OpenOffice Writer Paperback Book Template for Kindle

[jasoncsbrown]

Hi gang. I have a few eBooks available for sale on Amazon that I would also like to sell in paperback format. All of the Kindle help tutorials show how to use templates in Microsoft Word. Amazon and Kindle to not offer any information about OpenOffice Writer templates. I called them and was given the suggestion to load a Word template into OpenOffice, so I tried. Certain features were missing, e.g. notably page numeration. Are there any OpenOffice templates specifically designed to format paperback books for sale on Amazon? If so, where would I acquire them? Thank you!

[John_Ha]

Welcome to the forum.

I don't think there are. You could try googling kindle template open office.

Do not use an MS Word template as it is likely to cause many problems later on. See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

Create your own template. It is very simple - all you do is create Page Styles for each of the page formats you will be using. Instructions on formatting pages and page numbering are given in the manual and tutorials. Search the forum with book and also with kindle for lots of posts with advice. You must understand Page Styles and Page Breaks and Numbering pages. Check the Writer Tutorials for many useful tutorials.

Don't bother formatting as you type. Just type the text with, perhaps, a Heading 1 for each Chapter title. It is then very easy - an hour or two for me - to layout the entire book.

As a new poster you will find much useful information in the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials, the up to date Writer guide and the Writer Manual. May I suggest you bookmark the pages.

Press F1 to access the Help screen and search for your problem

The chapter headings in the manual are:

1 - Introducing Writer
2 - Setting up Writer
3 - Working with Text
4 - Formatting Pages
5 - Printing, Exporting, Faxing and E-Mailing
6 - Introduction to Styles
7 - Working with Styles
8 - Working with Graphics
9 - Working with Tables
10 - Working with Templates
11 - Using Mail Merge
12 - Tables of Contents, Indexes and Bibliographies
13 - Working with Master Documents
14 - Working with Fields
15 - Using Forms in Writer
16 - Customizing Writer – Keyboard shortcuts.

When a pop-up window opens, click the Help button for extensive help on that function - it is often more comprehensive than the manual.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

[jasoncsbrown]

Thanks for for recognizing I'm new here, and for all of the information. I will do my best and will let the forum know if you've solved my problem when I have a paperback book for sale on Amazon. Cheers.

[RoryOF]

When I need to create a ebook, I use Calibre to generate it direct from my OpenOffice .odt file. My formatting is quite simple - normally chapter pages, paragraphed text, and a table of contents - normal "novel" formatting.

[jasoncsbrown]

Thank you RoryOF, but my question has nothing to do with eBooks. I need a template to format my existing eBook manuscripts as paperback books.

[RoryOF]

A Kindle, as I have it, can read ebook formats. I use epub and mobi on mine. If you use Calibre to open an eBook format, you can export it to PDF, which is a standard print format; how you configure the PDF can be controlled from Calibre.

[jasoncsbrown]

epub, mobi, calibre ... all new to me and I don't have the time to learn all of them. All I want is an OpenOffice Writer paperback template equivalent to the MS Word paperback template Kindle Direct Publishing makes available to MS Word users. Why can't things ever be simple?

[Villeroy]

Simply write your text and let others do the computer stuff.

[jasoncsbrown]

Thanks, folks. I think I'm just going to break down and purchase MS Word 2016 for Mac, for $139 CAD, despite the fact the product reviews average 1.7 out of a possible 5 stars.

[keme]

Thanks, folks. I think I'm just going to break down and purchase MS Word 2016 for Mac, for $139 CAD, despite the fact the product reviews average 1.7 out of a possible 5 stars.

If you do, you will probably be fine. However, consider this:
You still need to make a few choices and do some manual labor.

• Select the page size when downloading the template. If you work "from scratch", you' do this by "page formatting".
• Get your front matter (if any), main text, ToC/index, etc, into the right sections and remove the sections you don't need.
  Without a template (whether in Writer or Word), and perhaps also with the basic template, you'd create the sections you need instead.
• Get your manuscript print-ready. If you don't have it already in editable format (only the e-book file) you should prepare to do some serious editing. If you have your original work file, it is as simple as File - Open, Insert - File or copy/paste.

The guidelines are all there in the KDP support pages. Main steps are exactly the same regardless of word processing application, but of course the detailed step by step instruction will only match Word 2016. (And perhaps only the Windows version. Quite a few of the tab/ribbon tools found in Word for Windows are only available in the top menu in the Mac version of Word.)

If you choose Writer anyway, we are here to help, should you get stuck. If you go the Word route, Amazon/Kindle support may be supportive (and probably a few MS-centered forums out there). Good luck in your publishing!

[Villeroy]

What are these templates everybody is talking about? https://www.kayfranklin.com/kindle/free ... -template/ includes an OpenOffice document. Just call File>Templates>Save... to save it in your templates repository and then File>New>From_Template... to create a new book from that template.
LibreOffice can handle both versions, docx and odt, equally well.

Since you have no concept of word processors, templates, document formats you will have the same problems with any kind of software.

[RoryOF]

Experience on this forum suggests it is best to work in .odt format and Save As .docx only when finished.

[Villeroy]

LibreOffice can handle both versions, docx and odt, equally well.

Experience on this forum suggests it is best to work in .odt format and Save As .docx only when finished.

Yes, indeed. I opened the docx with LibreOffice and saved it as a template. At first sight, the template derived from docx looks the same as the odt original. I guess, it has been generated by LibreOffice. OpenOffice does not handle the docx version properly.
Never work with foreign file formats. If no ODF template is availlable, then convert a foreign file into a native one and works with the native version (if it works anyway). In this case, with no ODF, I would say that LibreOffice is the better tool. Possibly you can use MS Office or some other product to convert the MS templates into usable ODF versions.
Having a word processor template to start with is one thing. Finally you need to convert your work from an office document into some ebook format.

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

[John_Ha]

https://www.kayfranklin.com/kindle/free ... -template/ includes an OpenOffice document.

Examination of this template suggests it is a "created from scratch by OpenOffice template" which should not give problems. In particular it does not appear to be a "converted MS Word document template" which is likely to cause problems.

It does not use page numbers but that may be because the Kindle device gives the page numbers.

[Villeroy]

The "page numbers" of an ebook change with font, screen size, spacing and other things that vary with every device, reader software and user preference. They are calculated when you load an ebook and they are recalculated when you customize the screen output.
The page numbers of a word processor refer to actual print pages depending on the fixed font and page layout. Page numbers are meaningless when writing an ebook.

[keme]

... and the OP specifically stated that there is an ebook already, and his request concerns formatting for print, where page numbering is highly relevant.

[RoryOF]

epub, mobi, calibre ... all new to me and I don't have the time to learn all of them. All I want is an OpenOffice Writer paperback template equivalent to the MS Word paperback template Kindle Direct Publishing makes available to MS Word users. Why can't things ever be simple?

But the OP also professed ignorance (as above) at the existence of ebook formats and other formatting.

[Villeroy]

Sorry, I was missing the fact that the reverse process is required. But for the reverse process you don't need any template for ebooks. Of course there are no page numbers in an ebook template.

epub, mobi, calibre ... all new to me

You won't be able do it. This is not a question of Word or OpenOffice. Somebody else will have to do it for you.