[Solved] Formatting for books

[PKD]

i have OO 4.1 using with Windows 10 Pro. I am trying to format a book file. I set the Page format with Mirrored image, outside and inside margins but the page image I get is not mirrored with inside margins together. Any ideas please?
PKD

[RoryOF]

Make sure /View /Status Bar is on, then click on the rightmost of the three page icons at bottom right of OO Writer window; adjust scaling by the slider or the %box at bottom right, or by /View /Zoom, as necessary.

[PKD]

Thanks Rory OF. Will try it.

[PKD]

Thanks RoryOF. That's solved my problem.

[RoryOF]

You may find this file helpful when writing a book
http://documentation.openoffice.org/whi ... th_OOo.odt

[PKD]

Hi RoryOF. Thanks for link to formatting. I was mostly familiar with most of it. I have formatted a book before in OO but have found enormous problems with a new edition by using Styles and Formatting. It is driving me crazy and I would appreciate some help.
Before, I established following styles; Front Matter/ Chapter/ Text body and Endnote and had no problems with. But this time after first applying, those styles disappeared and seemed to be replaced by Contents listed under All Styles so that I did not know to which page they applied. After first draft and corrections I saved and closed but when I reopening the file drfaulted to what I had previously corrected. This anomaly continued until I had to edit whole book and save to PDF in one go. But when editing again all the formatting went to pieces and defaulted again to previously corrected pages.
Other problems: Styles and Formatting now shows a huge list of styles, including Contents which seem to be the many styles afte Page Breaks that I used before, when I try opening a new doc.
When clicking on a page style to Modify it does not go to Page, only to Paragraph styles.
When I find which Contents number it has applied to, say, a chapter page, and I go to Insert/ Break it does not list what I need.
It loses all Custom styles I have made.
When reopening saved doc not only do old faults corrected reappear but new ones too.
What a mess.
Can anyone help please?
Regards
PKD

[RoryOF]

Other problems: Styles and Formatting now shows a huge list of styles, including Contents which seem to be the many styles afte Page Breaks that I used before, when I try opening a new doc.

This suggests that you are saving or have saved your file in .doc format. Work and save in .odt format. Reduce the number of styles displayed in /Format /Styles and formatting by selecting "applied styles" from the dropdown in the bottom bar of the Styles and formatting window - it will remember this until changed. I can' answer about the context menu - I rarely use it, as I have my own methods of working.

It may be easiest, in converting from .doc format to .odt format, to Ctrl A (to Select All) then apply Default or Text body paragraph style and hand edit Chapter title and subtitles to Heading 1 and 2

[PKD]

Thanks Rory. I'll digest that and give it a go. Much appreciated
PK

[RoryOF]

It will be best not to expect to do the conversion from .doc to .odt format ad the removal of extraneous styles all in one pass.

[PKD]

Hi Rory. Many thanks for your suggestions. Some of them worked a little but it seems my file, in whatever format I try, still has built in defaults which I cannot get rid of. I would like to start again with a file of edited text with a new title and start formatting afresh. I tried this once but the file still opened in book form which was recognised as the same formatting by Styles. How can I get rid of all Styles and Formatting; it has assumed a huge list now, replacing my named style with a load of Contents styles and whenever I reopen my file I have lost my Custom styles. Sorry to be such a nuisance but I have been trying to get this right for weeks. My first edition took one week so something must be wrong.
Many thanks
PKD

[RoryOF]

The Contents Styles are left over after saving in .doc format. You can delete the various Contents styles (/Format /Styles and formatting); their text will revert to Default paragraph style as far as I remember.

Alternately, if your formatting is straightforward the simplest thing to do is open a blank .odt file (give it a different name to your existing file). With the old and new files open, in the old file Ctrl A, Ctrl C (to copy everything). Click into the new file, /Edit /Paste Special and choose "Unformatted text" from the popup. Now your text is in the new file, unformatted. Ctrl A to Select All, and choose style Text Body. Now define the few Styles you need and pass through the text applying these (Heading 1 for Chapter headings, Heading 2 for Chapter titles, perhaps). This can be done in a very few minutes - I was able to take a plain text War and Peace and format it in about 10 minutes.

[RoryOF]

In the new file that commenced as plain text, you can Find "Chapter" (check whole word, match case), Find All then apply Heading 1 (or your desired Style) to the selection. This will mark all occurrences of "Chapter" (no quotes). There may be the occasional rogue occurrences, such as in a sentence "Marcia commenced Chapter 4..."). Insert a hyperlinked ToC near the start, and the Marcia occurrence will be easily spotted. Just remove the Heading 1 style from it.

[PKD]

Wow! That sounds good. I like the idea of starting a new file. i haven't come on the pop-up for Unformatted Text; I like that. Thanks again, Rory. I will give it all another go. I really don't know how I got in to this mess.
PK

[PKD]

Hi Rory. I apologise for taking so long in reporting back from your last suggestions;the previous attempts had corrupted my file so much that I had to do a complete word-for-word proof again before I could commit it to a new file. But, your instructions on opening a new file and uploading in unformatted text worked and I am most grateful. I have now learned a few more tricks with OO. I now have a clean PDF and my next task is to get a good HTML for KIndle.
BTW; ten mins for War & Peace is pretty impressive - but it must have taken ten days to scan it.
Regards
PKD

[RoryOF]

I was able to download W&P from Gutenberg.org.

I recently scanned a 750 page book; I did this in chunks of about 40 pages (20 opes) at a time (say 25 minute sessions - one or two per day); and then OCRed it using a stand-alone OCR program (Tesseract, with a graphic front-end). I caught most of the limited number of OCR errors with the spellcheck in OpenOffice; some others became obvious in proofing (a quick visual scan only) and further instances of these could be found with OO's F&R.

[PKD]

Gutenberg. There's an iconic name. I presume you did that for fun; would it not be already formatted in book mode? Do you always use OO or other programs?

[RoryOF]

I downloaded W&P in plain text from Gutenberg, who have many 'classic' books available. Years ago, when I used Windows, I used Word 97 or notepad and PageMaker 6.5 and later Indesign for book formatting. Since I moved to linux and OO I can do all my book formatting - plain text in typical book format -(for myself and some private circulation) in OO. I have also produced some (typically 32 page) illustrated booklets in OO.

[PKD]

That's a lot of experience. I have used Pagemaker in the past and years ago, with a Mac, I used Quark. I loved that tool. You give me confidence that you stay with OO so much. After my recent travails I'm not so sure about it but I suppose it is mostly down to my own mistakes and I will get more used to it. Have you found a solid method of converting to HTML with it? It's great that it is so flexible with its conversions but I find that conversion splits up paras and I've just had to reformat the HTML pages before loading it onto Kindle Reviewer.

[RoryOF]

I don't need HTML, so have no experience with it. To convert to ebook formats I use Calibre. Calibre can convert directly from .odt to ebook formats; one may have to read and experiment with Calibre's formatting parameters to get the desired result.

A general overview of text formatting in OpenOffice is given in
Writer for students (several languages)

[PKD]

Yes, i was told I should use Calibre. But it was just another program to deal with. Thanks for link, I will have a look. And thanks for all your help Rory

[RoryOF]

Depending on what form of formatting is required and the complexity of the format of the .odt file to be input, it is a matter of fine tuning only a few of Calibre's parameters. I wish I had written down what I did last time I used it! A few minutes experimentation with a short test input file sorted out the ebook formatting for me (but I keep it simple) - a ToC, Chapters start on a new page, link to foot/end notes (when used)..

[PKD]

I find that after converting to HMTL the major problem when that converts to Kindle is that it sometimes does not read the spacing properly, making a new para when it shouldn't. It is hugely time-consuming to keep fiddling with it. Does anyone else have the same problem?

[RoryOF]

Calibvre will convert direct from .odt to ebook formats; I was able to make it convert correctly, maintaining paragraphs and Chapter pages.