Inserting illustrations on separate pages (for ebook)

[rossa]

I have formatted the text of a book with styles and I like the way it looks. Now I am to insert a few big illustrations. I would like each of them to appear in the middle of a new empty page without any wrapping text. Should I make a new specific style for the new pages? How to make images stay in the middle if they may have different size?

How should I anchor an image if the new page can break a paragraph which starts in the end of the previous page and continues on the next page after the image page? To a page, to a paragraph or to a character? I am preparing an ebook so the page size may change and as a result the paragraph can be broken in different places.

I understand that I should link images, not to embed them but I don’t understand which of many Writer’s ways of inserting images can give the best result in my case.

I have made a few futile attempts to place images after a manual break but I don’t understand what happens. Why does the page turn blue and refuse to be deleted?

[ajlittoz]

Usually, images are anchored to some text (a paragraph or a character) so that it moves with the text in order to remain in the “vicinity” of the anchor. In your case, it looks like the illustrations are not related to some specific paragraph. I have in mind youth novels where illustrations occur at regular page intervals and text flows around them.

Is this your goal?

If your illustrations are related to text and should move to the next page break so that they occupy a full page, I’m afraid this in not feasible. The anchor paragraph and the frame (the container for the illustration) must remain together on the same page. Therefore 1) you can’t have them on separate pages, 2) if you anchor to an empty paragraph to solve the preceding issue, you’ll have a large white space between the previous paragraph and the page break.

So answer my question about the dependency (or independency) of the illustrations relative to text. If the answer is yes, there is a solution but it needs some explanation to fully understand the principle.

PS: it does not matter if images are linked or embedded.

[rossa]

The illustrations are related to text but not to a single paragraph but rather to the whole scene (several pagraphs). Each of the images is so big that only one, two or three lines of the adjoining paragraph can be fitted on the same page so it looks rather odd (widows or orphans). And yes, I have problems with “a large white space between the previous paragraph and the page break”.

[ajlittoz]

Writer is too limited to fulfill your specification.

A workaround exists but requires some manual adjustment when text is moved after edits.

Instead of anchoring your illustration to a paragraph, anchor it To page. It becomes independent from the text which then flows around it without creating the white space before page break.

But BEWARE! The illustration is now tightly bound to a specific page number and will no longer move. This is alright for tiny edits where text is not too far away from the illustration. When edits have moved the referencing text across a page boundary, you must then move also the illustration. For that, re-anchor To paragraph. Cut and paste into the appropriate paragraph and re-anchor To page.

This operation is made easier by creating a user frame style. Thus you assign the illustration to a page with a double-click on the frame style. To move it, apply built-in Frame style. Cut and paste in the new location and apply again your user-style.

In this frame style, Wrap tab, untick Allow overlap and choose Wrap Off or Parallel wrap mode. In Type tab, set a non-AutoSize dimension to cover the page. Vertical position should be Top or Center relative to Page text area.

[rossa]

The text is final and won’t be edited but will there be any problems with reading the ebook on big and small screens?

[ajlittoz]

AFAIK, e-book format is “static” like PDF is: you define the page size at time of writing (through a page style). The difference between small and large screens is either a zoom factor or a scroll bar. Page breaks have been set when the document was finalised and won’t change later.

[rossa]

Thank you so much!