How to Create a “Master” Document With An Endnotes Section Header and Which Has Documents Following The Endnotes?

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#1

How to Create a “Master” Document With An Endnote Section Header and Which Has Documents Following The Endnotes

After spending a couple of weeks trying to force a master document to do what I wanted, and after having read and reread all the LO documentation and forums discussions on this subject, I decided to try abandoning master documents and take a different approach. That’s what I describe here. I miss some of the features provided by master documents (especially master-specific Navigator features), but everything missing there is easily worked around by this approach.

Document Layout and Sectioning

In this approach, I use a text document (.odt) to replace the master (.odm) document. For this example, the document will have the following structure, with each component its own LO text document:

  • Main.odt
    • Title Page.odt
    • Table of Contents.odt
    • Begin Endnotes Section
      • Chapter 1.odt
      • Chapter 2.odt
      • Chapter 3.odt
      • …
      • Chapter N.odt
      • Endnotes.odt
    • End Endnotes Section
    • Begin Appendices Section
      • Appendix A.odt
      • Appendix B.odt
      • …
      • Appendix Z.odt
    • End Appendices Section

In the above structure, the “Endnotes Section” documents have endnotes at the end of the section. The Appendices each have their own endnotes, if any. The Title Page and ToC do not have endnotes.

Begin by creating two document:

  1. Your “master” document (Main.odt in this example)
  2. Your Endnotes.odt document

Then, layout those two documents:

  1. The Endnotes.odt document is simple:
    1. Create a text document.
    2. Add an endnotes header.
      1. Do NOT create any blank lines in the document.
      2. The header paragraph format should have no spacing below the paragraph and should use single spacing.
    3. Change the Page Style to: Endnote.
    4. Save the document and close it.
  2. In Main.odt, layout your document using the example above, only do not indent; use TEXT, not actual files at this point.
    1. Highlight your equivalent of “Chapter 1.odt” through “Endnotes.odt”
    2. Select: Insert-->Section
    3. Give the section a name (such as Endnotes Group 1)
    4. Select the “Footnotes/Endnotes” tab.
    5. Under Endnotes:
      1. Click on “Collect at end of section.”
      2. Choose other desired options (if any).
      3. Click on Insert.

Next, repeat the same process on the Appendices Section, except ensure that the “Collect at end of section” is NOT checked.

If you haven’t already, save the document.

Main.odt Endnote Layout

Now, delete the “begin” and “end” section markers. Do not leave any blank lines.

Next, place your cursor before Endnotes.odt.

  1. Select: Insert-->More Breaks-->Manual Break
  2. Choose “Page Break” with a Page Style of “Endnote”
  3. Click Ok.

Click at the beginning of the next line (here, Appendix A.odt) and insert a manual page break using the “Default Page Style” (or whatever page style your document uses).

Save your document.

Appendix Endnote Layout

The next step is to prepare the Appendices (and all other documents with per-document Endnotes) for endnotes. The process is similar to above. For each document:

  1. Open the document.
  2. Below the last line of the document, insert your Endnotes header for that appendix. Leave no blank lines below that header.
  3. Select all lines in the document, from the document title through and including the endnotes header.
    1. Select: Insert-->Section
    2. Give the section a name (such as Appendix A Endnotes)
    3. Select the “Footnotes/Endnotes” tab.
    4. Under Endnotes:
      1. Click on “Collect at end of section”
      2. Click on Restart Numbering and set the start number to 1
      3. (Optionally) Click on Custom Format and put the Appendix number into Before.
    5. Click Insert
  4. Place your cursor before the header just created.
    1. Select: Insert-->More Breaks-->Manual Break
    2. Choose “Page Break” with a Page Style of “Endnote”
    3. Click Ok.
  5. Set the Page Style of the page with the endnotes header to be: Endnote
  6. Save the document.

Add Content

Now that your document layout is set up, you can begin populating it with content.

Start by highlighting your first document name (here, Title Page.odt):

  1. Backspace over the name to cleanly delete it
  2. Select: Insert-->Section
  3. Give the section the name of the document (Title Page.odt)
  4. Click Link and Browse to the document to be inserted
  5. Click Insert
  6. Ensure there is not a blank line in Main.odt either before or after the inserted document, else it may cause blank pages.

Repeat this process for every document.

Once you have inserted all your documents, save your Main.odt, then update it as per the instructions in Annoyances.

You now have your “master” document.

Annoyances

While working outside of the tools provided by the Master Document format, there are some annoyances:

  1. Updates: To update: Tools-->Update-->Update All
  2. Reorder: To reorder documents: Format-->Sections and make appropriate ordering changes
  3. Delete: To delete documents: Format-->Sections-->Remove
  4. New: To add new documents, Place your cursor where you wish to insert a new document (before or after an existing document) and follow steps 2-6 for “Add Content”
  5. Endnotes Placement: Occasionally, LO mangles the Endnotes placement settings for a document or a section. To fix: Format-->Sections-->Footnotes/Endnotes-->Options and make appropriate changes.
  6. Crashes: There used to be a saying, “It ain’t nice to fool Mother Nature. She will get her revenge.” Well, I can update that to say, “It ain’t nice to fool LibreOffice, for it will crash and burn when you try to make it do something it wasn't designed to do.” I rarely go a day where LO does not crash and burn when trying to update or make section edits to Main.odt. N.B. Always do a Save All before and after doing any edits to Main.odt. (The computer which doesn’t get thrown across the room from user frustration may be your own.)
  7. Others: There are a few other annoyances, but the above are what readily come to mind. However, the work-arounds provided are well worth the minor annoyances—well, minor if you ignore the crashes. After all, this kludge produces the document I want, in the layout I need it to be. YMMV.

Other Layouts

I have verified this technique also works for a document broken into parts as well as chapters. Specifically, this layout:

  • Main.odt
    • Title Page.odt
    • Table of Contents.odt
    • Begin Part 1 Section
      • Part 1 Introduction.odt
      • (Part 1 Chapters go here)
      • Endnotes.odt
    • End Part 1 Section
    • Begin Part 2 Section
      • Part 2 Introduction.odt
      • (Part 2 Chapters go here)
      • Endnotes.odt
    • End Part 2 Section
    • Begin Part 3 Section
      • Part 3 Introduction.odt
      • (Part 3 Chapters go here)
      • Endnotes.odt
    • End Part 3 Section
    • Begin Appendices Section
      • Appendix A.odt
      • Appendix B.odt
      • …
      • Appendix Z.odt
    • End Appendices Section

In this layout, each part has its own endnotes. And, yes, you can reuse the same Endnotes.odt file in each “Part” (Section). Create each Section following the instructions for creating the Endnotes Section in the first example.

Now, if TDF would only incorporate these features into Master Documents… then all would be right with the world.

Tag: Endnotes Page Heading
Tag: Endnotes Section Heading
Tag: Add Text Before Endnotes
Tag: Add Text After Endnotes
Tag: Add Documents After Endnotes
Tag: Create Per-Document Endnotes
Tag: Number Endnotes Per-Document
Tag: Header Page for Each Endnotes
Tag: Multi-Part Document with Per-Part Endnotes

#2

I don’t see your point here. There seems to be no question about some help needed. You seem to propose a work around for some problem you experienced but you don’t describe accurately the context, notably LO version is missing.


Does your complaint appear after some document threshold? What failed with a master document?
You must understand that information flows from subdocuments to master, never the other way round. This means the end notes or TOC can’t be isolated in a subdocument. These data must be created in the master, nowhere else. It also implies that sections can only be created in the master. If they are internal to some subdocument, you won’t get what you expect.
It looks to me you have not understood information flow in a master and are trying to manually reconstruct this information flow in a “common” .odt document with Insert>Text from File without the benefit of file reference without copy (in a master). Part of your annoyances come from this approach.


Your appendix numbering method is flawed: it is fully manual while there is a perfectly integrated method of doing it, parallel to Heading n.

Using appendix headers
Is it possible to create a master document from multiple files, each with its own endnotes section, and merge them into one endnotes section at the very end?

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