributed in the UK , Europe and Australia by GE Fabbri , and designed to give information about the " Star Trek " universe , written from an in - universe point of view . It ran from to , with 304 issues of 24 pages each , totaling a work of 7296 pages of in - universe information . The series covered all seasons of , , , and the first season of , as well as the first nine films . Although based on canon productions , and featuring graphics and information directly taken from the studio , " Fact Files " often introduced non - canon material in its reference material . It did not incorporate any information from , for at the time of publishing TAS was not considered canon . Between 1999 and 2004 , a German language edition was released under the title " Die Offiziellen Star Trek Fakten und Infos " as well as a French one , " Star Trek Les Dossiers Officiels " ( published by Data Base Factory ) . The French edition came with one - episode VHS tapes of " Star Trek : The Next Generation " and unlike the German edition , did not complete the whole run of 304 issues , but ceased publication after 117 issues , making room for the newly conceived . Likewise an Italian language edition , " Star Trek Official Files " , published by De Agostini was published but not completed , ceasing publication after 120 issues . On , a translated version of the " Fact Files " started its run in Japan under the auspices of licensee De Agostini ( Japan branch ) , which , while much the same as the English language version , rearranged some parts and added some information , mostly to do with " Star Trek : Enterprise " and , resulting in a ten issue longer run of the Japanese version . Much of the information used in " Fact Files " , that itself saw no release in the United States and Canada , was duplicated in edited form during the run of " " , published by Fabbri Publishing ( US ) , the US arm of GE Fabbri . For all language editions , each magazine consisted of a number of articles , to be taken apart and filed under their respective sections , they in turn to be collected in several binders ( one binder being supplied every 16 issues ) . The " Fact Files " received some criticism in fan circles for inaccuracies , notably in the starship sections . However , as Larry Nemecek , a major contributor , explains in the talk section of the Akira class : " " [ . . . ] in their defense , the Brits * were * promised all this tech and source detail they were used to with [ their ] other techie partworks , and then left hanging when it didn ' t exist - - no excuse , but that ' s what happened . I did some tech writing , but mainly I tracked source refs , imagery and art materials in both the uncharted Licensing archives ( some buried , that the dept . didn ' t even know existed ) or from chased - down personal sources . " " ( ) For this reason Fabbri employed an art department to supplement art and graphics where official source material was lacking . Fabbri also employed staff writers at their editorial bureau to beef out articles , simply because very limited established information was available on many subjects , with additionally written texts , resulting in that fair amounts of canon ically established information was interlaced with apocryphal information . An officially licensed publication , Paramount Pictures assigned three " Star Trek " staff members to assist Fabbri ' s editorial office in researching and collecting reference material for use in the publication , Penny L . Juday ( credited as Penny Smartt - Juday ) as research coordinator , Larry Nemecek as photo editor and author and from issue 71 onward Guy Vardaman as art director . Other " Star Trek " - affiliated contributors were Tim Gaskill as consultant editor , Judith and Garfield Reeves - Stevens as authors . Marcus Riley also contributed to the project . A first for licensed " Star Trek " print publications , it was the " Fact Files " that firstly employed actual live - action produced CGI model s for print representation in the magazine . It was Fabbri ' s chief editor Ben Robinson , who struck upon the notion , " " When we were first doing the " Fact Files " they were just introducing CG on the show and I realized it was an incredible resource for any publication . If you ' ve got a CG model you can look at something in real detail . We approached Foundation and Eden FX " [ note : at the time still Digital Muse and both the regular digital for the television franchise at the time ] " about getting people to render CG models out for us . Rob " [ Bonchune ] " was one of the guys who really took that on and we became good friends , so when I started on this project he was one of the first people I thought of . There ’ s no substitute for a good render of a starship . It ' s as close as to the real thing as you could ever get . " " Robinson followed up with the inclusion of the first - time use of ( adapted ) beauty and orthographic views of a live - action production CGI model , that of the Voth research vessel , featured in , and prominently on the cover of issue 69 ( 1998 ) of the " Fact Files " . CG imagery thus conceived , and likewise featured on the covers , was included onward ever since , it also being the case for the entire run for its US derivative , " Star Trek : The Magazine " . Prior to the Voth vessel , non live - action production CGI versions of the , , Romulan Bird - of - Prey ( 23rd century ) and were already especially constructed the previous year at either effects house for representation in the " Fact Files " . It was Bonchune who has done ( albeit uncredited ) most of the CGI renderings of the orthographic and beauty views of the starships featured afterwards . As the television franchise was still in production at the time of the magazine ' s publication , it was the " Fact Files " that often offered its readership the first ( and not seldom , only ) detailed look of the models actually used in the episodes during its later run . Sections . As a partwork , each ( double - sided ) sheet was endowed with a designation , a " file " - number with a corresponding sub - ordinated " card " - number . Section 1 : A Guide to the " Star Trek " Galaxy Section 2 : Federation Starfleet Section 3 : Non - Federation Starships Section 4 : Personnel Files Section 5 : Equipment and Technology Section 6 : Starship Log Section 7 : Database