How can I manage chapter authors?

[elbarto]

I’m editing a collective book using LibreOffice Writer 5.2.2.2. I have a series of chapters written by different authors. Each chapter has its own separate ODT file and I’m putting everything together in a master document.

I would need LibreOffice to be aware that each chapter has an author, because I need to put their names in two places:

1. On the header of “Left Pages” (currently I’m setting the header on the ODT files but when I import them to the master document that information goes away).

2. In the table of contents: I need to insert the author of each chapter after its title.

To complicate things further, my chapters are grouped in sections, which are not related to authors. I have this:

• Level 1: Section title

• Level 2: Chapter title

• Level 3: Chapter subtitle

And I would like to create a table of contents that looks something like:

Section 1 Title

Chapter 1 Title / by Author … pp.

Chapter 2 Title / by Author … pp.

Section 2 Title

Chapter 3 Title / by Author … pp.

Chapter 4 Title / by Author … pp.

Are these things possible?

Thanks!

[RGB-es]

Instead of using, let’s say, Heading 1 paragraph style for chapter name, Heading 2 for section name and so on, try using Heading 1 for Author name, Heading 2 for chapter name, Heading 3 for section name and so on. Then you can use normal chapter fields, each with the right “level”, to build the headers.

The details will depend on the exact format you need, but on the simplest case you start each document with a Heading 1 paragraph style containing the author name (probably with an automated page break associated to it) immediately followed by a Heading 2 paragraph style with the chapter name (without page break).

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EDIT: Because of the needed format, it is not possible to solve the problem on a straightforward way, so… you need to hack! Here it is a sample file (it’s everything on one file instead of a master/subdoc structure, but it should be easy to figure out how to split it)

HeadingsHack.odt

Here it is how it works:

Level one on outline numbering: Heading 1 for sections

Level two on outline numbering: Heading 2 for author

Level three on outline numbering: Heading 3 for chapters

Custom style without outline level called HiddenHeading with tiny font (6 pts) and font colour is white so it will not print. On that paragraph two chapter field are inserted to show “Third level / Second level” You need to copy paste it to every chapter.

Now, the index: disable the use of the outline levels and choose custom styles. You know which ones

If you need automatic numbering for chapters… that’s a problem. You may try associating a numbered list to Heading 3 paragraph style.

[elbarto]

Thanks for your reply. I tried a slightly different approach but it worked for the headers: instead of using Heading 1 style, I changed the style associated with level 1 to “Author” in “Outline and numbering”. However, I’m still not sure how to edit the table of contents. I’m editing my question to add the format I would like to achieve for this.

[RGB-es]

Well, that’s a really difficult problem I did my best to find a “workaround” (A.K.A. “hack”). You find a sample file on the edited answer. It’s a bit convoluted, but seems to work.

[elbarto]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to hack this. I’ll see if I can make it work for me, however just knowing that there isn’t a straightforward way to do this and the “hiddenheading” trick are two good lessons for me.

[mikekaganski]

Hmm. And could you just include the author into the chapter’s title (level 2 heading), and make it invisible (use dedicated character style on it) in headers? Then you would get it in ToC.

[RGB-es]

@mikekaganski You can make it “invisible” on the headings, but it will show on the headers: it is not possible to apply a character style to a portion of a field, that’s why both Author and Chapter need to be different paragraphs.

[mikekaganski]

@RGB-es: of course. My proposal doesn’t fit ideally to asker’s stated constraints; but LO doesn’t provide ideal solutions for this case, and any solution requires asker to change somewhat to conform; thus, invisible-text solution might be easier and thus appropriate if asker agrees to change header layout

[elbarto]

Drawing on RGB-es’s solution I found and alternative one which worked for me.

I set up my outline like this:

• Level 1: Heading 1 (Section title)
• Level 2: Heading 2 (Chapter title)
• Level 3: Author (Author’s name)
• Level 4: [None] (for some reason the headers didn’t work without leaving this blank)
• Level 5: Heading 3 (Chapter subtitle)

This outline allowed me to modify my headers. On the “Left Page” style, I added a header which inserted the chapter name (Outline level 2) and on the “Right Page” I had the header use “chapter name” for Outline level 3.

Then I edited the Table of Contents. On the Entries tab, I removed the page number for Level 2 and changed the tab stop fill character to blank. This resulted in a table like this:

Section title … pp

Chapter title

Author … pp

It’s not what I first intended, but it works for me.