Anyone using writer to typeset novels?

English
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#1

I have been using FrameMaker to write a series of novels. The recent pricing policy Adobe introduced had me rethink my loyalty to FrameMaker. This editor does a superb job at typesetting novels. Two reasons:

  1. FrameMaker uses the same PDF engine that powers Adobe Reader. Therefore the typesetting in FrameMaker is faithfully rendered in PDF. Microsoft Word’s rounding algorithm to determine if the last line of a page should be moved to the next is different from Adobe and that created havoc when trying to save a word doc as a pdf.
  2. FrameMaker provides an elastic word spacing function which results in nicely typeset paragraphs. As you ccan see from the image below, you can specify the elastic range you want. image description.

I have read the lastest Writer manual and I am truly impressed by the breadth and depth of its features which easily rival what FrameMaker offers. I am holding my breath because I did not see the same ability for word spacing. I may have missed it since I was reading quite quickly. So my questions to this community are:

  1. Is a file exported to PDF faithful to the original? If a line in the original appears last on page 100, then it appears last on page 100 in the PDF as well, regardless of the complexity of the typesetting?
  2. Is there a word spacing function in Writer and is the output from Writer pleasing to the eye (that last bit is subjective, I know).

Would love to hear your feedback.

Thank you.

#2

tdf#38159 ⁠

#3

Thanks Mike for that reference: it summarizes the issue perfectly and answers my question: even though LiberOffice has features rivaling what FrameMaker has, the fact that it is unable to properly justify text is a deal-breaker for me. I will continue to monitor its progress in the hopes that this feature is eventually implemented but until it does, I won’t be able to use it. It’s a pity, really.

#5

This question has been asked in August of 2020. It’s been over two years since. Has there been any progress in typesetting with writer? I’ve checked the manual and online help and looked at the paragraph and styles but could not see any mention made of typesetting. Any additional information anyone would like to provide?

#6

If paragraph formatting is the main topic use TeX / LaTeX - but this is a completly different world. I don’t think to welcoming for users of GUI-DTP.

#8

FrameMaker and Affinity Publisher do a great job at typesetting. There is no reason why LibreOffice should not be able to do the same :slight_smile:

#9

Not so. Like MS Word and other word processors, Writer was at first intended as a productivity tool - a means to produce letters, reports, manuscripts for books even. But those manuscripts would then be sent to a publisher, who would use dedicated software for formatting the end product. Why would you force millions of people who now use Writer for writing letters and other relatively simple things to use complex typesetting software? For powerful free page lay-out software, you can use Scribus. Warning: steep learning curve.

1 Like
#10

To add to my previous rant: I think that authors who spend so much time on lay-out, are really doing something very bad. Not everybody can write. If you can write, you should focus on writing. The average graphic designer may not be able to write a decent novel at all. All the time that you spend on decently formatted justified text is not spent on writing good books.
…
I read part of the bug report discussion and frankly, I don’t get it. I copied part of it into a blank document and turned on hyphenation and justified text and didn’t see any wide spaces (in Dutch jargon called “puddles and lakes”). When your text width is small, like in newspaper articles, and you don’t hyphenate long words, you will get puddles and lakes. The remedy is either to hyphenate, or to forget about justification.

#11

A novel is the simplest type of document you can create with Writer: it is homogeneous. You have only a single layout (page style) across the full story, except perhaps for the cover page and the eventual TOC. If you correctly mark up your text with styles, you only focus on the development of the action without caring for formatting. This implies that your style names don’t describe the appearance of the result but the significance of the paragraphs and words: this is discourse, this a dialogue, this is a comment, this is author’s note.

In a second step, you or a graphic designer will tune the style parameters until you achieve the expected nice-looking result or conformance to some graphical charter. Adhering to semantic markup is very important because it allows to completely separate contents from appearance. Without modifying anything in your text, you can dramatically change what it looks like only through the styles.

This only requires discipline from author to eliminate any direct formatting and to follow strict rules (significance, not appearance – sorry to repeat).

Now, there are effectively some limitations in Writer. When justification is enabled, Writer can only expand spaces, never shrink them. This can be mitigated with hyphenation as @anon87010807 points out.

#13

I have published six novels as part of the high fantasy Epic of Ahiram. Each novel is upward of 250,000 words and FrameMaker automatically does an amazing job at typesetting. FrameMaker does not burden anyone with anything. You type and it does the rest.

What LibreOffice would need is a window similar to the one I posted initially and an algorithm to manage spacing properly. That is done transparently and no users are burdened by anything.

All too often people rant without truly understanding the matter at hand. In this case, I would respectfully state that my point still stands and my request would be a great addition to LibreOffice.

Peace.

#14

exept the burden to pay the bill… I remember someone writing about this:

#15

Which is why I’m back here asking the same question :smiley_cat:

#16

Finally show an example of bad spacing in justified text.

In my experience, word processors do a fair job of spacing justified text, except when the text width is small, like in newspaper columns.

#4

Is a file exported to PDF faithful to the original? If a line in the original appears last on page 100, then it appears last on page 100 in the PDF as well, regardless of the complexity of the typesetting?

Yes, as far as my experience goes. There has been some reported issues with page reflowing, but as far as I can recall they have all been connected to two content conditions:

  • footnote and the footnote’s reference competing over page “real estate”.
  • All paragraphs set to “keep with next”.

Is there a word spacing function in Writer and is the output from Writer pleasing to the eye (that last bit is subjective, I know).

No, there is no equivalent to that “graded edge smoothing” in Writer. You can have left/right alignment, where the spaces are all equal, or fully justified alignment, where the spaces are adjusted to make both left and right edge straight up to the margin.

Yes, I find no discomfort in the output. The “working canvas” (editing pane) can sometimes make a rough rendering of layout, but final output (page preview, pdf export, print) is fine. I may not be the most critical eye towards (typo)graphical design flaws.

#7

Also, if you are editing with different versions of LO, keep in mind each one has its page reflow algorithm. I use different versions between 6 (collabora office), 7.2 and 7.3.7 in my workplace and they don’t handle “keep paragraph together” the same way.
In 7.3.1,
(keep)bla bla bla
Bla bla bla(/keep)
(keep)bla bla bla
Bla bla bla(/keep)
Allows to break in-between of the paragraphs, while in 7.3.6 this is rendered as:
(keep)bla bla bla
Bla bla bla
bla bla bla
Bla bla bla(/keep),
Whith page break happening at random place.

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