I’m writing a book. I intend to use a Master document!
How can I create a Master document which can be read by Windows users, because most publishers have these computers?
The type of the operating system is not relevant in this case.
And the LibreOffice is free for everyone. Everybody can install the LO as everybody can install a free PDF reader software.
Which is your reason to go for a complicated workflow involving master + subdocuments? This was imperative a few years ago with less powerful computers than today to keep writing performance at some nice comfort level. Today, except for monster books exceeding largely 1000 pages, just work in a standard document.
If you want to invest on a very profitable investment, learn how to to use styles (and all categories!). They will boost your productivity. And you’ll be surprised by the efficiency of semantic styling method.
But I like to have a Master document and sub documents connected by links.
The overview I think is much better.
I don’t know exactly what you mean by “overview”. Remember that the Navigator shows the outline of the document in its Headings section and you can easily jump to any heading with a double-click.
Also, working with master+subs requires IMHO usage of a common template to avoid discrepancies in formatting (basing a master on a template is not a trivial exercise because it was completely overlooked in the specification). So, there is a big methodology to set up before starting the job. If you’re not strict enough, you’ll head into more problems than working with a single document. Master + subs demands a much higher discipline regarding styling than other approaches. Don’t even think of direct formatting. This is a freeway to hell.
Thanks for your warning!
I’ll think about it!
P.s. I mean with ‘overview’ survey (excuse me, but it’s here almost 22.00).
Anybody can use LibreOffice on Windows for free.
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But be careful: If you only need to deliver a book, to print on demand, you may create a pdf, and everything is ok.
But, if they want PDF/X ( especially for colour/pictures ) this can not be done directly with LibreOffice.
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If your publisher is doing the typesetting, they may ask for .docx-files of M$-Offfice, because they are used to. Test, if you can convert to .docx then. Ask, if they accept .odt (Nothing will change, if everybody delivers .docx)
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If there is also proof-reading with comments involved, check and test the settings. I remember to read some threads on crashes and lost comments when importing back from Word…
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So, if you have a publisher, I recommend to ask first. If you don’t have ask anyway, where you will ask after finishing. It avoids being surprised then.
5 years ago I wrote my book without knowing much of LO.
Now I studied LO, I want to re-write and re-design this book!
But I still have 2 questions:
1 Shall I use a single document or a Master document and sub documents?
2 How do I start?
What is the actual problem that you see? Is this “Windows users using MS Office can’t open master documents”? Or is this “Windows users using LibreOffice can’t open my master documents created on Linux” - say, because there’s some problem like absolute file paths?
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Unless your book is really monstrously huge, go for simplicity: a single file.
You didn’t tell if it was a novel, a contract full of legal clauses or a technical paper. If the document contains reusable parts (i.e. “clauses” which can be shared across various documents), then it is “legitimate” to structure it as a master+subs so that you have a single occurrence of the shared bits in some directory of yours. In all other cases, don’t bother yourself with master+subs because you’ll be faced with consistency problems if you don’t foresee correctly the finished product. -
Think first of the structure of your book. How do you decompose it? This will give you an idea about which page styles you need. What is the subject of the book? How is this subject argumented? You’ll deduce the needed paragraph styles. You already have built-in Heading n, Text Body, Footnorte and Endnote. You may need others for comments, citations, … Will you need to highlight particularly some words within paragraphs. This leads to definition of character styles (in addition to built-in Emphasis and Strong Emphasis). Similarly, if you have images or lists, you configure frame and lists styles.
Refrain from naming your styles with their visual effects. Styles are your tools to mark up your text according to its significance. From this significance, you decorate your styles with typographic attributes to visually assert the difference in meaning against the surrounding environment (e.g. a heading will have some vertical spacing above and below to create the transition; also a heading is generally bolder than the discourse).
You can paste your existing text as unformatted into the blank document after creating the styles (or, in case you want to revamp several documents, base new documents on a common template so that they all look the same). You apply your styles on the raw text. Don’t use direct formatting. You won’t achieve a satisfactory appearance on first attempt. Your styles will need tuning. Without direct formatting, you only play with style configuration without ever reviewing your text (unless of course you want to change the contents).
1 Like
Yes, the first one!
Thank you very much!
How do I structure my book using LO?
My book now exist of 63 pages!
How do I with LO devide my chapters in single document?
What I now know, it’s like a Master document (but it isn’t!). 1 main document with links to other documents (e.g. chapters)?
63 pages is small. Group everything into a single document.
How did you link? Insert>Text from File? Then this is not a link. It copied text into your document.
I haven’t linked yet. But I intend to use ‘real’ links.
It depends on the job.
As a starter, a pen and a sheet of paper are excellent tools.
Now if you intend to review what you write, you’d better think about the structure and the content of your book.
As an author, you concentrate on the content and meaning, leaving aside the appearance. You should try to completely separate these two aspects. But this separation should not prevent a somewhat automatic and easing formatting of your work.
You didn’t say is the book is fiction, art or technical. Anyway, what you write is not a sequence of unrelated tasteless bits.
There are headings, arguments, developments of ideas, assertions, comments, etc. Independent of the actual content, these abstract components constitute the skeleton upon which you will put flesh. This skeleton must be reflected in some kind of semantic markup.
This markup translates into paragraph styles for the major components and into character styles for the secondary components (such as emphasis of a word, quoted group of words, foreign insertions, etc.).
Your role as an author is to transfer this structure along what you write.
If your markup is consistently done, formatting the book is just child play. You will define typographic attributes for the styles: font face, size, colour, indents and spacing above and below, language, alignment, … Magically your book will gain personality.
In this job (markup with styles), LO Writer is superior to M$ Word because it has finer distinctions in markup (more categories than Word).
However going beyond dumb typewriter usage is not immediate. You must understand the concepts. I recommend the Writer Guide as an initiation and then the excellent Bruce Byfield’s Designing with LibreOffice .
To answer your question, I already wrote several technical and scientific books with very complex structure. Once the tools are ready (styles and templates), you only concentrate on the content and let Writer do the formatting. But this has a cost: learn how to use the tool for one’s needs and configure it accordingly. This is not a matter of minutes. You need training and acceptance of the concepts which are not always the same as the competition.
VERY INTERESTING!
Instead of blindly copying one of my previous answers, you should have linked to the question (and my answer). This can be of value to visitors so that they understand the context and why I gave this answer.
It was a compliment!
I understood.
But this site is public. You may arouse visitor curiosity by quoting (useful, I hope) answers. to convince them they can find interesting discussions, it is a good idea to link other relevant topics. This boosts AskLO usefulness.
Any way, good luck in your revamping.