[Solved] Lots of images or lots of documents...?

[gwfran]

I'm creating a very large document with hundreds of pictures (greyscale, 150 DPI). It'll end up being about 500 pages when I'm done with about that same number of images. So I'm at about 130 pages right now and the document is 37MB. The document is unstable at best. Images disappear from the document or the document just starts behaving oddly (e.g., a table suddenly displays more rows than it actually has).

So, my question is, is there a way to create a master document which just loads multiple documents after it (representing chapters or some other portion of a full book) so that I can create a separate document for each chapter? If so, can a master document do pagination and index building across those documents? Then, can I export the entire collection of documents as a single PDF?

My PC is definitely powerful enough - I never go above 50% RAM or 20% CPU during normal use.

Thanks!

[robleyd]

For master documents, the first few results from this web search should provide much information.

You should also read [Tutorial] Some useful hints on using images; note the suggestion therein about using linked rather than embedded images to reduce file size.

See also 16: Lost Images in that tutorial and the suggestion to use LibreOffice which seems to have resolved the lost images problem.

[gwfran]

Thanks David!!! I tried to Google the answer earlier and didn't get these same results (all the master documents were referring to templates). Thanks again!!!

[Hagar Delest]

For documents with lots of pictures, I would recommend LibreOffice. It has improved its saving process and picture management, that will make less risks of losing pics or the whole file itself. Several topics in this forum about pictures lost in the documents.

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the 🖉 button if your issue has been fixed.

[keme]

For documents with lots of pictures, I would recommend LibreOffice.

I agree about that. It seems that LibreOffice manages large files better than OpenOffice does. Maybe due to LO being native 64-bit, IDK.

Just note that LibreOffice has also had some issues. One thing that springs to mind is the use of conditional (context dependent) styles, where the substitute style does not always take full effect. You should do some preliminary tests and check your document for consistency within LibreOffice Writer before going "all-in" on LO.

Smaller documents combined in a master is also a sensible strategy. For this to work in a consistent way it is important that you plan ahead, prepare a common set of styles (in a template file) which you use for all your source documents, and make it a habit to always use named styles for your content formatting. Undoubtedly, this advice will be present in a fuller form in the resources suggested by robleyd/David.

[John_Ha]

The document is unstable at best. Images disappear from the document or the document just starts behaving oddly (e.g., a table suddenly displays more rows than it actually has).

This is to be expected and is not a bug.

It is caused by AOO or LO taking a long time to lay out a complex document with images or tables or footnotes etc where page spills can occur. See 11A. Why is my page count so high? Why does my page count keep changing? Why do white gaps appear in my document? in [Tutorial] Some useful hints on using images for a detailed explanation and some hints on how to manage it. A document with hundreds of pages where images etc may spill to the following page could take 30 minutes or longer to layout. Do a test - open the document and then do nothing and wait until Windows TaskManager shows when the AOO/LO CPU use falls to zero - the document is now laid out. If you now make an edit on page 1 which causes a page spill, the entire document has to be laid out again... Note that image location, page count, pagination and indexing will not be correct until the document has been fully laid out. Adding extra, redundant page breaks to "catch" spills while you are editing should help. Note AOO/LO may come out of its loop with an image in the wrong place or a table split across two pages or with white gaps in the document. The page count will be too high which shows this has happened.

Be very careful how you anchor the images - see the tutorial. 130 pages suggests 130 images and 37 MB suggests ~280kB per image - is that correct? See the tutorial for minimising image sizes.

A master document should help immensely by reducing the size of each sub-document and trapping page spills to that single document. See Chapter 13 - Working with Master Documents in the Writer User Guide and the comprehensive Creating and Using Master Documents. Master documents can paginate and index when set up correctly so be sure to set up the Master and sub documents correctly. I ensure that the Master and all the sub documents have the identical format and I use the same template to create everything so there is no change when the sub documents are pulled in to the master. You can convert a master document and it subs into a single .odt file - it is not reversible. I have found master documents to be particularly prone to the "white gaps" problem - just update the master and they should disappear.

If your final document is to be a PDF then create single chapters in LO with the appropriate page numbers - see the tutorial on page numbering for how to set page numbers correctly. Export them to individual PDF files. Merge the PDF files with PDFSam which can merge separate PDF files into one PDF file. This is how I would approach the project.

Don't even think of using AOO for this project - you will lose your images. Note that all my comments are based on my previous use of AOO but I expect they all apply to LO.

[John_Ha]

A quick thought. Indexing will be very difficult with the "separate PDF files".

I therefore recommend you use the master document with sub documents for each chapter.

[Villeroy]

Can you please upload one or two of these documents?

[gwfran]

Thanks all! I originally started with LibreOffice, but OpenOffice actually handled the images better (which I found odd). I just got off work and am starting to build my Master Document.

Unfortunately, I can't upload the documents as they contain proprietary information.