I’m running office libre version 7.1.5.2 and I’m formatting a .docx file in writer for publication on Kindle as a paperback. I have accessed /format/page style/page/margins fields to format the file in book layout, but there is no field appearing for ‘gutter’ to set a gutter size for the spine of the book. There is only inner/outer/top/bottom. I have tried using ‘mirrored’ layout and setting a larger inner margin but this does not work with Kindle. I get an error message saying ‘gutter not set’ and the layout is corrupted. Do you have any suggestions? R
Other than the normal “do not use external file formats as your primary document format” - only that gutter was implemented in v.7.2.
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Ah!!! use the latest version of the software. Silly me, I’ve uploaded the software and I have my gutters. Thank you.
‘Other than the normal “do not use external file formats as your primary document format’ Kindle only supports .PDF, .doc and .docx file formats so you have no choice in the matter. Maybe as Libre Office grows in popularity kindle will add .odf but at the moment it’s not an option.
I’ll make a donation.
Rowland
You definitely have. Use ODT, and export to PDF when publishing. Even if you decide to publish as DOCX (why?), use ODT as the primary format for your work, and only export to DOCX when publishing.
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This is very helpful, I have one further question if you don’t mind helping a beginner a little more.
‘emphasized textEven if you decide to publish as DOCX (why?)’ - well it’s what I’ve used in my business life and what I’m used to. Simple as that.
I do work in .ODF until the final save, but do I take it that PDF is a superior format for publishing? That would be useful to know as I intend to do quite a bit of it.
BTW I’ve made a donation to cover your time helping me.
Regards
Rowland
Definitely. It is superior for publishing, compared both to DOCX, and to ODF.
This is simply because ODF/DOCX are file formats designed to represent document model - i.e., to provide everything required for document creators during their work. These formats store much of information that is unneeded to readers, but essential to writers; but on the other hand, these formats are not designed to guarantee the unchanged look independently of the system, or application.
PDF, on the other hand, is designed to “present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems”. The format is very much like a print-out, which looses many internal details (how was this character made bold? did the author apply Bold directly, or used “Strong Emphasis” character style?), so the document is inappropriate for continuing to work on the document; but you will see it identically, no matter which system, which fonts it has, etc., etc: just the way the author intended it to look like.
Note that you use “Suggest a solution” feature, when you post your comments, which, as such, should use comment (“Reply”) feature. Please suggest an improvement, how can we make it clearer that “Suggest a solution” is for solutions to the original question, not for comments.