Ultimately, I need to create a single PDF file to send to a publisher. Do I need Adobe Acrobat to do this?
If your Writer files are part of a single final book, you have at least two options and the result will depend on how consistent you’ve been when writing your “chapters”.
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A newbie usually resorts to direct formatting, i.e. enhances his text with toolbar buttons (bold, italic, bullet, …) or ruler markers (margins and indent), in a fully manual process. This is long and boresome but no conflict may result from it.
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A more advanced user will format text with styles, either modifying built-in styles or creating own styles. Conflict may result if styles with the same name in different files are not exactly the same.
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Power users create their own templates containing the styles and individual files are based on the template, inheriting the styles which guarantees they are the same provided he refrains from modifying the styles in the files instead doint that in the template.
Whatever the way you created your “chapters”, choose between:
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option A: copy and paste all the files in a single blank document. Formatting is copied as well. The inconvenience is duplication of data et possibly a huge combined file leading to instability or slow reaction.
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option B: create a master document. This is a “skeletal” document where you enter (through the UI) directives to include your independent files. The master document has a very small size since it contains only the directives. However, the time to export to PDF will not be significantly different.
In both cases, you may face formatting hazards with 2. above if you weren’t consistent with styles.
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